Samsung Galaxy S10 5G allegedly involved in catastrophic battery failure

A Reddit post added approximately 4 hours ago today (July 12, 2019) includes allegations that may call the build quality of a certain super-premium device into question. At least, this user indicated that the phone implicated in this story is the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G.

The Redditor asserts that he noticed that the unit in question had become "too hot to touch", and may also have emitted a smell of burning, in the course of a journey to a supermarket near his home in Australia. However, the same individual then delayed an examination of his phone until he had reached the store in question.

At this point, it is claimed that the 5G-enabled flagship "smelt of oil and chemicals", and also appeared to have shut down. Therefore, it seems from this story that (despite the author's inclusion of the phrase "seems to have blown up") this device had experienced an issue such as the failure of a thermal regulation mechanism at best, or an overt battery-pack rupture at worst.

Superficially, this seems like a serious red flag for Samsung, especially as the device in question houses the largest battery to feature in the Samsung Galaxy S series thus far. On the other hand, this isolated report has yet to be verified or validated in any way, a process that will be hampered by the complete lack of images showing this device in its alleged dysfunctional state.

On the other hand, this is not the first time a Galaxy S10 5G owner has documented the death of their device along similar lines; however, in that case, Samsung concluded that this phone had in fact been subject to external damage. Therefore, it is far too early to draw parallels between this new alleged event and the wholesale recall of the Galaxy Note 7 due to its own potentially fatal battery issues.