Updated 10/24 at 6:30 pm ET with Samsung comment
Samsung's troubles have apparently just spread from the Note 7 to another flagship phone. According to Android Headlines, a Canadian man says his Galaxy S7 Edge caught fire while he was driving home from work. And that's not the only incident.
Separately, Phone Arena reports that an employee of one of the big U.S. wireless carriers told the site that one of its customers' Galaxy S7 Edge devices had exploded while it was charging overnight using the included charger.
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In the case of the first Canadian gentleman, he says that he smelled something burning and saw smoke coming from the center console, at which point he threw the S7 Edge out of the window and then covered the device with snow. His carrier, Bell, told him to contact Samsung, which asked him for photos and was in the process of dispatching a specialist.
We've reached out to Samsung for comment and have received the following statement regarding the incident in Canada:
We are unable to comment on this specific incident until we obtain and thoroughly examine the phone. Customer safety remains our highest priority and we want to work with any customer who has experienced an issue with a Samsung product in order to investigate the matter and support them.
Unfortunately for Samsung, and anyone considering the S7 Edge as their next phone, there have been multiple other reports of the handset catching fire. In one case, an Ohio man is suing Samsung because he claims that the handset caught fire in his pocket, and he had to undergo painful skin grafts to address the second- and third-degree burns.
Lynnette Luna, a principal analyst with Current Analysis, believes that the timing of these reports are somewhat suspect. "It’s difficult to believe there is a widespread problem with the S7 given the fact that it has been out for more than six months, and we are just hearing now, after the Note 7 recall, that there are S7 devices catching fire," said Luna.
However, Luna added that "Samsung needs to move swiftly and investigate these incidents." She noted that there are several ways a phone can start fire due to user error in charging a device, including not using an original charger and prolonged charging, but it doesn't seem as though the S7 Edge fire incidents reported thus far involve a third-party charger.
Meanwhile, Samsung still hasn't pinpointed the exact cause of the Note 7 explosions and fires, according to The Wall Street Journal, and the company has apparently lost more than $20 billion in value as a result of the recall.
Samsung says it remains committed to earning back customer trust, but it will be very difficult to do that if the Galaxy S7 Edge is also deemed unsafe.
A survey conducted earlier in October found that as many as 40 percent of existing Samsung owners might jump ship from the brand for their next phone. That number seemed a bit high at the time, but it won't if these most recent incidents prove to be legit.
