Which Samsung phone was recalled and discontinued in 2016 over battery fires?

The Samsung phone recalled and discontinued in 2016 over battery fires was the Galaxy Note 7. Samsung unveiled the large-screen Android phone in August 2016, positioning it as a premium successor to the Galaxy Note 5. It combined a 5.7-inch curved AMOLED display, an S Pen, iris recognition, water resistance, expandable storage, and a USB-C port.

Soon after launch, some batteries overheated and caught fire because of defects that could cause internal short circuits and thermal runaway. Samsung announced an initial recall and exchanged affected phones with replacement units using batteries from another supplier. When some replacement phones also combusted, Samsung halted sales, recalled the model worldwide, and permanently stopped production in October 2016.

The Note 7 was not simply “exploding because it was charging too fast”; the central problem was manufacturing defects inside the lithium-ion batteries. It was also not the Galaxy Note 5 or Galaxy S7, although those phones belonged to closely related Samsung product lines. Samsung numbered the device “7” to align it with the Galaxy S7 released earlier that year.