Yet another Samsung device may be running into problems. According to local news reports, a Samsung Galaxy J5 smartphone caught fire in Pau, France over the weekend.
Lamya Bouyirdane, the phone’s owner, told the Associated Press that she realized something was wrong after she asked her four-year-old son to pick it up. She apparently tossed the phone elsewhere after noticing it had “swollen up” and was coughing up smoke. The phone then caught fire and the back blew off. Bouyirdane’s partner was able to put the fire out before anyone in the family—the couple has three small children—was seriously injured.
“We’ll go complain to the police [on Monday],” Omari told the AFP. “My son could have lost his hand. People must be warned!”
The couple apparently bought the phone in June 2016 and had previously brought it to Morocco—“where it was very hot”—with no problems. The Galaxy J5 launched in July 2015 along with the J7, and it was pegged as a solid budget smartphone.
Samsung, as you probably know, has been having a rough go of it lately. The company is still dealing with the fallout from its summer of problems with its Note 7 smartphone, which it permanently killed after recalling millions of devices because the phone kept spontaneously bursting into flames. The company reported it will lose billions of dollars because of the debacle. Last week, the company recalled 2.8 million washing machines because of safety and injury issues.
Update, 11:50 am: Samsung responded to a request to comment from Gizmodo:
“We are unable to comment on this specific incident until we obtain and thoroughly examine the device. Customer safety remains our highest priority and we want to work with any customer who has experienced an issue with a Samsung product in order to investigate the matter and support them. The issues with the Galaxy Note7 are isolated to only that model.”