Samsung seals up S7 Active's waterproofing flaw
Samsung says it found and fixed a problem that caused some Galaxy S7 Active phones -- including two of CNET's -- to drown despite its water-resistant claims.
Hey, remember when our Samsung Galaxy S7 Active drowned after a dip in the pool despite its water-resistant promise? Samsung has now said it's found --and fixed -- a flaw in the production line that caused some S7 Active units to sustain water damage and die, even though the phone is rated to sustain full submersion in about 5 feet of water (1.5 meters) for up to 30 minutes.
In response to CNET's four waterproofing tests, and the two failures shared by Consumer Reports, which first found the issue, Samsung emailed CNET the following statement:
"We discovered an isolated issue to a production line that exclusively manufacturers the Galaxy S7 Active. The issue has been resolved. We have received very few customer inquiries and any owner with water damage will receive a replacement under our standard limited warranty."
Samsung offers a yearlong warranty, and lays out water submersion guidelines for phones in the S7 family online -- that's the S7, S7 Edge and S7 Active.
We reduced our S7 Active rating from 4.5 stars to 4 stars (an 8.8 to an 8.0) to reflect our further dunk-test results (the Active passed our initial water test). We plan to run another test on a new, out-of-the-box device to see if Samsung was indeed able to correct the issue.