Samsung has today opened a full-scale investigation into an exploding Galaxy S3 smartphone, according to a Reuters report.

An Irish S3 owner wrote on a discussion forum on Thursday last week (NZ time) that

I [was] driving along today with my Galaxy S3 in my car mount when suddenly a white flame, sparks and a bang came out of the phone.

I pulled in to look at my phone, the phone burned from the inside out. Burned through the plastic and melted my case to my phone. The phone kept working but without any signal.

The phone was destroyed and it slightly burned a piece of plastic on the inside of my car.

The owner received a replacement home from the retailer the Carphone Warehouse, and conceded, "It may actually have been caused by a combination of my car mount and my car's heating system."

He also posted a photo of the phone (above right).

There have been a number of examples of flaming smartphones recently.

They include an exploding HTC model, reported by NBR in late 2010 (read Christchurch man's flaming phone 'an isolated incident' - HTC) and a November 2011 episode that saw a rogue screw cause an iPhone onboard an Australian plane to catch fire.

Meanwhile, Consumer Reports has warned about the new iPad overheating. 

All the gadgets share one thing in common: they pack powerful processors into a tiny space.

For the record, NBR's resident S3 has had no overheating issues.