Tag: smartphone battery

The two companies are reportedly in talks to put the fire-prone power sources in the electronics giant’s past.

Following massive problems with smartphone battery safety, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is reportedly now in talks with LG Chem Ltd to become a new supplier. This was originally reported in the Nikkei newspaper, which also cited reputable sources.

The largest smartphone maker in the world was forced to dump its new flagship device due to battery fires.

Recently, Samsung reported that ceasing production due to the faulty smartphone battery will cost them an estimated $3 billion over the next two quarters. The Galaxy Note 7 power source proved to be prone to bursting into flames and despite recalls and replacements, it could not be salvaged.

The original problem had to do with the mobile device batteries overheating. Therefore, replacement devices started to be distributed among those who had already purchased a Galaxy Note 7. However, the problems didn’t stop there. Soon, reports were issued of overheating devices occurring among the replacements, too.

Samsung has not specified whether the smartphone battery was also the cause of the replacement problems.

So far, Samsung has not provided any information as to what they think the cause of the problems with the replacements might be. That said, it does appear to be looking into an alternative source of mobile device batteries for future smartphones.

Samsung and LG Chem are talking about the various ways in which new batteries can be supplied to upcoming smartphones. The report in the Nikkei newspaper said that this would begin with the new smartphones that are launched in 2017.

Samsung SDI Co Ldt, a subsidiary of the electronics giant, is currently the leading supplier of phone batteries for the Galaxy Note 7. It was responsible for providing about 70 percent of the smartphone’s batteries worldwide. This, according to estimates presented by analysts.

At the time of the writing of this article, the specific details of the smartphone battery talks between Samsung and LG Chem were not released. Moreover, the two companies were not available for immediate comment outside their standard business hours.

You may be able to use your smartphone for double the time as early as 2017 with new tech.

Smartphone tech is moving forward at a lightning speed but mobile battery technology has not managed to keep up. Our phones are an increasingly important and central part of our daily lives. For this reason, they are becoming faster, more powerful and with higher resolution displays. Those features require energy.

Unfortunately, the amount of energy they require is too much for the average smartphone battery life.

Among the main struggles faced by smartphone owners is the need for a better phone battery. Mobile battery technology is falling short of an average user’s usage requirements. As smartphones become more awesome, they are consuming a larger amount of juice in a smaller amount of time. The phone lithium-ion batteries have not increased in capacity at the same rate as phones have increased in need.

However, new technology under development by SolidEnergy Systems may have the potential to change that. The company has been focused on improving drone battery life, but this tech could also have other applications – smartphones, for example.

This mobile battery technology uses lithium metal foil anodes instead of using graphite.

The foil makes a considerable difference. Today’s mobile battery graphite anodes are considerably thicker. In fact, the foil is only 20 percent the thickness of the anodes made from graphite. This is important because it gives batteries more physical space for improving capacity.

SolidEnergy CEO Qichao Hu said this difference will let tomorrow’s batteries hold twice the capacity. Said simply: batteries will be able to fit much more power into the same amount of space. Hu explained that this means twice the capacity in the same physical size battery or the same capacity in a half-size battery.

Moreover, SolidEnergy isn’t just working on a concept anymore. Its prototype battery was unveiled last year. At that time, the prototype was already half the physical size of the battery in an iPhone 6. Yet, it had a 2.0 amp hours capacity. The iPhone 6 battery has a 1.8 amp hours capacity. Therefore, in half the physical space, the mobile battery technology already offered more than twice the capacity.