A mess of its own making: Google nerfs second Pixel phone battery this year
arstechnica.com
People don’t upgrade phones every year anymore—longevity matters.

I wonder if there is something subpar about whoever Google is getting the batteries from for the A series phones.

  • bob_lemon@feddit.orgEnglish
    7·
    2 days ago

    I got the nerf on the 4A because the battery replacement “option” requirement me to personally being my phone to a repair shop 250km away.

    And calling it a nerf is flat out wrong, it’s borderline remote bricking. That patch not only slashed battery life in half, but the charge indicator was completely unreliable. I’ve seen it go from 80 to 30 in an hour (on standby, btw.), then from 30 to 25 in 2 hours.

    I’ve installed CalyxOS, which comes without the nerf.

    • SolidShake@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      1 day ago

      The pixel 4a only had a guaranteed update life up to 2023. And again if you read the article it’s to prevent your phone from exploding. I know it’s annoying, my wife has an iPhone and Apple seems to do this shit on every model older than 2 years old. But if the 4a is 2 years past its promised “service time” then why not just get a 9a that has a 7 year “service time”? I know it’s easier to complain and bitch about it but when the pixels first started coming out their guaranteed updates were NOT long to begin with.

      • bob_lemon@feddit.orgEnglish
        1·
        1 day ago

        Because the 9A a) costs money, which I currently don’t want to spend (especially not on Google), and b) is significantly larger than the 4A, which I specifically bought for it’s small form factor.

        And I seriously doubt the only way to keep my phone from exploding is to push a patch that makes it so the device itself seemingly has problems figuring it the charge level of the battery it tries to keep from exploding.

        I cannot stress enough how god awful this “patch” was. They completely phoned it in, doing just the bare minimum to ward off class action lawsuits or consumer protection agencies.

        I will buy a new phone quite soon since CalyxOS also stopped updating it now. But the Pixel A series obviously comes with a major liability now.