I see the iPhone 7 as a competitor to the Galaxy S7 (quite a nice phone by the way). The Note range has always been more of a "phablet" than Samsung's flagship line.

It is, however, surprising that they didn't get it right.

Li-ion batteries are seemingly trickier than we consumers assume. Apple had a bit of bad press with the iPhone 4 when batteries starting exploding as well. I thought the industry would have worked it out since then, but according to many of the other comments in this (and other related) threads, Li-ion batteries are still an area of considerable research.

> The Note range has always been more of a "phablet" than Samsung's flagship line.

It's been the power-user line, the most full-featured variant, often more expensive than the Galaxy proper. "Flagship" is a loose term - they probably marketed the Galaxy proper more heavily, but the Note was their top-of-the-range phone, at least for a certain demographic.

True, I'll accept that, in the same way that the iPhone 7 Plus is Apple's flagship phone for certain demographics vs. the iPhone 7 .