Galaxy Note 7 Battery-Capping Update Spreads To Europe

If you're one of the European holdouts who has yet to return their defective Galaxy Note 7, living with your phone is about to get a little more difficult. Samsung has announced that it will be rolling out a battery-limiting update across Europe starting on October 31. This is part of an effort to get as many Note 7s as possible out of the hands of consumers.

If this update, which caps the maximum charge of Note 7 batteries at 60%, sounds instantly familiar, that's because it is. This isn't the first time Samsung has opted to cap Note 7 batteries, choosing to do so in some regions shortly after the first recall went down. Now that Note 7 production has halted completely, Samsung is turning its attention to getting folks to actually exchange their defective phones.

That has proven to be somewhat difficult, with Samsung saying it has only exchanged two-thirds of defective Notes across Europe. The remaining 33% of people have held onto their phones, and Samsung is hoping that this battery-limiting update provides some motivation to finally turn those handsets in. If not, at least capping capacity makes the Note 7 somewhat safer.

Still, if you still haven't exchanged or returned your Note 7, it's probably best that you do so. Samsung has been working with carriers around the globe to facilitate these exchanges, so it should be fairly easy to get a new phone. Considering you can no longer fly with the device, exchanging it now may prevent some headaches down the road.

SOURCE: CNET