Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 has been flying off the shelves worldwide as it has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics and consumers alike. Now it’s time for a reality check. Many Galaxy Note 7 users have taken to public forums (via Phone Arena) to complain about their brand new devices crashing, bootlooping and even bricking unexpectedly.
Forcing the Galaxy Note 7 into Safe Mode makes it worse
The problems, collectively called Brickgate, occur only after a few days of average usage. There is no reason or rhyme behind the crashes, though users in the XDA Forum said it usually starts with a bootloop. If you try to force your Galaxy Note 7 into Recovery or Safe Mode, the issue gets worse. Even clearing the cache and factory reset fail to fix the problem.
An XDA Forum user said their Galaxy Note 7 “started freezing with weird glitch lines on the screen and restarting by itself, often multiple times before it loads up to my lock screen.” The user added that the device gets into a bootloop and gets hot until they simulate a battery pull with Power+VolDown. The authorized Samsung stores have also been unable to fix it. The only thing they could do was replace the phone with a new one.
Only Exynos variant facing the issues
One thing that stands out is that only Galaxy Note 7 units powered by Samsung’s Exynos 8890 processor have been facing the Brickgate for now. Phone Arena says it could be a hardware issue, but Samsung hasn’t yet said anything about the problem. Samsung is selling the Snapdragon version of the Note 7 in the United States. The Snapdragon variant may not be experiencing these problems, or maybe the US users haven’t yet started complaining online.
The Galaxy Note 7, released earlier this month, features a 5.7-inch dual-edge display, 4GB RAM, 64GB of built-in storage, an iris scanner, an IP68 level waterproofing, and a 3,500mAh battery. Market demand for the device is so strong that Samsung had to ramp up production and delay its release in many key markets like Russia and Malaysia.
