Samsung phone ‘just broke’

An as-yet unconfirmed fault with Samsung’s S7 smartphone has surfaced in New Zealand, a Kiwi customer believes.

Dunedin sound engineer Blair Mason said the glass covering the rear camera on his Samsung Galaxy S7 appeared to shatter spontaneously on Sunday.

Similar accounts of the camera glass on S7 phones shattering without explanation have been posted to a Samsung online forum by Samsung customers overseas and were reported by media outlets in the United States shortly after Christmas.

The Galaxy S7, which sells for upwards of $745, is one of Samsung’s most popular smartphones and has had consistently strong reviews.

The company has not acknowledged a manufacturing fault with the camera glass and has been contacted for comment on Mason’s experience.

The South Korean firm’s smartphone business was rocked last year after batteries in its Samsung Galaxy Note 7 overheated and exploded, sparking a global recall and compensation payments believed to have cost billions of dollars.

Mason bought his S7 in May last year and said he had always kept it in a protective case and never dropped or misused it.

The glass shattered some time within about a 15-minute period at about 7pm, he said.

‘‘It is a really strange shatter – like it has shattered from the inside out.’’

Mason called Samsung and was told he could send the phone in for a repair, for which he would be charged, or contact Vodafone to see if it would repair or replace the phone under warranty.

Vodafone said the phone would need to be sent to Samsung in Auckland to be checked, he said.

‘‘If they find it as a defect under warranty there will be no charge. But if not they will have to charge us for the time.’’

Mason believed Samsung was not acknowledging the number of people who had reported similar issues.

‘‘I think it is pretty poor.’’