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HTC, Motorola Say They Don't Slow Old Phones Like Apple Does (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the not-on-my-watch dept.

After Apple confirmed last week that it reduces the performance of older iPhones to improve battery life, it has left many wondering whether or not other smartphone manufacturers do the same. HTC and Motorola are the two most recent OEMs to say they don't throttle their phones' processor speeds as their batteries age. The Verge reports: In emails to The Verge, both companies said they do not employ similar practices with their smartphones. An HTC spokesperson said that designing phones to slow down their processor as their battery ages "is not something we do." A Motorola spokesperson said, "We do not throttle CPU performance based on older batteries." The Verge also reached out to Google, Samsung, LG, and Sony for comment on whether their phone processors are throttled in response to aging batteries. A Sony spokesperson said a response would be delayed by the holidays, and a Samsung spokesperson said the company was looking into it. The responses begin to clarify whether or not throttling processor speeds is typical behavior in smartphones -- as of last week, we knew that Apple was doing it, but not whether it was common practice among competitors. HTC and Motorola's responses start to suggest that it's not.

3 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. They don't patch them either... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So while the vendor may not be slowing your old phone down to encourage you to buy a new one, any hacker with the right exploit can compromise your device via SMS and make all sorts of trouble.

  2. Re:nothing to see here by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All they had to do was inform the user of it, and/or allow it to be disabled.

    And they did neither of these, which is why people are now complaining.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  3. The issue isn't the slowing by ebrandsberg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The issue two-fold, and many vendor are guilty of the first one:
    1) They aren't sizing the batteries in such a way so that the peak voltage can be sustained more than two years from release under normal use.
    2) They didn't provide details of WHY the phones were slowing down, so people would understand that a cheaper battery replacement would restore performance.

    The fact that they slowed it down without detailing why tells me it was a play to get more sales AND to prevent warranty work. The Nexus 6p had a similar issue where after the battery wore down, it was causing the phone to turn off due to low voltage. Google usually replaced the phone, often with a new Pixel phone as well. Apple was trying to make sure this didn't happen with this change, and by the way, once it got slower, people would tend to BUY the upgrade, not send it in for repairs.