The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is dead. After some handsets from both the initial run and from a second run of replacement phones caught fire, Samsung yanked it entirely. Samsung, you can't buy it from legitimate sellers and, depending on where you live, your carrier may even send angel of death software to brick existing Note 7 phones to keep you from using it. (In the US, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint will send out this software. Verizon will not.)

Samsung says that 93 percent of its US customers have now returned the potentially faulty device, which is also banned from all airplanes in this country and many others. The has gone further, saying, "Consumers should power down and stop using all Galaxy Note 7s."

We completely agree. You shouldn't buy a Galaxy Note 7, even if you can still find one. And if you still own one, you should immediately turn it off and exchange it for a different, non-Note 7 phone. Around the world, carriers and retailers will exchange your Note 7 for phones of equal value on the same network.

Here's everything you need to know about the disastrous Note 7 debacle. And here are phones we suggest you get instead: .

Earlier versions of this review follow.

When we first reviewed the Galaxy Note 7 in August, we found it to be one of the best phones of the year. A big beautiful AMOLED screen, excellent camera, some truly useful S-Pen tools and a big battery that lasted for hours.

The new Note 7 has a green battery icon.

Since then, Samsung has initiated one of the biggest recalls in consumer electronics history, and recalled more than 2.5 million Note 7 phones globally. And now, the company has a replacement batch ready: more than half a million new Note 7s, with batteries that Samsung says don't have the defect that caused the fires in the first round.

So: if you want a big-screen Android phone, the corrected Note 7 is the way to go, right?

Not so fast. Samsung needs to rebuild trust here, and we're not ready to just endorse the corrected phone and call it a day. To that end, we're waiting at least until the end of October to see if any further reports of Note 7 issues crop up. (We're also testing corrected Note 7 phones in the wild, but just because we don't see a problem with our new review samples doesn't mean that there aren't any outstanding issues. After all, the original battery issue appeared in only a small fraction of the phones shipped from the original batch.)

In the meantime, we're keeping this updated review here - unrated - while we continue to seek out real-world feedback on users' experience with the corrected version of the Note 7.

The 5.7-inch, stylus-slinging Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is a damn fine phone. Its sexy wraparound glass, precise S Pen and brilliant screen would impress anyone, but it's ideal for artists, architects and people who would rather write by hand than type on a screen.

Source: www.cnet.com