A couple of weeks ago, a person in Ireland, known only by his nick "dillo2k10", claimed in a message board post that his newly bought Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone had spontaneously combusted while he was sitting in his car. Now it appears the truth is not quite as spectacular.
In a post on the official Samsung blog this weekend, the company said it contacted a third party company in the UK to investigate this report. The company tested the melted Galaxy S III and other devices. In the end, the final report was that "dill2k10"s" smartphone was in fact exposed to an outside energy source and did not melt due to the inside of the phone overheating.
According to the blog post:
Additionally, the investigation results state, "The only way it was possible to produce damage similar to the damage recorded within the owner"s damaged device was to place the devices or component parts within a domestic microwave."
The blog post also offers a link to a forum message by "dillo2k10", who said:
I would like to retract my original statement. The damage to the phone was caused by another person, although they were attempting to recover the phone from water this later caused the damage shown on the phone. It occurred due to a large amount of external energy and there was no fault with the phone. This was not a deliberate act but a stupid mistake.
So, just in case you have a Galaxy S III, there should be less of a worry that your unit will start melting on you all of a sudden.
Source: Samsung Tomorrow blog