Why your phone may burst into flames

Dan Seitz Contributing Writer, Tech

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The Samsung Galaxy III is a good phone. A very good phone, in fact; if you’re looking into an Android phone, I highly recommend it. On the other hand, you might be turned off by the story of one bursting into flames.

Don’t be, it happens all the time.

OK, OK, so it’s only a few isolated incidents. But it’s worth remembering that this can happen to any phone, at any time, for a specific reason.

To understand why, we have to look into physics. Circuits use electricity, obviously, and that electricity is carried by conductors. There’s no such thing as a perfect conductor, though; as you feed electrons through wires, some of that energy is wasted as heat.

This is why your phone heats up; there’s literally so much energy going through it that it radiates heat. The problem is this: millions of circuits are made in factories, and as stringent as quality control has become, some of these phones will have defective circuit boards. Secondly, the demand for lighter and thinner phones means that tolerances for manufacturing and circuit design have shrunk and will keep shrinking, meaning you have a lot of things heating up and crammed into a tiny space, just like your friend’s apartment when the air conditioning dies.

Still, these incidents are extremely rare, so you can buy with confidence that your phone will most likely not explode in your pants.

Of course, it still might explode in your pants. We’re just saying, be aware of the risks.

The Galaxy III Tries So Hard It Melts [Gizmodo]