There have been countless advancements in mobile processors in recent years, often resulting in phones being faster than some computers. OnePlus apparently doesn't think this horsepower is necessary, as it recently called it "overkill" after being caught throttling the performance of more than 300 popular Android apps on the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro.
This secret throttling was first discovered last week thanks to a report from AnandTech. In short, the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro have an identifier built into their software. When this identifier detects that a certain app is being used, it reduces the phones' CPU performance. OnePlus claims this is done to help preserve battery life, but unfortunately, it happens in secret without any input from the user. As one might expect, a lot of people weren't very pleased to learn this was happening.
About a week after the news broke, OnePlus has shared a post on its official forums providing additional insight into why this all happened. It starts out with OnePlus saying that "one of the most important things" it wanted to focus on for the OnePlus 9 Series was performance. Just below that, however, OnePlus says, "Smartphone processors have continued to become stronger every year, enabling software developers to develop more powerful and sophisticated apps, in turn, helping users to do more things with smartphones than ever before. In recent years, the performance of smartphone SoCs has reached a point where their power is often overkill in certain scenarios for many apps including social media, browsers and even some light gaming." The paragraph below this continues with that same mindset, noting, "With this in mind, our team has shifted its attention from simply providing sheer performance to providing the performance you expect from our devices while reducing power consumption and heat dissipation. To be more precise, we want to match each app with the most appropriate performance it needs."
Does This Excuse OnePlus's Throttling?
There are a couple of ways to look at this situation. On the one hand, some people argue that everything about it has been blown out of proportion. The OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro are generally considered among the fastest phones on the market. While throttling is happening, it was only discovered because of benchmark test results — not people complaining about slow, real-world performance. As pointed out by one reply to this forum post, "Does the app work as the developer intended? If yes then what EXACTLY is the issue with throttling the CPU?"
On the flip side, there's an argument to be made that OnePlus could have gone about this in a much clearer way. Allowing users to limit CPU performance to conserve battery life is fine, but make that an option folks can enable rather than forcing it on them in secret. Furthermore, if battery life was such a concern for OnePlus while creating the 9 and 9 Pro, maybe it should have built a bigger battery into the phones instead of resorting to throttling.
OnePlus doesn't seem to be changing this policy anytime soon, but at the very least, the company's now provided a better explanation for why it's doing it. Here's to hoping it's a lesson for OnePlus that it's OK to give people a say in how their phone works — or at least be upfront with them and avoid little scandals like this in the future.
Source: OnePlus