After the Galaxy Note7 disaster, Samsung has committed itself to ensuring all devices have passed their stringent 8-point battery safety check. Over in the US, some Galaxy Note8 devices are now facing a different kind of problem.
According to several comments on forums, some users are unable to charge their Galaxy Note8 after their batteries are completely drained to 0% charge. Whether it is by cable or by wireless charging, nothing is showing up on their screen as it refuses to charge.
It appears that this problem has started appearing as early as September. Most of them reported the same situation where they can’t charge their phones after it had shut down because it ran out of battery. It seems that Samsung Mobile in the US has yet to issue a statement on the issue and those affected have eventually gotten their Galaxy Note8 unit replaced.
From the looks of it, this charging problem only affects US units which use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips. It’s worth pointing out that it isn’t clear if this is a hardware or a software issue. If it’s software, it can be easily fixed via a software update.
For Malaysian Galaxy Note8 users, you have probably nothing to worry about. So far we haven’t heard of any reports of such issue involving Exynos variants, which is what we get here in Malaysia.
When it comes to charging and discharging, most experts would agree that discharging a Lithium-Ion battery fully is bad for battery life and it should be avoided as much as possible. Since it doesn’t suffer memory effect problems like older Nicd or MiMH batteries, it’s actually better to have more partial discharge which would reduce stress and can prolong overall battery life.
Do you let your smartphone battery drain fully or do you usually top it up when you get a low battery warning? Let us know your charging habits below.
