Samsung’s rush to compete with Apple led to Note 7 issues

At this point, the Galaxy Note 7 launch has been completely botched and whatever lead Samsung hoped to have over the iPhone 7 has been squandered due to battery failures leading to a global recall of 2.5 million handsets. So how did Samsung end up in this position? Well it turns out that the company's eagerness to compete with the iPhone may have been the cause.

According to sources familiar with the matter speaking with Bloomberg, Samsung executives had heard that this year's iPhone would be a mere incremental upgrade, rather than a big leap forward. These rumours led to Samsung placing tighter deadlines on the Note 7's production while also trying to squeeze more upgrades in.

One of these upgrades was the 3500mAh battery, which is a significant jump from the Note 5's 3000mAh battery despite the Note 7 only being slightly larger in size. While Samsung is officially labelling the Note 7 battery issues as a production fault, according to the Bloomberg report, some managers at Samsung believe the phone's design may be the main cause of the problem.

Right now the Galaxy Note 7 is under a global recall, which could end up costing Samsung just under $1 billion.

KitGuru Says: If this report is to be believed then Samsung was over-ambitious with its battery size this year. A smaller battery would have fit better and likely wouldn't have suffered from the same pressure and overheating issues.

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