Redmi Self Destruct: yet another Note 7 Pro unit reportedly blows up

Vikesh Kumar, a resident of Gurgaon in India, has reported that his Redmi Note 7 Pro became extremely hot during his normal journey to work one day (March 13, 2020). On taking this phone out of his pocket, the user allegedly noticed that the device was emitting smoke from its battery. Understandably, Kumar then apparently threw the device away from him in response.

Unfortunately, the Note 7 Pro landed on the user’s backpack, where, according to him, it “exploded”, damaging the bag in the process. Speaking in an interview with 91Mobiles, Kumar claimed that he subsequently turned to a Xiaomi service center to report this issue. Its staff members were described as unhelpful, apparently trying to turn blame for the incident on the user and some kind of detriment to the phone battery’s integrity for which he was responsible.

However, as opposed to a similar 2019 incident involving a Redmi Note 7S, Kumar was having none of this, and stuck to his story on his next contact with OEM representatives. The company reacted by offering the user 50% off the price of a new Note 7 Pro.

In addition, its service center proceeded to document the incident as a “Power On Fault” this time, making no mention of the alleged combustion. Xiaomi has yet to publicly respond to 91Mobiles in conjunction with its article on this story.

However, there is now much less scope to deny the emergent pattern of customer complaints involving nearly-new (Kumar claims to have bought his Note 7 Pro in December 2019) devices from the same product line developing fatal defects by themselves.