14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like Samsung is determined to gather all the Galaxy Note 7 units it sold in various regions by the end of the year.
The South Korean company announced earlier today that Galaxy Note 7 phones in the United States would receive a new update starting December 19, which will prevent its battery from charging.
In addition, all Galaxy Note 7 in the U.S. will lose their ability to connect to any mobile networks in the country. However, Verizon has announced that it will not push the update citing emergency contact concerns.
Samsung has taken similar measures in Australia and Canada, but for some reason, European customers have been treated more mildly.
The handset maker released a software update in September that limited the charging capacity of the Galaxy Note 7's battery to 60%.
Now, according to BBC, Samsung plans to roll out another update in Europe that will limit the battery charge to only 30%, basically making it unusable as daily driver.
“This new battery software update is specifically designed to reinforce to the remaining minority of customers to immediately replace their device,” explains Samsung in the statement.
There is not mention of disabling the phone's communication capabilities yet, but that will probably be the next step if Galaxy Note 7 customers continue to keep their phones despite all the drastic measures taken by Samsung.
The South Korean company confirmed that the update meant to limit the Galaxy Note 7's battery charge to only 30% will be rolled out starting December 15, four days earlier than the update for the U.S. Galaxy Note 7 units.
Samsung has also stated that around 10% of Galaxy Note 7 customers in Europe still haven't returned their smartphones, so the update is meant to increase the number of returned phablets until eventually there are none.