INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Not all batteries age the same way
Some problems will appear quickly, but others won't be noticeable until after many charge/discharge cycles
A few years back, Samsung released the Galaxy Note 7 with a slightly larger battery than the previous model
Within weeks, the phones started to catch fire, and even after swapping in a different battery pack, the issue persisted
It was a huge mess that led to a recall and steep financial losses.Samsung's battery missteps may have prompted manufacturers to take
possible battery defects more seriously
So when Google detected problems with aging Pixel 4a batteries, it didn't take any chances
It decided to degrade the experience on the remaining Pixel 4a units out there, even if the lower capacity and slower charging upset users
When Pixel 6a units started to catch fire again, Google decided to simply limit battery performance.
The mandatory Android 16
July update will limit battery charging speed and capacity on affected phones.
Credit:
Ryan Whitwam
The mandatory Android 16 July update will limit
battery charging speed and capacity on affected phones.
Credit:
Ryan Whitwam
Pixel 4a units contained one of two different batteries, and only the one manufactured by a company called Lishen was downgraded
For the Pixel 6a, Google has decreed that the battery limits will be imposed when the cells hit 400 charge cycles
something, but the remedies it settled on feel unnecessarily hostile to customers
It had a chance to do better the second time, but the solution for the Pixel 6a is more of the same.Like other smartphone manufacturers,
Google moved away from offering removable batteries in the 2010s to make phones slimmer and more durable
Smartphone makers largely dismissed the concerns of repair advocates who pointed out that lithium-ion batteries degrade over time, and
making them difficult to remove wasn't the best idea
However, this was a time when people only kept smartphones for a year or two before upgrading, but we have since entered an era in which
people use phones for much longer
