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Backstory The now-infamous Galaxy Note7 was recalled by Samsung twice (and finally completely canceled) for its exploding batteries. After Samsung's long investigation into the cause of the explosions, they determined that the only issue both the original and post-recall models of the Note7 were manufacturing issues with the batteries themselves, as reported by The Verge.

Question Given that the only things making the Note7s explosive is their batteries, is it reasonably safe to pick up an explosive Note7 and immediately replace its battery with one not made by Samsung? And is there a Note7 replacement battery available that's not one of the Samsung originals that will explode? If this is possible, it might be possible to get an amazing (and safe) phone quite cheaply.

Note: I have no plans to do any such thing even if it is technically safe and I highly discourage others from trying to buy/use a Note 7.

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  • Given that the reason of battery failure is the incompatibility between the over-capacity battery and phone's battery containment space... will any manufacturers produce batteries that are smaller in capacity than the original? My bet is not.
    – Andy Yan
    Jan 24, 2017 at 0:09
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    What is the guarantee that non OEM battery won't explode? Like this
    – beeshyams
    Jan 24, 2017 at 2:29
  • @AndyYan Smart. Especially given that there are no replacement batteries for it so far as I can tell. Can you consider posting that as an answer?
    – owlswipe
    Jan 24, 2017 at 2:40
  • @beeshyams No guarantee. But in theory, if the non-OEM battery was a high-quality one rather than a cheap counterfeit?
    – owlswipe
    Jan 24, 2017 at 2:40
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    So just imagine this scenario: Your self-modified phone suffers a malfunction and burns someone or worse. Investigation reveals it is not the same as the manufacturer built. Who do you think would be on the hook with the insurance company for reimbursement for damages?
    – SDsolar
    Jan 24, 2017 at 4:41

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Given that the reason of battery failure is the incompatibility between the over-capacity battery and phone's battery containment space, manufacturers are unlikely going to produce batteries that are smaller in capacity than the original, considering they usually make bigger ones for profit and marketing purposes. They also manufacture them in generally worse materials and quality control in order to control costs. This renders those 3rd-party batteries (if any exists) as dangerous, if not more dangerous as the original one.

Also, since Note 7 has been recalled for quite some time, manufacturers have (nearly) ceased production of any sort of accessories for it - nobody's buying them anyway. Here's what I dug up from my local shopping site TaoBao (Chinese equivalent of eBay) - if you can't read Chinese, the page shows that only "original" batteries are available, and even those are available in very small quantities (few resellers list them).

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  • Great! Thanks for the detailed answer :). I'll definitely be sticking to my Nexus for a while longer.
    – owlswipe
    Jan 24, 2017 at 3:39

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