Samsung may resurrect the Galaxy Note 7 in emerging markets with a new, smaller battery

We didn’t get a ton of truly great smartphones last year outside of options like the Huawei Mate 9, Samsung Galaxy S7, and of course the Google Pixel. However, there was one that really stood out ─ the Galaxy Note 7. With that release, Samsung had something incredible on its hands, until it blew up in their faces ─ literally. Now, after revealing the cause of the explosion, Samsung is rumored to be bringing the device back, at least for certain markets.

According to a report out of Korea, Samsung is planning to re-release the Note 7 in emerging markets such as Vietnam and India. This new Note 7 would have the same design, specifications, and features, but with a new battery that won’t explode.

It was determined following Samsung’s investigations that the cause of the Note 7 fires was the size of the battery compared to the space available for it. Due to the lack of space, the battery case was too small and could cause issues over time, as it did with many owners.

To solve this, Samsung is apparently planning to use a smaller battery with a capacity of 3,200 mAh compared to the 3,500 mAh cell that was found in the Note 7 when it launched. That’s a pretty sensible solution if you ask me, and it begs the question, what would have happened if Samsung had changed the capacity before the second recall? Obviously, that didn’t happen, but it definitely would have led to an entirely different outcome for the device.

By selling this refurbished Galaxy Note 7, Samsung gets a chance to recover some of the losses that came from the recall, but it’s unclear how much. Right now we don’t know how many Note 7s would be sold, nor Samsung’s pricing on each unit. If this does turn out to be true, we’ll likely learn those details in a few weeks. The question remains, though, if Samsung does sell a refurbished Note 7 that presumably fixes the battery issue, would you buy it?