Last update: September 30, 2022 at 14:50 UTC+02:00
Earlier this week, we advised readers who might have old Galaxy phones to check for swollen batteries. In collaboration with our colleagues from GalaxyClub, we did the same and collectively checked over 100 Galaxy phones lying around our office and drawers at home. The results are finally here, and they might surprise you. This surely left us perplexed.
For some context, in case you missed the news, several high-profile YouTubers and vloggers have recently brought an issue to light. They discovered that several Galaxy phones in their collection were suffering from swollen batteries. As of now, there is no explanation as to why this seems to be happening.
We’ve done our part and checked around 50 Galaxy phones, while our friends at GalaxyClub checked about 60 devices. Altogether, that’s over 100 old mid-range and high-end Galaxy phones checked on our end, and surprisingly enough, none showed swollen battery. GalaxyClub found an older model Galaxy S4 (among several) to have a thicker battery, but nothing like the ones you may have seen bulging in photos and videos shared by other Samsung collectors online.
So what’s the conclusion?
Truth be told, we don’t know enough about Samsung’s engineering and chemistry to provide a clear answer as to why some batteries swell while others don’t. Maybe we were lucky, or maybe the conditions in which we stored these devices guaranteed a longer lifespan. We kept these devices in an environment with moderate temperatures (around 20 degrees Celsius) and plenty of ventilation.
It’s also worth noting that we haven’t left some of our devices uncharged for more than a year, on average. Anyway, we’re not claiming that aging Samsung phones don’t have battery issues or anything – only that we seem to have been lucky enough not to.
Either way, pinpointing the exact cause is difficult, and Samsung might have as much trouble pinpointing the culprit as everyone else. It all seems pretty random, and in the end all we can say is that we’re glad none of our Galaxy phones suffered from this issue. We’ll let you know if we find out more or if Samsung releases a statement on this, so stay tuned and be sure to check the batteries of your older Galaxy phones if you have any stored away.
