For a while, it seemed like the Galaxy S10 series could help Samsung gain back some market share in China. In the last few days, however, customer complaints about the new flagships have brought back unhappy memories from two years ago.
The S10 series is the first to feature a hole-punch design on an AMOLED display. (Picture: Bloomberg)
Chinese social media users say that their S10 and S10+ handsets are having overheating problems, with some people claiming that the charging ports of their handsets are burnt. A question about the issue became one of the top trending searches on Q&A site Zhihu, drawing more than 1.4 million views and more than 400 posts.
On Weibo and Tieba, a popular online forum operated by Baidu, users are reporting that their Samsung S10 and S10+ smartphones get noticeably hot, especially when playing games and making phone calls. Some people are also sharing screenshots of battery use, saying that their batteries drain fast even when the phone is left idle.
While some users say they haven’t experienced such problems, it seems like overheating on S10 series phones is not just occurring in China. Similar complaints have also appeared on Twitter and Reddit.
Our email to Samsung asking for comment was not immediately answered. When we asked Samsung’s customer support about possible solutions to overheating, a representative suggested closing apps running in the background or delete any app that causes the phone to get hot when it’s running and download it again. The reason, customer support says, is that certain software may be “incompatible.”
The Samsung Galaxy S10 series launched in China last month to far more fanfare than many people had expected. Netizens said that they find the new S10 phones to be a big improvement over their S9 predecessors. When they initially went on sale in China, the phones sold out on ecommerce platforms and people queued up at Samsung stores.
This was surprising to some because of Samsung’s bumpy ride in China over the past two years. The brand angered Chinese consumers in 2016 with its handling of the Galaxy Note 7 explosion. The company told Chinese consumers the phone was safe while recalling the handset in the US and other markets. Chinese buyers called Samsung’s response a “deception.”
Now social media posts about the S10’s overheating issue are reigniting concerns.
“I just want to say, people who still dare to buy Samsung phones are really careless, and even more forgetful,” reads one Zhihu post, which lists out different cases related to safety issues with Samsung smartphones in recent years.
“Love your life, stay away from Samsung,” another user wrote on Zhihu, using an old phrase that became popular during the Note 7 incident.
