It seems Samsung is using substandard batteries in most of their phones. Many youtubers confirmed their old Samsung phones (2+ years) are blowing up. No other brand is suffering from this issue.
Samsung Phones Are Blowing Up... | Bad Batteries
- Thread starter lockhrt999
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anand_mayank
Disciple
I was about to post the video.
Even S20 FE swole up , which is after that whole note 7 debacle. Gotta see how they respond!
Even S20 FE swole up , which is after that whole note 7 debacle. Gotta see how they respond!
blr_p
Skilled
That's battery swell. Not blowing up. You will be able to tell if it is happening if you notice your battery does not hold a charge like it used to. That is the time to get the battery replaced. If it starts dying in half the time than when it was new then replace the batttery.
My theory for why this is happening in Arun's case is it depends on what battery % he stored his phones. Charge them fully and leave them like that for years, odds are they will swell. Charge them no more than 30-40% it is less likely or will not happen.
He does not mention the level he stored them at. Neither does Matt from Th.is answer that specific point. Storing at room temperature is all fine and good but the battery level they are stored at matters more. Also, he says only happens to Samsung. But won't Samsung make up more in numbers in his stash than the other brands? so more Samsung phones would have this problem. Does this guy not have any LG phones?
The other theory has to do with fast charging. Ideally, the battery should not heat up more than five degrees over ambient when charging. A slow charge say 9W won't push it beyond. But a 15W charge will.
None of the above are proper answers. I too would like to know. Too bad Arun hasn't got an answer.
My LG V20 battery swelled within a year. It was genuine. The original battery went three years without problems. 15W charging and all. So why did the replacement face this problem just after a year and it was no older than a year from the manufacture date?
The swell was only by a little but already I could tell the battery was not holding as well as it should. So you don't have to wait until the phone back starts to separate.
These reviewers don't use their phones for long. They test and store. That is why they did not notice issues with the battery which will come up sooner.
It happens. The stock answer from the service centre is overcharging which is a meaningless explanation.
If the phone is swollen. Run it down. when it is flat it won't explode. A charged one is a different matter. These batteries are quite well built after all this time. Puncturing unless it results in a short circuit won't blow it up. Even drowning if it does not lead to a direct short circuit. More likely in salty water.
As for dying, i;ve seen reports in India of this happening but the cause of death isn't the explosion but heart failure induced by the shock of the explosion. And this occurred when speaking on the phone while it was charging with young people. Phone brand is never mentioned in the news reports except on the odd few occasions. So the assumption is cheap as chips charger with a cheap phone.
Turn off fast charging on the S20FE. A slow 9W charge does not heat the phone up much. Obligatory if your ambient is over 30 degrees.
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I don't know what's correct. Swollen or blown. Swollen phones are still usable after battery change. The phones from the youtube video looked like they were blown but it happened very slowly. They didn't look repairable. They are calling it blown.
Many of youtubers mentioned that none of the other brands are suffering from this issue. I think Samsung knows about this. And maybe it's intentional.
I was thinking of getting a Samsung flagship after a year. I'll avoid it now because I abuse the batteries of my phones.
Many of youtubers mentioned that none of the other brands are suffering from this issue. I think Samsung knows about this. And maybe it's intentional.
I was thinking of getting a Samsung flagship after a year. I'll avoid it now because I abuse the batteries of my phones.
dissel
Skilled
Looks like the cost of the update comes as Swollen Battery, If Samsung Earn money from the Battery change of a particular handset they have no problem providing 4 OS updates + 1 Year security update.
Think of S21 FE > 2 Charge Per Day > Some Heat > Each year one battery for a 35k phone...
Please note this Youtuber didn't use regularly a particular phone.
Yup, his video must be named: Samsung Swollen / Bloated Battery in 2 out of 5 Years longevity.
Think of S21 FE > 2 Charge Per Day > Some Heat > Each year one battery for a 35k phone...
Please note this Youtuber didn't use regularly a particular phone.
Yup, his video must be named: Samsung Swollen / Bloated Battery in 2 out of 5 Years longevity.
Ssreek
Adept
Imagine if we had replaceable batteries. If it is swollen we can replace it. If it doesn't hold charge well, we can replace it easily. Now all this nuisance to go to a service center and expect them to do a perfect job while paying for battery and battery replacement and whatever charges they might want to add. The same thing with iPhone is much more of a nightmare sometimes.
Does this slow charging theory hold true only when charging with power adapters? I saw people charge phones by connecting to a PC and it will slow charge for almost 1 to 2 hours.
Does this slow charging theory hold true only when charging with power adapters? I saw people charge phones by connecting to a PC and it will slow charge for almost 1 to 2 hours.
blr_p
Skilled
V20 was a replaceable battery. In this case just go to the service centre and tell them to change it. Won't be too expensive for androids.
The battery can swell for any number of reasons but temperature I would think is certainly a factor. If your ambient is mid 30s or closer to 40. If you then fast charge or have Sammy's adapter that does 25W. It will raise the temperature past 40 degrees. I have a widget on my home screen which shows battery temperature.
I have gone with slow charging after my second V20 battery experience. I'm at a loss to explain it. So I disabled fast charging on the non-replaceable battery S20FE.
Let's see how that goes. I intend to pick up a couple of spare batteries from the service centre at some point. I take it that genuine spares will only be available up to 5 years from launch.
Certainly, PC charging is ultra slow. 2.5W.
well, that is relative to others. I should say that is the official USB std as Intel designed it. It got fiddled about by phone manufacturers.
Present Xiaomi and older One Plus devices go well beyond 25W and don't suffer from the same problem
I don't understand why Samsung skimp so much on QA. Their ACs, washing machines and TVs have problems, their gaming monitors are a nightmare. NAND and phones where their saving grace, now the latter is under question.
dexterz
Adept
Which widget do you use? I should look at my s20fe now
superczar
Skilled
A phone LiPO has a nominal voltage of 3.7V
Even 18 W means you are literally pumping 5Amps of current into that tiny little thing.
I have no idea how or why people are so enamoured with fast charging. I hear of phones using proprietary protocols to hit 50-60W of charging and i find just the thought scary.
Maybe it is because i am from an era where there were no such things as power banks - so we’d settled into a habit of ensuring we plug our phones into the charging port before going to sleep.
Add a decent power bank to the mix - and you are all set.
Personally, anything that can draw over 18W , max 25W fora single cell LiPOs is a big no for me
blr_p
Skilled
The app is 3C battery manager and i use its widget. That app's been around for a while now and has a retro Froyo vibe. I want the data, not too bothered about the looks.
Now, i don't have widgets on the home screen but in a pop up widget window that can be launched with a swipe from the left edge.
There are other utilities that have battery temp info. I just prefer this one as it keeps a history of charging and discharging info which can be handy at times.
It's a bullet point to sell the device. I've asked but never received from anyone a temperature log of this fast charging. Maybe i should ask people here who have the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra and its 125W charging. lol, that is 25W more than my Spectre laptop.
Gamers who can flatten the battery within 3-4h. Faster charge, less downtime.
These days people place their phone on some wireless charger before turning in. There is a setting to protect the battery by limiting charging beyond 85%.
I don't use a wireless charger so just disabled the fast charging and the 8-9W charging even from a power bank that can do twice as fast is enough.
Slower charging from a power bank will get more of the power bank's battery out than faster as battery-to-battery charging is inherently inefficient.
Have been using one for over five years now. It brings the power to the phone than the other way around.
The Chinese seem to have got this worked out better than the Americans or Koreans. With the V20, the charging slows down if the screen is on. With the Chinese phones, it keeps charging at full tilt even if the screen is on. And this goes back a few years now with Moto.
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Ssreek
Adept
Isn’t 18w usually like 9v x2amps or 12v x1.5amps as mentioned on charging adapters?
superczar
Skilled
Power = V*I (voltage X current)
Heat generation is a squared function of the current flowing through the wires/ components (I^2 * R )
Thats the reason why long distance power transmission uses higher voltage (less current required for same amount of power draw)
The 9V or 15V or 20V power protocols used on the charger is for the same reason.
Its Down converted to 4.2 V (charging voltage for a 3.7V nominal lipo cell)
To reduce the current required to sustain the same amount of work (charging the battery) else a 3.7V charger would have required much thicker cables
However, The 1.5A at 12V from your charger translates to 12/3.7 * 1.5 = 4.86A on the 3.7V battery.
To get a sense of how much of a current draw that is, 5A is the current flowing through the wires of a 1100W household device (say a press or a small AC)
Oh, for what its worth, even your spectre battery doesn’t charge at 100W.
laptops typically have 3 LiPo batteries in series .
And the actual charging of the battery happens at no more than 20-25W (maybe it can go up to 40 - 30 is max i have seen - HWInfo on windows or system information pane on Mac OS will show you exactly how much.
The rest of the power on the brick is simply the headroom for letting it handle the laptop running at full load (say 30W, 40 peak)while also letting the battery charge.
Also, 30W on a 3S battery is effectively equivalent to 10W charging on a 1S cellphone battery. So i have no idea what sort of magic dust chinese OEMs use to allow 5X maybe even 10X of that.
Well, it was only Samsung batteries swelling. That too when not being used. BBK phones have insanely fast charging. If they don't blow up then it means it is plenty safe. There are far more bbk phones out there in India than those slow charging iPhones (which cap at 27W btw and not 15W). If something would have been wrong with those 65w dash charging, we would have seen plenty cases by now and not just those isolated Nord 2 cases.
For me, the flexibility of not having to care about a battery charge is important. Charge my Samsung using a 45w adapter. 40 to 80 in roughly 20 mins.
If the battery does go bad early due to fast charging, Samsung charges just 3k for the battery change. Worth it to spend that amount every 18 months or so.
For me, the flexibility of not having to care about a battery charge is important. Charge my Samsung using a 45w adapter. 40 to 80 in roughly 20 mins.
If the battery does go bad early due to fast charging, Samsung charges just 3k for the battery change. Worth it to spend that amount every 18 months or so.
I am not sure, but I think a many Chinese phones use two separate batteries combined as one physical unit. Each is charged at half the advertised charging speed. 33W fast charging would therefore charge each half at 15w. I had a One Plus 3T for 4 years, used it with whatever charging standard it came with and had no battery swelling or rapid degradation.
blr_p
Skilled
The iP14 raised it to 28W. Earlier it was 18W
Spectre's Battery is rated at 11.55V and its a 6-pack
Ah yes, they do split batteries up and charge in parallel like laptops. Swelling isn't a given. It can happen 50-50 is my experience.
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superczar
Skilled
Yeah,standard 3s2p config..
3 parallel wired pairs of 3.7v lipos in series.
Net peak draw of 30w tops which is less than 3amps through the bms
Yes. I know. The point is that they don't restrict it to 15w. Surely the technology exists to have high yet safe charging speeds. It is Samsung that is messing up somewhere. Not as if fast charging at higher than 15w etc is inherently unsafe.
BBK phones have been pushing the boundaries and have largely proven their safety. Apart from Note 7 and Nord 2, don't remember any cases of blasts.
Samsung does way too much cost cutting and needs to be blamed in this case. If others can manager fast charging while still being safe, Samsung should be able to do that too given the premium it charges.
Glad that reviewers finally gathered the balls to speak truth to powerful companies.
No one yet has the guts to call out terribly processed and oversharpened photos that the iPhone 13 pro Max produces (haven't checked the 14 yet personally). This is a good trend of highlighting the major mistakes of these premium charging companies.
Hopefully Samsung sales will show a proper dent due to this coverage. Time for them to wake and make phones that deserve the premium.
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