Samsung halts sales of Galaxy Note 7 after new troubles

SAN FRANCISCO — Samsung says it’s halting sales of the star-crossed Galaxy Note 7 smartphone after a spate of fires involving new devices that were supposed to be safe replacements for recalled models.

The company says consumers with original Note 7 devices or replacements they obtained after the recall should turn off the power and seek a refund or exchange them for different phones.

The announcement follows several new incidents of overheating last week and deals a further blow to the world’s largest smartphone company. U.S. consumer safety officials said they’re investigating five incidents of fire or overheating since the company announced a recall last month.

Leading wireless carriers have already said they would stop distributing new Note 7 phones as replacements for the earlier recall.

Here’s a look at the options for Note 7 owners.

SWAP FOR A DIFERENT SAMSUNG PHONE

Samsung’s equivalent phones are mostly, well, old. If you just dropped several hundred dollars on the latest Samsung device, do you really want to trade it for last year’s model?

One option is Samsung’s Galaxy S smartphone, which is slightly smaller and cheaper than the Note. While it has many of the same features of the Note, it lacks a stylus and the Note 7’s iris scanner. The phone also came out in March, which might render it perilously close to middle-aged where cutting-edge types are concerned.

An older version of the Note is also an option, though also a disappointing one, given that the Note 5 (there was no Note 6) launched more than a year ago. Many Note 7 owners may already own one, or recently traded theirs in to get the Note 7.

Corey Nahman, a 56-year-old salesman for a drug company in Long Island, anxiously awaited the arrival of the Note 7 and excitedly bought $150 worth of accessories to go with it.

The Samsung loyalist also owns a Samsung tablet, TV and washer and dryer. Now he has a replacement Note 7 but isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do with it.

“I’m not angry at them,” he says. “I’m more annoyed that nobody knows what’s going on.”

Nahman says he loves the Note 7, but he’s getting a lot of pressure from his wife to swap out his phone, maybe for the Google Pixel XL. In the meantime he’s being careful not to charge his phone overnight. He turns it off completely before bed.

SWAP FOR A PHONE MADE BY SOMEONE ELSE

Google’s new Pixel phones are coming out later this month, while LG and HTC also have large Android smartphones of varying ages on the market.

Apple’s iPhone 7 also recently launched, and has been fairly well received even though it no longer features the standard headphone jack. That means Note 7 owners would need adapters for their old earbuds; they might also find it jarring to switch from an Android phone to the iPhone.

John Blackshear, an academic dean at Duke University, was a Samsung loyalist. He swapped his Note 7 — the third Galaxy Note he’s had — for the replacement version in September. But after hearing reports of problems with the replacement Note 7s, he traded in that phone for an iPhone 7 Plus on Friday.

But his wife, who also has a replacement Note 7, hasn’t swapped hers because she likes it so much and relies on it for her job at Duke, he says.

“I don’t know if it’s a big deal or not,” Blackshear says. “We haven’t gotten anything from Verizon or Samsung. There haven’t been emails or calls. I want to get something official.”

In the meantime, he says he and his wife are keeping the phone stored in high places where his three young children can’t grab it.

WAIT IT OUT

The obvious downside: Potential overheating and fire for those who insist on using their Note 7s. If you have an older phone lying around that you could reactivate for a while, this might not be a bad choice. Just make sure to power the Note 7 down and remove its battery before tossing it in a drawer.

It’s possible that company and government investigations will determine that the fires, at least those involving the replacement phones, were just isolated incidents. Or Samsung might release another replacement phone that’s actually safe before long.

It’s too early to tell. In the meantime, better safe than sorry.