Since the advent of smartphones, we have always had issues with batteries going up in flames. In this regard, the 2016 Samsung Galaxy Note 7 case regularly comes to mind (some cases are still in court). While some of these battery issues are general, others are isolated cases. It appears that we now have an isolated case for the Redmi Note 7S. This smartphone was released in May 2019 and there have been no popular battery cases so far. Nevertheless, a Xiaomi user, Chavhan Ishwar, is currently not smiling due to his ordeal.
Chavhan Ishwar ordeal with the Redmi Note 7S and Xiaomi
According to Mr. Chavhan, he bought the Redmi Note 7S from Flipkart on 01/10/2019 and received the phone on 03/10/2019. The phone was working fine until 02/11/2019 when it went up in flames. According to him, on November 2, he placed his Redmi Note 7S on top of a table while he was working. Suddenly, there was a burning smell in the office and it turned out that his new phone was burning. The transparent cover was already melting and the phone was very hot. From the report, he wasn’t charging the phone and never dropped or mishandle the device. As expected, he contacted a Xiaomi authorized store in Thane and it was difficult to extract his SIM due to the severe burn.
Gizchina News of the week
Xiaomi’s response to Chavhan Ishwar
After a couple of days with Xiaomi, the company claims that analysts found an “abnormal burnt marks and damage new battery fix area display”. This means that his application for replacement can not pull through. Not satisfied with the response, Mr. Chavhan placed a call to Xiaomi and the response was quite hilarious. According to him, the company replied: “Sir the battery is not covered under Warranty”. If you carefully observe the images, you will see that the burn most-likely emanates from the bottom of the phone, about the position of the battery. Even the heat map on the rear of the phone is just around the battery.
[UPDATE] Xiaomi’s response to GizChina
A few hours after we reported this case, we got an official response from Xiaomi which throws more light to the incident. The company said
“At Xiaomi, quality of our products is of utmost importance. The trust that Mi Fans have shown in the brand for the past 5 years is a testament to that. We also take pride in having one of the strongest after-sales networks in the country with an aim to solve customer issues seamlessly. In this particular case, after careful examination, it was concluded that the damage was caused due to external force, and thus, classified under ‘customer induced damage.”
While the owner of this device is clearly unhappy with his ordeal with Xiaomi and the Redmi Note 7S, his case is obviously an isolated case. If you have a similar experience with this device, let us know in the comment.