[EVO 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] AbsolutZeroGI:
You know a guy was killed by a cell phone explosion in 2009, the article is here: http://www.p2pnet.net/story/18381. It also mentions a guy who was killed by a cell phone battery in 2002. The first case was the guy was using a replacement battery (probably off-brand, but the article doesn't mention that) and the other one a guy was working in an iron mill when the phone exploded.

In 2006, when I was working at Mongolian BBQ (if you've ever heard of that, I was a cook) one of the grillers has his phone explode in his pocket.

The point I'm getting to is that phone batteries explode regardless. The last article I read was that it was about 40 a year but that article dates back to 2004 (google search = cell phone battery explosions).

Another article I read which I can't find now tells of how dropping the phone, keeping it in your pocket, leaving it on the charger too long, having a case that doesn't vent heat properly, leaving it in your car on a hot day and many other things can cause cell phone explosions.

If you go do searches, you can see that exploding lithium-ion batteries have been a rising problem for about 8-10 years now.

The article above is from 2007, here's one from 2006: http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=39;t=000968;p=0

2010: http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4206310/Exploding-cell-phone-death

2004: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/cell_phone_batteries.html

2009: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/personal_tech/article5648440.ece

2005: http://trib.com/news/local/article_1efd43e6-bfe2-5086-b1a8-71246125a408.html

As you can see, cell phone batteries overheating and exploding have been a rising trend for quite some time now and to blame this solely on a kernel is absurd. Sure, there's risks, but you can brick your phone flashing a rom or even rooting your phone and those don't get taken down despite all the "Help, I've bricked my phone!!" threads that get started here.

I guess the point I'm trying to get at is that if these people's batteries were compromised beforehand, and they most likely were based on what caused hundreds of other cell phone explosions, then all SBC did was light the match on the powderkeg and was NOT the actual cause of their battery meltdowns.

What I try to do is offer another explanation that can then be discussed since this problem is years and years old and trickle charging kernels haven't been around nearly as long. The problem pre-dates the blame for the problem, how about maybe people explore alternative reason why these people's batteries melted down instead of blaming kernels and flaming the devs that made them until they take the kernels down? This whole debate is like all those birds dying in Arizona and people thinking it was the biblical apocalypse. Did they even consider all the environmental, human or other factors? No, they had their answer and that was it.

Now I said all that to say this: You say my assumptions are faulty, but how many people went back to look to see if this was a widely known problem to begin with? I'm willing to bet that number is very, very small. The Evo is a huge phone that's very powerful and many of us run a lot of programs and make the system sweat. We overclock the processor (a risk in and of itself), run many, many apps, have live wallpapers, etc. It's already known that cell phones use a lot of energy while making calls, and now that cell antennas are stronger than ever, that means they get hotter than ever. Since batteries blowing up is ALREADY a problem, to say that the kernel is the issue, based on all the evidence over the past several years, causes room for doubt. It could very well be a part of it, or contribute to a larger problem, but until educated and qualified scientists prove it, I'm going to take what's said on xda with a grain of salt and simply adhere to the warning that "this *insert software product* may screw up your phone" and encourage people to try something new but exercise the proper caution while doing so.

As you'll read in those articles, all the ones resulting in death happened when the phone was unplugged, so charging didn't destroy those people's phones :)