Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Battery Put Through More Rigorous Safety Checks, Company Says

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note 8 on Wednesday signalling that it is ready to put the tragic demise of the Galaxy Note 7 in the past. Last year’s flagship Galaxy Note from the South Korean giant met an untimely end following multiple fire-related reports. The Galaxy Note 8 is important for Samsung as it hopes to rebuild the trust of its customers. The company has detailed its stringent safety tests for the smartphone, working closely with Underwriter Labs to ensure reliability for the Galaxy Note 8’s power supply.

“We have been closely working with Samsung to make meaningful advancements in the science of smartphone quality and safety evaluation,” UL president Sajeev Jesudas said in a statement to Engadget. “As a result, the Galaxy Note 8 has successfully completed a rigorous series of device and battery safety compatibility test protocols. We look forward to maintaining our strategic relationship with Samsung to help ensure device safety for all consumers.”

According to a report by The Investor, Samsung has also ditched batteries from long-time Chinese partner ATL and is instead relying solely on batteries manufactured by Samsung SDI and Murata. The report says that 80 percent of the battery production for the Galaxy Note 8 will be from Samsung SDI while the remaining 20 percent will be made by Murata. Sources have also told The Investor that next year’s Galaxy S9 will also use batteries from Samsung SDI and Murata.

The fact that Underwriter Labs is conducting an independent testing of the batteries shows that Samsung is much more stringent with its safety procedures this time around. We’ll have to wait and see how the Galaxy Note 8 stands the test of time once it goes on sale next month.

The Galaxy Note 8 runs on Android 7.1.1 Nougat and packs a modest 3300mAh. It sports a 6.3-inch QHD+ (1440×2960 pixels) AMOLED Infinity Display and is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC (with some markets getting the Samsung Exynos octa-core variant). The smartphone packs 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, with room for expandability. The phablet sports dual 12-megapixel rear cameras with optical image stabilisation (OIS) on both the f/1.7 wide-angle lens and the f/2.4 telephoto lenses with 2x optical zoom.

Samsung’s newest phablet will be available for pre-orders in select markets starting Thursday and will start shipping on September 15.