A very interesting read, Hilbert. Thanks for taking the time to do this. I'm a hardware engineer on occasion as well - I shall certainly remember this if I ever have to design something with a LiPo battery in.

Some may call it "pushing the boundaries". I call it "pointless". If I were given a Note 7 for free and was promised the battery wouldn't explode, I still wouldn't use for my main phone. The only thing about it that interests me at all is the storage space and cameras. It's kind of like driving a luxury supercar - costs a lot, looks nice, fast, and does cool things. But even if you have the money for it, it's still an inconvenience to own since you can't (or shouldn't) bring it everywhere you go, you have to go out of your way to recharge/refuel more often than cheap models, and within a couple years something will completely obsolete it. At that point, new cheap models will still be worse, but "good enough" to please most people. Your used model is now tattered where you touched it most and is too inefficient compared to the new cheap models, which makes it unappealing to everyone. I just don't see the appeal in buying anything luxurious unless you honestly don't care about burning money.

Some may call it "pushing the boundaries". I call it "pointless". If I were given a Note 7 for free and was promised the battery wouldn't explode, I still wouldn't use for my main phone. The only thing about it that interests me at all is the storage space and cameras. It's kind of like driving a luxury supercar - costs a lot, looks nice, fast, and does cool things. But even if you have the money for it, it's still an inconvenience to own since you can't (or shouldn't) bring it everywhere you go, you have to go out of your way to recharge/refuel more often than cheap models, and within a couple years something will completely obsolete it. At that point, new cheap models will still be worse, but "good enough" to please most people. Your used model is now tattered where you touched it most and is too inefficient compared to the new cheap models, which makes it unappealing to everyone. I just don't see the appeal in buying anything luxurious unless you honestly don't care about burning money.

Is it really a luxury if you use it more than 3 hours every day of your life?

I actually stated this exact thing as the issue with the batteries on XDA about a couple months ago. It was a great phone and it sucked giving it back. Some people are still sticking to keeping theirs, which just isn't safe and their excuse is "it never gets hot". Yea, it never gets hot til it explodes.

Is it really a luxury if you use it more than 3 hours every day of your life?

I suppose if you really used your phone that often then maybe it isn't a luxury. But, that's assuming cheaper and less capable models don't keep up with your workload. My phone has some crappy 1.2GHz quad core with 1GB of RAM. The only thing it struggles with is the Chrome browser, and that I'd blame more on Google than the hardware (I've used the desktop version of Chrome on far worse hardware and it performed faster). But why would I ever want to use my phone for more than 3 hours a day? I don't want to be staring at this tiny smudgy screen for that long. Sure, I could get a phablet, but at that point it's inconvenient to carry around. Even if I'm just watching videos, it gets uncomfortable to hold my phone for only an hour.

Most likely they could have fixed all of the issues without even changing the form factor. Im sure with appropriate internals positioning, and decrease the size of some metallic parts, you can find extra 0.5mm of space. Most likely the classic case of rushed deadlines and pressure from the top.

Interesting read, thanks for posting HH. As a practical user I somehow can't see why they couldn't make it 1mm bigger in every direction. Would still be a great phablet. Well, too greedy I guess.

I suppose if you really used your phone that often then maybe it isn't a luxury. But, that's assuming cheaper and less capable models don't keep up with your workload. My phone has some crappy 1.2GHz quad core with 1GB of RAM. The only thing it struggles with is the Chrome browser, and that I'd blame more on Google than the hardware (I've used the desktop version of Chrome on far worse hardware and it performed faster). But why would I ever want to use my phone for more than 3 hours a day? I don't want to be staring at this tiny smudgy screen for that long. Sure, I could get a phablet, but at that point it's inconvenient to carry around. Even if I'm just watching videos, it gets uncomfortable to hold my phone for only an hour.

You used the desktop version of chrome on a quad core ARM processor?

Most likely they could have fixed all of the issues without even changing the form factor. Im sure with appropriate internals positioning, and decrease the size of some metallic parts, you can find extra 0.5mm of space. Most likely the classic case of rushed deadlines and pressure from the top.

The simple fix would have been to use a smaller battery, not re-engineer the phone. The problem is not everyone would have exchanged it. Once they knew every phone had the possibility to explode, they pulled it, which really was the only recourse. I loved going to the airport and being told 100 times that the phone was not allowed on the plane.

Personally I'd prefer a 5mm thicker phone with an extra 500-1000mAh battery I bought an S7 then got a case that made it about 3-5mm thicker anyway