Samsung investigating Galaxy S III explosion

An exploding Samsung Galaxy S III is probably not the kind of news that Samsung wanted to hear the week that the Samsung Galaxy S III launched in the U.S. Unfortunately, an Irish Samsung Galaxy S III owner known as ‘dillo2k10’ posted pictures showing his charred device on Boards.ie. The damage is located at the bottom near the microUSB slot.

So I driving along today with my Galaxy S3 in my car mount when suddenly a white flame, sparks and a bang came out of the phone.

I pulled in to look at my phone, the phone burned from the inside out. Burned through the plastic and melted my case to my phone. The phone kept working but without any signal.

Damaged Samsung Galaxy S III

Samsung responded quickly, indicating that it would investigate the matter:

There have been recent online posts displaying pictures of a Samsung GALAXY SIII that appears to have heat-related damage at the bottom of the device. Samsung is aware of this issue and will begin investigating as soon as we receive the specific product in question.

Once the investigation is complete, we will be able to provide further details on the situation. We are committed to providing our customers with the safest products possible and are looking at this seriously.

This is the only known case of such an explosion. In a post update, dillo2k10 suggests that the explosion could have been “caused by a combination of my car mount and my cars heating system” rather than the device itself.

Read more: Boards.ie and Samsung