Meanwhile， the company continues to hint at new features for their forthcoming flagship smartphone， the Galaxy S8， in the hopes it will be able to wipe away the bad press and billion-dollar losses of the Note 7. The release date is now expected to be closer to mid-2017， though. For the past few years， Samsung had made major product announcements at the February Mobile World Congress， but may now wait until April to show off the S8， though some reports suggest it may just go ahead with the launch then， as that was probably the original plan.

In light of the yet unresolved problems with the Note 7， the company is playing its hand cautiously. The multimillion unit recalls of exploding washing machine and smartphones are without precedent in the companys history. （Past recalls of similarly problematic devices have numbered only in the tens of thousands， now surpassed by an order of magnitude.）

To ensure the devices are shipped back， often in fireproof packaging， more and more countries are looking to penalize customers who hold onto them， and in New Zealands case， even using hardware blocking technology to kick all remaining Note 7s off the national wireless network.

Though the company is still keeping information about the cause of failure for the Note 7 from the public， the apology noted， “We have already initiated investigations with independent third party experts to carefully revisit every aspect of the device， including the battery， hardware and software， and manufacturing processes.” Though the battery has been identified by outside experts as the most likely point of failure， problems with the devices circuitry and control systems， including power regulation， could also be found.

The technical specs of the S8 remain opaque. New reports say the phone will carry over the 2K screen， like the S6 and Note 7 use， format rather than introducing a new 4K one， but will now have a new ultrasonic fingerprint scanner from Qualcomm that replaces the analogue home button. The S8 may also feature a new virtual assistant， Bixby， with a dedicated function key on the device. As Geektime has previously reported， Samsung acquired Viv Labs last month to develop in-house artificial intelligence （AI） tools for consumer electronics. The company has since confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that Viv technology will be integrated into the S8.

Refurbished Note 7 Coming to India and Vietnam in 2017 – Report

Samsung is probably having the worst time of its existence. How often does it happen that a company launches a flagship phone which starts exploding all over the world？ The firm has to recall the phone， fix it and then return it but it still explodes. As a result， the model has to be discontinued and all the sold devices recalled with the full refund. This is the tragic story of Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Now， a report suggests that Samsung will

sell refurbished Note 7 in India and Vietnam. Refurbished Note 7 on the way According to The Korea Herald， Samsung will launch refurbished Note 7 in 2017. The news might come as a shock to many because Samsung has already recalled the device and halted the production as well. All this led us to believe that this was the last of Note 7 but it seems like that is not the case after all.

It appears that Samsung is not willing to let all that money be wasted. They want to get some of it back and they plan to do so by selling the refurbished Note 7 in developing countries like India and Vietnam. We all know that countries like India， Vietnam etc love mid-range phones. If the refurbished Note 7 is introduced here at a substantially lower price， there are no doubts that it will definitely sell in huge numbers. Think about it， Samsungs name， Note 7s design and specifications available near around the Rs.30，000 mark. Intimidating， yes？

The Note 7 debacle was probably the biggest mess up in the history. It resulted in Samsungs reputation being tarnished， goodwill is blown away and drastic plunge in the sales volume of Samsung mobiles. It is quite possible that Samsung has found an actual working fix to the problem and it is quite obvious for a manufacturer for willing to sell his product instead of dumping it all. Let us face it， though Samsung recalled all the Note 7 devices， not all of them were exploding or problematic.

Many reports which talked about the millions of dollars in losses to Samsung owing to Note 7 recall also hints at how many pieces were sold worldwide.

At the same time， we cannot be entirely sure of the safety of refurbished Note 7. This is because Samsung attempted to do so earlier too and it failed with flying colours. This means that the move to launch refurbished Note 7 could be a big disaster.

Top US and Australian carriers suspended sales or exchanges of the flagshipNote7s， while major airlines reiterated bans on passengers using the phones， after smoke from are placement device forced the evacuation of a passenger plane in the United States last week.