OnePlus provides a further explanation for the OnePlus 9 CPU throttling controversy, won't please Qualcomm

[Redaktion]

OnePlus has issued a further statement regarding the CPU throttling controversy that has engulfed its flagship OnePlus 9 series smartphones. The latest statement builds on the optimization theme of its initial statement, but also suggests that the performance potential of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 is overkill.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/OnePlus-provides-a-further-explanation-for-the-OnePlus-9-CPU-throttling-controversy-won-t-please-Qualcomm.550834.0.html

[Wereweeb]

It's up to the consumer to decide if they want SD 888 performance or SD 780G performance, not OnePlus.

If they sell a phone as a SD 888 phone, they should deliver a phone with SD 888 performance. Period.

[Samish]

I kinda think they should implement something like Samsung's enhanced processing toggle. But I don't think one plus did anything wrong here. I don't want Facebook or Snapchat to drain my battery. Just don't want them to be slow either.

[sn3p]

It's up to the consumer to decide if they want SD 888 performance or SD 780G performance, not OnePlus.

If they sell a phone as a SD 888 phone, they should deliver a phone with SD 888 performance. Period.

Phone comes as a package. Screen, camera, case, OS CPU, etc. You choose between flagship models, and mid level models, not between CPUs. It is up to manufacturer to provide the best experience with given components. If CPU overheating ruins the experience they should fix it and throttling is one of the ways. They could provide some setting in service menu or developer options, but it is not a must.
I would hate to see my phone restarting due to heat when driving with navigation only because some weirdos started whining their benchmark results dropped.

[kek]

I, for one, support this OnePlus statement.

Seriously guys, who the hell needs to be running its cpu at 100% just for Chrome/Spybook/Twitter?

The only mistake here was not being honest about it from the beginnning.

[roguedogue]

If it's overkill they should have used a lesser SoC. They wanted to market the device as having the fastest chipset. They suck at software, so they gimped the apps. Just like the Nord is quad camera, though one is a useless depth sensor and the other is useless 2mpx macro. They are an evil company, with very shady business practices. They outright scam and lie to customers (this example, the bands on the 9, AOD and encryption issues on the 7 series, the watch debacle...). Can't wait to sell my ruined 7t pro and go back to Samsung.

[bruh]

I, for one, support this OnePlus statement.

Seriously guys, who the hell needs to be running its cpu at 100% just for Chrome/Spybook/Twitter?

The only mistake here was not being honest about it from the beginnning.

I echo the same sentiment.

I see a lot of people getting all whiny and triggered saying they deserve Snapdragon 888 performance not even realising that when the x1 core is required, it is working as designed. Nobody was complaining about the phone being slow before the article revealing CPU throttling. This goes to show that OnePlus's optimisations work in delivering a balance between peformance and battery life. I can understand if the phone isn't performing decently in gaming or when performance is required. Why would you want the x1 core to be running your FB and Snapchat. Next people will whine about even worse battery life when the x1 core running full speed.

Besides mobile CPUs follow the big.LITTLE architecture which is by nature supposed to use efficiency cores to run applications that don't require so much processing power and performance cores for things like games. Why are people so surprised that this is happening in their devices. It's as if people just find a reason to complain about every little thing these days.

I'm all for sticking it to companies when they use anti consumer practices but please be intelligent about what you complain about instead of just jumping on the sensational news from articles. Yes the discovery of this was interestimg by anandtech. But it doesn't change the end-user experience much.

[vertigo]

It seems most people more or less feel it's not about what they did, but how they did it, and I agree. There's nothing wrong with optimizing their OS to make more efficient use of the CPU, and in fact that's a good thing. Had they been upfront about it from the beginning, and included it as a separate mode, so the user could choose between optimization and full performance, then it could have been an additional selling point, and the benchmarks could have tested both modes to see what the effects on performance and battery life are. Instead, it just came across as being sneaky, like selling a Ferrari with half the cylinders turned off unless you put the pedal all the way down.

I actually agree with OnePlus, that current phone SoCs are more than sufficient for most tasks/users, and have actually been saying so and that they should focus more on efficiency for the past few years. I'd rather get a few extra hours out of my phone than have it open apps 0.1 second faster. And, to be fair, the 888 has had repeated reports of running hot and throttling. So I don't think they're in the wrong in why they did what they did, but how they did it was definitely not good.

As @sn3p said, you buy a package, which includes a certain CPU, but it's the OEM that ultimately decides how to make the hardware run. Anybody who spends a decent amount of time on this site knows that's exactly how things work with laptops, with the same chip doing much better in one than another, because they are designed with different TDPs. Why should phones be any different. That's what reviews and benchmarks are for, to see how a phone as a package performs. Nobody with any sense and technical knowledge is going to choose one phone over another simply based on the chip. And as was mentioned by @bruh, if you can't even tell in day-to-day usage, then there's no harm. The only problem is if it only throttles for end users but not in benchmarks, in which case that's a serious problem and a clear case of dishonesty.

[Daniel Watkins]

All OnePlus has to do is include a toggle in the settings to enable/disable this feature. Then everything will be fine. It's a good addition, but consumers must have a choice with full transparency!
My current phone has a Snapdragon 835 and for social media, usually it is butter smooth, unless uploading a video story/post at same time, so..definitely merit than 888 is more than powerful enough.

[Liu Ming]

Not apologizing for OnePlus here, but their statement does not really imply that the SD888 is running hot and drinks up battery juice, I feel it's the writer who's reading his own opinions into this statement more than anything else. Is it a fact that less CPU intensive tasks don't require the full power of SD888 or any high end chip? Yes. Does OnePlus have the ability and right to manage that power to best suit the task? Also yes. Should they let us know? Maybe, but does that help the end user to know that? Why would it? Throttling performance is the job for engineers to manage the balance between battery life, heat and user experience. They could have informed Geekbench if GB is that important to us all (but mainly just to the sometimes entitled reviewer community). I think that's OnePlus' only mistake, not realizing that tech sites and enthusiasts would make such a big deal out of what is deemed a power and performance management strategy.

[Thuisss]

"5nm" is just a deceptive marketing term used by Samsung and has no ties to any physical measurement. It's actually running with a 36nm pitch, which doesn't even meet the IRDS standard of 28nm pitch for their "5nm" label.

[Spuffler]

Simply put, most embedded batteries are inadequate for Android computing devices. Let's assume OnePlus decides to allow removal/disabling of the disputed app throttling function. How long will your battery last without that throttling? If your battery life already is less than 24 hours as is my Nord N10 5G when the app throttling is enabled, will you accept battery capacity for 21 hours? 15 hours? 12 hours?

[reka]

Or maybe give the consumer a freaking choice whether to enable or disable that throttling feature. Chinese OEMs and their obsession with battery-saving techniques like overly aggressive memory management and performance throttling really needs to stop.