Advancement in safety measures adopted in the manufacture of smartphones has greatly reduced the incidence of exploding phones. But there are pockets of cases here and there, most traced to defective batteries. The most prominent of such was the ill-fated Galaxy Note 7. One of such rare cases has been reported in India where a Realme XT model exploded just 24 hours after purchase.
According to 91mobiles, the user claims the explosion occurred while the smartphone was left to charge overnight using the official adaptor in the retail box. However, Realme India has stated that the explosion was as a result of an “external force” which was applied to the unit and thus puncture the battery. Thus, this resulted in the battery going up in flames. 
However, the owner of the Realme XT unit, Roshan Singh insists the model went up in flame while charging. He accused Realme’s service centre of inaction, claiming that when he shared the images of the burnt unit with them, a representative the brand concluded that an external force was applied by him on the unit by merely examining the unit.No physical examination or investigation was carried out. Upon further complaint on Twitter, Realme assured him that action will be taken on the incident but that promise has not been kept till now. 
In an official statement released to 91mobiles, the company stated: “For us, one of the key pillars is product quality. Every smartphone manufactured by Realme goes through a number of stringent quality and durability checks as customer safety is of utmost importance for us. As per our investigation, we have learnt that the smartphone was damaged due to external force. The user’s smartphone battery caught fire as the smartphone was punctured from outside.”
Sadly, we have seen similar scenarios play out in the recent past but with Xiaomi models. Two of the cases involved the Redmi Note 7 Pro, the third was a Redmi Note 7S unit while the fourth was a Redmi Note 6 Pro. In all the reported cases, Xiaomi refused accepting liability claiming they were caused by previous damage to the phones. We never really did get to find out if Xiaomi ended up replacing the units. Roshan Singh may likely suffer the same fate but fair enough, the unit’s back panel looks like what may have shattered before the battery went up in flames. This falls in line with the claim by the company.
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