ABC News Burns Samsung for Cell Phone Battery Hazards.

[Geek-9pm]

ABC News almost said 'Do Not Buy Samsung Galaxy', but they did not actually say that. The past few days they have been repeating the story about the few cases of Samsung smartphones that cough fire.
Some recent ABC  links:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/samsung-note-recall-us-expands-replacement-phones-42769915
http://abc7chicago.com/technology/boy-suffers-2nd-degree-burns-after-samsung-galaxy-note-7-explodes/1509672/

The story is also on other news sources:
http://www.usatoday.com/videos/tech/2016/10/12/91935170/

Samsung  did announce a recall. But more recent reports sound a lot worse CNET says you can get paid to return your phone.   
https://www.cnet.com/news/samsung-recall-galaxy-note-7-again-consumer-product-safety-100-dollars-credit/

[Lorraine walsh]

I am greatly appalled by this because I really wanted this phone but safety comes first. I use my stylus everyday and I dont know how I made it without my note for as long as I had in the past.

[DaveLembke]

Glad I went with an LG phone. My wife has a 3 year old Samsung and its had issues ever since she got it. Everything is laggy with it. I looked at the properties of the phone with the CPU-Z for android and its running 4.0.4 and has just a single core 800Mhz A7 ARM Cortex. I have already done factory reset to her phone thinking something was causing it to lag out. But even after factory reset, it works fine as a phone, but that single core 800Mhz ARM processor that is in it is so crippled compared to the LG that I have with 1.2Ghz dualcore ARM CPU.

My LG16C has a Android 4.4 running on a Qualcom Snapdragon Dualcore 1.2Ghz and is far quicker to end apps and load apps and boot from shutdown to functional state. She has asked to trade with me and I refuse to trade my phone with her. Not bad for a small cheap LG phone, but not top of the line features etc. http://tracfonereviewer.blogspot.com/2015/05/lg-lucky-l16c-tracfone-android-review.html

I feel kind of guilty telling her way back when she bought her Samsung that Samsung is a good brand and I'd go with that one. I didnt expect them to slap a weakling ARM single core into a phone under their brand to fulfill the TracPhone market for low cost phones. Im very happy with my LG16C which I bought as TracPhone inexpensively. I looked into rooting mine to do more with it, but TracPhones flash etc that they did to it has it locked from root access. I only use the TracPhone service of my phone when away from wifi. Otherwise I have the 3G shut off to avoid burning my 180MB data plan which goes quickly if not using free wifi networks for web / online app use. Cant beat $6.67 per month for it with the 60 minute for $19.99 for 3 months plan that I keep using. Prior to this I was paying Fairpoint $120 a month for 2 phones.Its nice to save over $100 a month.

[soybean]

ABC News almost said 'Do Not Buy Samsung Galaxy', but they did not actually say that. The past few days they have been repeating the story about the few cases of Samsung smartphones that cough fire.

Why did you not mention the specific model that had a problem with some of them catching fire?  The Galaxy Note 7 is the model with the issue.

Glad I went with an LG phone. My wife has a 3 year old Samsung and its had issues ever since she got it. Everything is laggy with it. I looked at the properties of the phone with the CPU-Z for android and its running 4.0.4 and has just a single core 800Mhz A7 ARM Cortex. ...

...

I feel kind of guilty telling her way back when she bought her Samsung that Samsung is a good brand and I'd go with that one. I didnt expect them to slap a weakling ARM single core into a phone under their brand to fulfill the TracPhone market for low cost phones. ...

Well, I think this issue is attributable to TracPhone, at least as much as it is to Samsung.  Surely, TracPhone could test the phones they market to their customers before choosing to use certain models.

I have a Samsung tablet and have no issues with it.  My smartphone is an LG; it was priced at only $100 when I bought it about a year ago.  It has worked fine, although I wish it had more than 8GB of storage. It does have a slot for a microSD card, and I have a card in it, but most apps cannot be moved to, or installed on, the microSD card.  I got this phone from a low-cost provider, Boost Mobile, and currently get 3GB of data for $30/mo plus tax, by setting up automatic payment to get a $5 discount from the regular $35/mo. cost.

[Geek-9pm]

Yes, I failed to say it was the Galaxy 7 phone that is in the recall.
Some more recent news about this:
From CBS:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/samsung-expands-fiery-galaxy-note-7-smartphone-recall-to-1-9-million-units/

Samsung has received 96 reports of batteries in Note 7 phones overheating in the U.S., including 23 new reports since the recall announcement, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Samsung has received 13 reports of burns and 47 reports of property damage related to the Note 7 phones, the CPSC ...

CNET:
https://www.cnet.com/news/why-is-samsung-galaxy-note-7-exploding-overheating/

Once again, every US carrier has halted sales of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, and a second recall may be nigh. We're not sure why the new batteries might have caught fire, as Samsung told us they'd be brand-new.

The recall is for the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 and not other models.

EDIT: There are few reports of other brands catching fire.
Apple iPhone 6:
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/cell-phone-catches-fire-in-man-s-pants-719899715724
A HTC phone:
http://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/public-safety/linn-county/fire-department-responds-to-cedar-rapids-fire-caused-by-exploding-cellphone-20160830