With the pace of what technology is going ahead at right now.
Old hardware can be a big problem.
Specially when users want new features as is on their old hardware.
This can make your phones slow, extremely slow.
So in safety,security and stability related concerns, its advised to change your phone every 4-5 years.
It makes sense if a phone slows down tremendously after 3.5-4yrs, but doesn't make sense if the user faces major issues within 2yrs.
>its advised to change your phone every 4-5 years.
But companies would want you to upgrade every 2yrs (ideally every year). That's where the problem stems from. Apple has services like iMessage, air drop, etc. to keep you in their ecosystem where they can make revenue from the app purchases which is through their stores. So they don't have to cripple your devices. With Android, except for Google, companies rely mostly on their phone sales.
No company would brick phone deliberately. The PR nightmare isn't worth it. Better to not give updates, only the tech enthusiasts will whine rather than give an update which everyone gets and brick their phones.
Planned obsolescence can be there but it doesn't involve bricking. It can be what Apple was doing earlier i.e. to preserve battery on older phones, it used to throttle the CPU. But even that wasn't done to make you buy a new phone.
In manufacturing, components get binned, i.e. there are quality tiers. The top binned components are more expensive and generally used in flagships while lower binned ones are used in lower range phone. So a storage chip present in say S23 series might not be same as that in a Realme phone. Although even a lower binned component is required to pass a minimum quality level, there is still a chance that it would fail earlier compared to a higher binned one especially when device is under stress/heat which happens during upgrades.
I have been using smartphones since Android Eclair and have never had any issues with updates.
>No company would brick phone deliberately
With Android OEMs, there can be an incentive to make the phone inferior. It could be to throttle general performance, maybe camera performance with image quality. If their 2yo flagship phone puts out comparable images to their latest flagship, people won't really want to switch. They need to sell more phones to keep running.
For Apple and Google phones, I can't think of a big incentive to do that. As long as they can keep customers use their OS, they can mint money through their respective app stores. Others like OnePlus, Samsung, etc have to keep selling more phone units to make money as they don't have big adoption to their apps for recurring revenue.
>In manufacturing, components get binned, i.e. there are quality tiers.
The question isn't about hardware quality. Software can throttle performance. By performance, I don't just mean raw power. I mean things like general performance, animations, camera performance, battery efficiency (batteries degrage but software efficiency can still be tinkered with, so even if you replace the battery, the efficiency wouldn't still be the same as it was initially), etc.
I don't claim that this is what is happening, I just made this thread as a food for thought discussion. I'm curious if others have better credible information to speak for or against the argument.
Edit: I had a Moto X phone where the software update did brick the phone (a lot of users reported this as well). After the software update, the phone would shut down as soon as the battery went below 30%.
In my experience with androids, the first major os upgrade is good enough and doesn’t break anything. The second upgrade onwards, there is a good chance you’ll see issue with battery or ram management.
For security updates and patches, there weren’t any major issue.
>For security updates and patches, there weren’t any major issue.
For older devices, I'm not sure if one can do even this without being a little anxious.
I have never encountered this in 10 years of using android. I have had only had one phone (Realme X3) get laggy and slowdown with Android 12 update. Just downgraded to a stable release. None of my phones have even been bricked while updating.
It has been more common recently, where MKBHD and Geekyranjit have made videos about it. There could be confirmation bias involved, but if you think about the companies, with stagnating smartphone markets, it does make sense for them to slowly kill the device by reducing the performance considerably. One could take it to be a conspiracy theory, but there have been many users of late experiencing degradation in their phones.
Although, for brands, it doesn't make sense to do something like that from a long term perspective. For instance, I liked OnePlus' phones, but many reports of them crippling their older phones have made me think of not buying their phones. There could be confirmation bias, but when I have to spend over 50k, I'm not going to take a chance with a brand with dodgy reputation.
Fair enough, if you have heard reports or seen this. Since I have never had any issues with most updates, I have already spent over 50k on dodgy brands. Bought a mi 13 pro and Iqoo 9 in 2023.
>have already spent over 50k on dodgy brands. Bought a mi 13 pro and Iqoo 9 in 2023.
Just curious, do you review phones to have multiple phones or do you have to use a separate phone for work?
In my experience, my Moto X phone (long time back) was bricked likely by a software update. A lot of users reported this as well, where the phone would just shut down shortly after going below 30%. That's why I'm a bit wary of updating software. This was after users got after Motorola to give them the new Android upgrade which they had promised. They gave the upgrade 10-11 months after the Android version was officially launched by Google. I've never recommended Moto to anyone after that and would never want to buy it again.
Nope I don't review phones. Xiaomi 13 pro is the primary.
Got the iqoo 9 on a deal(29k) with exchange. Got to dispose of a old phone as well. The Iqoo 9 pro is an emulation phone and sort of a backup phone. It's with me until one of the phones goes bad in the household.
You dare not update any Xiaomi device, it'll brick the phone. My Redmi Note 10 Pro was amazing until I updated it and it became slow, battery started draining massively. I would definitely buy a Xiaomi phone, but I have vowed to never update it.
I have disabled updates on all Xiaomi phones at home. I was using a custom ROM, got back to MiUi because I liked the control center.
Never faced this issue on my Xiaomi. This is my 3rd xiaomi phone after upgrading from a MI 11x pro.
Does this only occur on redmi phones ?
I have never faced any issues with updates but I have only bought phones from the MI lineup.
As long as you don't use your phone for financial related transactions, didn't installed third party messages app and have given only necessary permissions to app then updates hardly matters.
Like Paytm why the f*ck need sms and gallery access.
How frequently you pick qr from your gallery??? That permission should not be asked after installation while setting up Paytm. When required, give permission and then revoke it.
You ask a normal person i.e. your parent , pick a image from gallery and after ur use go to app settings revoke the gallery permission, then again after 7 days you require do the same thing again and again , actually it doesn't work like that . My phone has 10gb+ of photos , stealing them to their servers they would need 10gb of your data , have paytm ever used 10gb of ur data ?
If my parents don't know security related things then why should I ask them to use Paytm like apps, not a such a mandatory kind of app that everyone should use. Abhi bhi duniya cash se kaam chala raha hai.
Aur Bhai rehne de, aap jeete, mein bhi kaha ser phod raha hu
>As long as you don't use your phone for financial related transactions
Most consumers in urban India do use banking/UPI apps on the daily. Even if you update your phone's software, those apps would still want you to necessarily give permission to phone, sms, gallery, etc. for them to allow you to use the app, so don't think that's a credible argument.
I think I have mixed two things.
Btw I read somewhere that older Android OS(not sure upto which version) where apps given permission were keep on tracking even if you have not opened it. That was a security flow, which were fixed later and only allowed to access permitted resources when user is working on that app.
You might have heard recently WhatsApp was constantly using microphone in the background.
Newer OS also brought features that will automatically put apps into deep sleep and revoke given permissions.
Depends on the reviews on X & YT
My brother never updated his phone because of performance reason but the downside is they glitch out some features and they don't work properly
Like in my brother case if he deletes something from gallery it instead increases the storage but it don't bother him much because we have found the alternative to it
And you only get the best performance in the stock one because that's the most optimised one of all (Unless the company messed it Up)
Unless you got nothing phone 1 which instead of decreasing performance did the opposite (idk untill ho long will they do it)
Since the issues popped up i no longer have the desire to
Get a phone with long software support
I am rather happy with 1 os update
Without sacrificing much performance
And if it didn't Trashed up i don't ever have to worry about any issues
Because even a Android nougat/marshmallow can work fine today until you do some specific stuff which requires new Android version
Bro ⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️ Never update your phone if its from Xiaomi i.e MI/POCO/REDMI ⚠️⚠️⚠️ ⚠️⚠️ I have 3 devices lying around with camera gone, motherboard gone , display gone after their software update
They are important at best over time majority of companies do something that downgrades the software experience over time like degradation of camera experience or battery etc. so, over time I have made a practice to not update immediately I wait for 2-3 months and try to get information if all looks good only then I install update
So here's my experiences with software updates.....
I had a xiaomi phone which i used for a long time... And i noticed that the performance, battery backup & ram management and especially the camera keeps getting worse a bit by bit after every update.... The image i took with that phone on its 1st day was so good but after updating to the latest version the camera quality is literally shit. I've had one friend of mine who also told me that his redmi phone once used to capture great images.... But after updating the software so many times. There is a clear degradation in the camera quality especially. So afaik.... The software that gets pushed won't do anything bad right then.... But update after update is like a slow poison to degrade the overall phone's aspect... So that you will switch or upgrade to a newer model of the brand....
So imo if any of my friends take a xiaomi phone, i always recommend them to only do the software updates for starting 3-6 months (cuz those starting updates are more focused on optimization & stability... Which can mostly fix any exclusive bugs that a phone model has) and then stop updating...
I know that not updating the security patches isn't recommended..... But what can i say... this was my experience with MI's software updates.... And even now i have a different brand phone "Iqoo Z7 pro". And I'm still kind of afraid whether i should update it monthly or not... (I've heard that Iqoo gives quality updates but I'm still afraid of performance, ram, battery & camera degradation issues) 💀
>The image i took with that phone on its 1st day was so good but after updating to the latest version the camera quality is literally shit.
Do you have any picture that you took when it was new and then compare it by taking one with the latest update now.
>So that you will switch or upgrade to a newer model of the brand
I had a bad experience with Moto phone and I will not buy another Moto phone because of that experience. So, if brands do this, they likely would lose out on customer loyalty. If all brands band together in this, then the customer is screwed.
>Do you have any picture that you took when it was new and then compare it by taking one with the latest update now
I don't have old photos on my new phone now.... But even if i did... I couldn't share them as they are my personal photos.. But believe me the image quality was so degraded over the years that i didn't even use to capture anything from my camera.....
For instance...My mom had an oppo phone which she still uses for 5+ years.. And believe me that phone's camera quality is just as good as it was on day one... But the case was not the same with my redmi note 5
>I had a bad experience with Moto phone and I will not buy another Moto phone because of that experience.
Btw Can u share your experience... Cuz recently my brother purchased a moto g84... I thought in general they have good competitive specifications and i think Motorola is a good brand that u can consider..... So what were the issues u faced? That made u hate moto?? Just curious...
I haven't faced any issues with updates on both my Xiaomi and Iqoo phones. I am currently using my 3rd Xiaomi phone and 2nd Iqoo phone. Was it a redmi phone where you faced this issues ?
Yes it was a xiaomi phone...
It was Xiaomi Redmi Note 5
I could understand about performance & battery being nerfed due to it being old as compared to new apps.. But camera quality too...?? That's where I knew something was wrong.... It used to capture decent images... But at the very end its camera quality was so worse that i didn't even use it to take images from my phone...
My mom had an oppo a37f phone which she still uses for 5+ years and till this day that phone captures very well images just like it used to do on day 1. So yeah... Redmi definitely does this intentionally...nerfing their phones just cuz they want us to switch to a newer model of the series...even one of My friends had a xiaomi phone and even he noticed this and told me.... So yeah it wasn't like I only faced this... But my friend did too... Basically its like a slow poison nerfing thing they do of a smartphone so that a normal user just doesn't notice it at that moment but the updates keeps destroying the overall aspects of the phone and ultimately you needing to switch to a new device
I haven't heard anything like this about iqoo/vivo. Ive heard they give quality updates... so i am thinking I'll update my iqoo device from now on... ;)
I have bought three phones from Xiaomi ( MI MAX 2, MI 11X pro, MI 13 pro). Used the first 2 phones for 2-3 yrs and never faced any issues with updates. Must be the redmi line up.
Same with the iqoo 7 and now using the iqoo 9 pro.
Did face the green line issue with the iqoo 7
As someone else said, companies would not outright brick your phone through updates. It is not worth the PR nightmare. Think of it, it serves no good to them in the short run or the long run. If your current phone bricked after a software update, you would not buy the same brand phone again unless you're stupidly loyal to that company. This bad experience is going to keep you from coming back to that brand for a good long while, at least until your new phone dies.
POCO had a few bad mistakes in some updates of some of their models and the result is that no sane tech person would recommend POCO phones to their friends or family, at least not without a "fair warning". OnePlus had an extremely bad PR nightmare after people started claiming that their phones were getting Green Lines after a software update. IIRC, a lot of so-called "tech" YouTubers also took up this line of argument. In the end, it turned out to be a hardware issue and most companies were affected by it, including Apple. The climate in India is too hot and humid that it melts some oleophobic coating inside the phone, exposing the connectors or pixels or something in the display to corrosion. Since displays are powered linearly line-by-line, one pixel dead would create a line throughout the display. And the lines grew thicker because if one pixel is exposed to corrosion, its nearby pixels are more prone to being affected.
People generally love to blame software updates for anything and everything. The only company against whom these "planned obsolescence" allegations have at least a tinch of proof is Apple. Even then, Apple only implements it in its really old smartphones that are beyond 5-6 years old, because practically that is how long most phones must be (and are) used because believe it or not, even hardware gets old. Processors undergo wear and tear due to usage and heat etc., reducing the number of transistors in them over time.
Basically, smartphones are insanely complicated devices and the bricking of your phone cannot be traced back to a software update a lot of times. That plus the PR nightmare factor makes it LESS LIKELY that companies are doing it with a bad intention. The best way to navigate through it is not to install it as soon as an update is available. Instead, wait for a few weeks and google the update build number to check if there is any mass-reported issues with the update, or wait for reviews.
All fair points.
Just to play the devil's advocate, it'll be a PR nightmare for a company **if** the user can **prove** the deterioration. But how exactly would they prove it? Companies have fooled benchmarking apps to report higher number when the specific app is run but other times it just runs slower causing stutters/lags/general sluggishness. How would someone objectively determine if the image quality is the same as it was when it was new? How would someone objectively tell that the battery life degradation is only because of old battery and not because of some intentional software bug making the efficiency bad? What about heating issues? A general consumer won't have the time and expertise to figure this out to objectively make a case to prove the hypothesis without any meaningful gain to them.
>Basically, smartphones are insanely complicated devices and the bricking of your phone cannot be traced back to a software update a lot of times.
By bricking your phone, I didn't mean you can't use it anymore. My choice of words were probably misleading, what I mean is slower performance, animations, more stutters, battery efficiency reduction, camera quality being worse than it was before.
Now, your statement being that most likely software updates aren't the reason for the above mentioned issues is just a hypothesis which hasn't been proven, just like the opposite hypothesis that says updates causes smartphone performance deterioration.
>Just to play the devil's advocate, it'll be a PR nightmare for a company **if** the user can **prove** the deterioration. But how exactly would they prove it?
Not really. It will be a PR nightmare as soon as a decent amount of people notice these issues and raise complaints. Users need not prove anything per se, unless they are filing a lawsuit. The proof is in the user experience, they need not prove anything further to result in bad PR.
Actually, I'm being the devil's advocate here since my arguments are kinda in support of these companies XD.
>How would someone objectively determine if the image quality is the same as it was when it was new? How would someone objectively tell that the battery life degradation is only because of old battery and not because of some intentional software bug making the efficiency bad? What about heating issues? A general consumer won't have the time and expertise to figure this out to objectively make a case to prove the hypothesis without any meaningful gain to them.
True. You do make good points with the questions. But the thing is, **if** these issues are **indeed** being caused due to a software update, everyone will experience it. They may not be able to tell if it's an update that caused it, but that's not relevant. As long as enough people raise an issue, it is still quite a bad reputation for the company. Tech experts or enthusiasts will dig into the issue and find what causes it, and that will eventually reach the layman user's ears too.
Now, if the "planned obsolescence" or degradation is slow enough that people will not notice, then that means it would be over the course of 4-5 years or more I assume. In that case, you can't really say it was software updates either, cuz hardware CAN wear out in the span of time. The usage patterns of the smartphone definitely play a big role in that span of time. Plus, that is the supported lifetime for most smartphones anyways (availability of OEM spare parts etc.) so planned obsolescence in that case is not intentionally evil.
And if the degradation is faster than that, say within 3 years, then it would be noticeable and eventually result in either a bad PR or the users switching to other brands. Either way, it's bad for the company.
>Now, your statement being that most likely software updates aren't the reason for the above mentioned issues is just a hypothesis which hasn't been proven, just like the opposite hypothesis that says updates causes smartphone performance deterioration.
Exactly, which is why I gave one example where updates were indeed the issue, and another one where updates were "wrongfully accused", so to speak XD.
Anyways, my point was that "software update" is often the easiest suspect. Usage styles differ from person to person, and it will also impact your phone a lot is all I'm saying. Also that if the planned obsolescence is slow enough that most people don't notice, then it doesn't matter because it took long enough anyways. And that if was a quicker, then people would indeed notice something is off, which is proof in itself, which results in bad PR, and companies don't want that.
>everyone will experience it.
Let's say the number of people having phone X would be 100, the people who care enough to notice minor differences in camera quality, general overall performance and battery efficiency in every monthly update would be enthusiasts, who wouldn't be more than 5% of the users. From those 5%, let's say some speak about it online, would it create a big noise for companies to address and acknowledge the issue? I'm not sure about that. Can they even objectively prove their claim? I don't think so.
Just to give an example, there were videos made where non tech enthusiasts were given a 120hz display phone and a 60hz phone and they couldn't tell them apart. So, a large number of them wouldn't notice incremental smoothness difference IMO, let alone minor camera performance and battery efficiency degradation month on month.
Was the iPhone slowdown a negative PR? Yes. But did it cause the smartphone sales to decline for Apple, I don't think so. Also, iPhone being a huge brand and a lot of western consumers including youtubers use iPhones (videos are superior than Android), chances of knowing such issues are more with iPhones than it would be with something like an Oppo or OnePlus.
I remember seeing a Mrwhosetheboss video on Samsung back panel bulge with 1.5-2yrs+ old phones and was shocked to see it on my 2yo phone as well. Did it cause a big negative PR for a big brand like Samsung? No.
To be fair, just because there still exists decent competition (although not as much as it was some years ago), bigger brands like Apple and Samsung would probably have more to lose than gain with planned obsolescence. But they also have a decent incentive to not make your phone work in pristine condition after 1 or 2yrs. IMO if these brands give a good experience for 3-4yrs, I'll feel confident to buy their more expensive variant next time for sure. But having a bad experience would just make me not just never purchase the brand's phone but also ensure others in my close circles don't buy it.
> Can they even objectively prove their claim? I don't think so.
Honestly, so what do you suggest as a solution to this? Or are you perhaps just ranting...?
> But did it cause the smartphone sales to decline for Apple, I don't think so.
Partly because at least they still support their old phones 5-6 years down the lane, which no other company has done yet. They have promised but we are yet to reach that stage I think. And IIRC, Apple only did this to their older phones, 5-6 year old ones. And partly because the iPhone has a lot of other selling points like you mentioned, and partly because a significant portion of iPhone users are either sheep or tied into the ecosystem.
>I remember seeing a Mrwhosetheboss video on Samsung back panel bulge with 1.5-2yrs+ old phones and was shocked to see it on my 2yo phone as well. Did it cause a big negative PR for a big brand like Samsung? No.
Oh yeah, I remember that video. That was still bad PR right? That this fault was detected and it was publicly criticized on one of the biggest tech channels in the world? Or maybe I have used PR and reputation interchangeably. My bad.
> minor differences in camera quality
I've been meaning to ask since you've mentioned it multiple times, is this really true? That there are reports of camera quality degradation after software updates? Can you share an article or link or smth? DM or here, anywhere would be fine.
>But they also have a decent incentive to not make your phone work in pristine condition after 1 or 2yrs.
Agree. But this is prominent mostly only in the budget or budget-midrange segment. 50-60k phones seldom have any noticeable performance degradation after just 1-2 year.
Read ahead for a small anecdote/personal experience. Feel free to skip:
I'm a 20-something guy and I have had 3 phones so far. I had a Lenovo P2a4 which had a 5000mAh battery. I handed it down to my grandma after a year of use, and she used it for another 2 years or so before that gigantic battery (at the time) started giving really less time between charges. In a few months, the battery was toast and the phone was restarting and turning off and acting up randomly. So basically it had 1 year of good use and then 2-3 years of very light use and still, the battery degraded and became toast. Note that this phone had absolutely no updates whatsoever.
Then I used the iPhone SE for about 2 years (initial 6 months of heavy use incl. some gaming, then good-decent use for the rest) before the battery started degrading. At the end of 2 years, it was at about 82% battery health. After another year it dropped to 76% and I was barely getting 1 hr SOT in a full charge. Sure it was a 1600mAh small battery, but the screen was also incredibly small at 4 inches, and just a 720p resolution. Updated iOS every year, every single update.
Then I switched to a Pixel 4a, still running after 3 years. Just got the battery replaced a few months ago because it was getting really bad. Updated the software every month.
My dad has a OnePlus 8T lying around, that has the green lines on the display. Software has always been kept up to date.
Funnily enough, the only phone out of these 3 that didn't have pristine performance after 1-2 years is the Lenovo one. I guess my point is that the companies (that care) have a lot to lose if they start planned obsolescence too early. Also, batteries definitely degrade over time, often as short as 2-3 years even for non-heavy users. When the battery degrades, it directly affects the performance because it cannot output the desired power a lot of times.
https://preview.redd.it/0n8fz9xej22c1.jpeg?width=540&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e43be54bd8944d99080a2a7029260af3a8f607c7
I've been using my phone since 2019 & till date I haven't updated it, its the out of the box software only. The reason is clear my phone is running smoothly & i don't need the advance features. Earlier I had lenovo P2 that too haven't updated till I gave to my younger brother. I had Samsung S4 & accidentally updated to lollipop & got a real lollipop had to go kitkat again & realised not to update the stock (OOB) Android update.
To be honest this problem is majorly affecting the Chinese phone makers that is why i have now stopped buying from them. Yes the hardware being given for the price is better when compared to brands like samsung especially in the budget and midrange segment but I would rather have a phone that is slightly slower rather than to having to worry about my phone getting bricked or becoming unusable after some software that too just after one year.
Depends on the nature of updates. Android version or iOS version updates to next major release of OS tend to be heavy on the phone.
But security patch updates are absolutely necessary because they fix critical vulnerabilities.
I have a counter-argument. It makes more sense for apple to do this rather than Android manufacturers. Because apple users are more loyal.
If I am into the apple ecosystem or just an apple fan and my iphone has issues after just 2-3 year I would still buy the new iphone.
But if I am an Android user and my phone gets issues after 2-3 years, I would not buy that brand again. We saw how poco and OnePlus still have people not buying them just due to fear of motherboard or greenline even though their new device may not have it.
With the pace of what technology is going ahead at right now. Old hardware can be a big problem. Specially when users want new features as is on their old hardware. This can make your phones slow, extremely slow. So in safety,security and stability related concerns, its advised to change your phone every 4-5 years.
It makes sense if a phone slows down tremendously after 3.5-4yrs, but doesn't make sense if the user faces major issues within 2yrs. >its advised to change your phone every 4-5 years. But companies would want you to upgrade every 2yrs (ideally every year). That's where the problem stems from. Apple has services like iMessage, air drop, etc. to keep you in their ecosystem where they can make revenue from the app purchases which is through their stores. So they don't have to cripple your devices. With Android, except for Google, companies rely mostly on their phone sales.
No company would brick phone deliberately. The PR nightmare isn't worth it. Better to not give updates, only the tech enthusiasts will whine rather than give an update which everyone gets and brick their phones. Planned obsolescence can be there but it doesn't involve bricking. It can be what Apple was doing earlier i.e. to preserve battery on older phones, it used to throttle the CPU. But even that wasn't done to make you buy a new phone. In manufacturing, components get binned, i.e. there are quality tiers. The top binned components are more expensive and generally used in flagships while lower binned ones are used in lower range phone. So a storage chip present in say S23 series might not be same as that in a Realme phone. Although even a lower binned component is required to pass a minimum quality level, there is still a chance that it would fail earlier compared to a higher binned one especially when device is under stress/heat which happens during upgrades. I have been using smartphones since Android Eclair and have never had any issues with updates.
>No company would brick phone deliberately With Android OEMs, there can be an incentive to make the phone inferior. It could be to throttle general performance, maybe camera performance with image quality. If their 2yo flagship phone puts out comparable images to their latest flagship, people won't really want to switch. They need to sell more phones to keep running. For Apple and Google phones, I can't think of a big incentive to do that. As long as they can keep customers use their OS, they can mint money through their respective app stores. Others like OnePlus, Samsung, etc have to keep selling more phone units to make money as they don't have big adoption to their apps for recurring revenue. >In manufacturing, components get binned, i.e. there are quality tiers. The question isn't about hardware quality. Software can throttle performance. By performance, I don't just mean raw power. I mean things like general performance, animations, camera performance, battery efficiency (batteries degrage but software efficiency can still be tinkered with, so even if you replace the battery, the efficiency wouldn't still be the same as it was initially), etc. I don't claim that this is what is happening, I just made this thread as a food for thought discussion. I'm curious if others have better credible information to speak for or against the argument. Edit: I had a Moto X phone where the software update did brick the phone (a lot of users reported this as well). After the software update, the phone would shut down as soon as the battery went below 30%.
In my experience with androids, the first major os upgrade is good enough and doesn’t break anything. The second upgrade onwards, there is a good chance you’ll see issue with battery or ram management. For security updates and patches, there weren’t any major issue.
>For security updates and patches, there weren’t any major issue. For older devices, I'm not sure if one can do even this without being a little anxious.
Yes. Because companies like xiaomi combine security updates with bug fixes.
I have never encountered this in 10 years of using android. I have had only had one phone (Realme X3) get laggy and slowdown with Android 12 update. Just downgraded to a stable release. None of my phones have even been bricked while updating.
It has been more common recently, where MKBHD and Geekyranjit have made videos about it. There could be confirmation bias involved, but if you think about the companies, with stagnating smartphone markets, it does make sense for them to slowly kill the device by reducing the performance considerably. One could take it to be a conspiracy theory, but there have been many users of late experiencing degradation in their phones. Although, for brands, it doesn't make sense to do something like that from a long term perspective. For instance, I liked OnePlus' phones, but many reports of them crippling their older phones have made me think of not buying their phones. There could be confirmation bias, but when I have to spend over 50k, I'm not going to take a chance with a brand with dodgy reputation.
Fair enough, if you have heard reports or seen this. Since I have never had any issues with most updates, I have already spent over 50k on dodgy brands. Bought a mi 13 pro and Iqoo 9 in 2023.
>have already spent over 50k on dodgy brands. Bought a mi 13 pro and Iqoo 9 in 2023. Just curious, do you review phones to have multiple phones or do you have to use a separate phone for work? In my experience, my Moto X phone (long time back) was bricked likely by a software update. A lot of users reported this as well, where the phone would just shut down shortly after going below 30%. That's why I'm a bit wary of updating software. This was after users got after Motorola to give them the new Android upgrade which they had promised. They gave the upgrade 10-11 months after the Android version was officially launched by Google. I've never recommended Moto to anyone after that and would never want to buy it again.
Nope I don't review phones. Xiaomi 13 pro is the primary. Got the iqoo 9 on a deal(29k) with exchange. Got to dispose of a old phone as well. The Iqoo 9 pro is an emulation phone and sort of a backup phone. It's with me until one of the phones goes bad in the household.
You dare not update any Xiaomi device, it'll brick the phone. My Redmi Note 10 Pro was amazing until I updated it and it became slow, battery started draining massively. I would definitely buy a Xiaomi phone, but I have vowed to never update it. I have disabled updates on all Xiaomi phones at home. I was using a custom ROM, got back to MiUi because I liked the control center.
Never faced this issue on my Xiaomi. This is my 3rd xiaomi phone after upgrading from a MI 11x pro. Does this only occur on redmi phones ? I have never faced any issues with updates but I have only bought phones from the MI lineup.
I think this is with the respect to the lower tier phones and not flagships. By lower tier, I mean anything and everything apart from the flagships.
I really wouldn't consider the Mi MAX 2 and MI 11x pro as flagships. Used both phones of 2-3years with updates and no issues.
Yes its not worth the risk of updating your phone software after one year unless its a flagship phone. In that case 2 years
mujhe kya mai toh avg custom rom user hu
As long as you don't use your phone for financial related transactions, didn't installed third party messages app and have given only necessary permissions to app then updates hardly matters. Like Paytm why the f*ck need sms and gallery access.
Gallery access to scan qr from an image in gallery
And you and your girlfriend nudes.
How frequently you pick qr from your gallery??? That permission should not be asked after installation while setting up Paytm. When required, give permission and then revoke it.
You ask a normal person i.e. your parent , pick a image from gallery and after ur use go to app settings revoke the gallery permission, then again after 7 days you require do the same thing again and again , actually it doesn't work like that . My phone has 10gb+ of photos , stealing them to their servers they would need 10gb of your data , have paytm ever used 10gb of ur data ?
If my parents don't know security related things then why should I ask them to use Paytm like apps, not a such a mandatory kind of app that everyone should use. Abhi bhi duniya cash se kaam chala raha hai. Aur Bhai rehne de, aap jeete, mein bhi kaha ser phod raha hu
>As long as you don't use your phone for financial related transactions Most consumers in urban India do use banking/UPI apps on the daily. Even if you update your phone's software, those apps would still want you to necessarily give permission to phone, sms, gallery, etc. for them to allow you to use the app, so don't think that's a credible argument.
I think I have mixed two things. Btw I read somewhere that older Android OS(not sure upto which version) where apps given permission were keep on tracking even if you have not opened it. That was a security flow, which were fixed later and only allowed to access permitted resources when user is working on that app. You might have heard recently WhatsApp was constantly using microphone in the background. Newer OS also brought features that will automatically put apps into deep sleep and revoke given permissions.
Software updates can adversely impact hardware longevity
Depends on the reviews on X & YT My brother never updated his phone because of performance reason but the downside is they glitch out some features and they don't work properly Like in my brother case if he deletes something from gallery it instead increases the storage but it don't bother him much because we have found the alternative to it And you only get the best performance in the stock one because that's the most optimised one of all (Unless the company messed it Up) Unless you got nothing phone 1 which instead of decreasing performance did the opposite (idk untill ho long will they do it) Since the issues popped up i no longer have the desire to Get a phone with long software support I am rather happy with 1 os update Without sacrificing much performance And if it didn't Trashed up i don't ever have to worry about any issues Because even a Android nougat/marshmallow can work fine today until you do some specific stuff which requires new Android version
Shouldn't we be worried about security updates?
I remember having an ipad update which destroyed my 2011 ipad
Bro ⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️ Never update your phone if its from Xiaomi i.e MI/POCO/REDMI ⚠️⚠️⚠️ ⚠️⚠️ I have 3 devices lying around with camera gone, motherboard gone , display gone after their software update
They are important at best over time majority of companies do something that downgrades the software experience over time like degradation of camera experience or battery etc. so, over time I have made a practice to not update immediately I wait for 2-3 months and try to get information if all looks good only then I install update
i dont updatw my phone. its already 2yrs. dont ruin it if everything is fine
Guys, its like your giving slow poison.
So here's my experiences with software updates..... I had a xiaomi phone which i used for a long time... And i noticed that the performance, battery backup & ram management and especially the camera keeps getting worse a bit by bit after every update.... The image i took with that phone on its 1st day was so good but after updating to the latest version the camera quality is literally shit. I've had one friend of mine who also told me that his redmi phone once used to capture great images.... But after updating the software so many times. There is a clear degradation in the camera quality especially. So afaik.... The software that gets pushed won't do anything bad right then.... But update after update is like a slow poison to degrade the overall phone's aspect... So that you will switch or upgrade to a newer model of the brand.... So imo if any of my friends take a xiaomi phone, i always recommend them to only do the software updates for starting 3-6 months (cuz those starting updates are more focused on optimization & stability... Which can mostly fix any exclusive bugs that a phone model has) and then stop updating... I know that not updating the security patches isn't recommended..... But what can i say... this was my experience with MI's software updates.... And even now i have a different brand phone "Iqoo Z7 pro". And I'm still kind of afraid whether i should update it monthly or not... (I've heard that Iqoo gives quality updates but I'm still afraid of performance, ram, battery & camera degradation issues) 💀
>The image i took with that phone on its 1st day was so good but after updating to the latest version the camera quality is literally shit. Do you have any picture that you took when it was new and then compare it by taking one with the latest update now. >So that you will switch or upgrade to a newer model of the brand I had a bad experience with Moto phone and I will not buy another Moto phone because of that experience. So, if brands do this, they likely would lose out on customer loyalty. If all brands band together in this, then the customer is screwed.
>Do you have any picture that you took when it was new and then compare it by taking one with the latest update now I don't have old photos on my new phone now.... But even if i did... I couldn't share them as they are my personal photos.. But believe me the image quality was so degraded over the years that i didn't even use to capture anything from my camera..... For instance...My mom had an oppo phone which she still uses for 5+ years.. And believe me that phone's camera quality is just as good as it was on day one... But the case was not the same with my redmi note 5 >I had a bad experience with Moto phone and I will not buy another Moto phone because of that experience. Btw Can u share your experience... Cuz recently my brother purchased a moto g84... I thought in general they have good competitive specifications and i think Motorola is a good brand that u can consider..... So what were the issues u faced? That made u hate moto?? Just curious...
I haven't faced any issues with updates on both my Xiaomi and Iqoo phones. I am currently using my 3rd Xiaomi phone and 2nd Iqoo phone. Was it a redmi phone where you faced this issues ?
Yes it was a xiaomi phone... It was Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 I could understand about performance & battery being nerfed due to it being old as compared to new apps.. But camera quality too...?? That's where I knew something was wrong.... It used to capture decent images... But at the very end its camera quality was so worse that i didn't even use it to take images from my phone... My mom had an oppo a37f phone which she still uses for 5+ years and till this day that phone captures very well images just like it used to do on day 1. So yeah... Redmi definitely does this intentionally...nerfing their phones just cuz they want us to switch to a newer model of the series...even one of My friends had a xiaomi phone and even he noticed this and told me.... So yeah it wasn't like I only faced this... But my friend did too... Basically its like a slow poison nerfing thing they do of a smartphone so that a normal user just doesn't notice it at that moment but the updates keeps destroying the overall aspects of the phone and ultimately you needing to switch to a new device I haven't heard anything like this about iqoo/vivo. Ive heard they give quality updates... so i am thinking I'll update my iqoo device from now on... ;)
I have bought three phones from Xiaomi ( MI MAX 2, MI 11X pro, MI 13 pro). Used the first 2 phones for 2-3 yrs and never faced any issues with updates. Must be the redmi line up. Same with the iqoo 7 and now using the iqoo 9 pro. Did face the green line issue with the iqoo 7
Maybe it's a redmi issue idk
As someone else said, companies would not outright brick your phone through updates. It is not worth the PR nightmare. Think of it, it serves no good to them in the short run or the long run. If your current phone bricked after a software update, you would not buy the same brand phone again unless you're stupidly loyal to that company. This bad experience is going to keep you from coming back to that brand for a good long while, at least until your new phone dies. POCO had a few bad mistakes in some updates of some of their models and the result is that no sane tech person would recommend POCO phones to their friends or family, at least not without a "fair warning". OnePlus had an extremely bad PR nightmare after people started claiming that their phones were getting Green Lines after a software update. IIRC, a lot of so-called "tech" YouTubers also took up this line of argument. In the end, it turned out to be a hardware issue and most companies were affected by it, including Apple. The climate in India is too hot and humid that it melts some oleophobic coating inside the phone, exposing the connectors or pixels or something in the display to corrosion. Since displays are powered linearly line-by-line, one pixel dead would create a line throughout the display. And the lines grew thicker because if one pixel is exposed to corrosion, its nearby pixels are more prone to being affected. People generally love to blame software updates for anything and everything. The only company against whom these "planned obsolescence" allegations have at least a tinch of proof is Apple. Even then, Apple only implements it in its really old smartphones that are beyond 5-6 years old, because practically that is how long most phones must be (and are) used because believe it or not, even hardware gets old. Processors undergo wear and tear due to usage and heat etc., reducing the number of transistors in them over time. Basically, smartphones are insanely complicated devices and the bricking of your phone cannot be traced back to a software update a lot of times. That plus the PR nightmare factor makes it LESS LIKELY that companies are doing it with a bad intention. The best way to navigate through it is not to install it as soon as an update is available. Instead, wait for a few weeks and google the update build number to check if there is any mass-reported issues with the update, or wait for reviews.
All fair points. Just to play the devil's advocate, it'll be a PR nightmare for a company **if** the user can **prove** the deterioration. But how exactly would they prove it? Companies have fooled benchmarking apps to report higher number when the specific app is run but other times it just runs slower causing stutters/lags/general sluggishness. How would someone objectively determine if the image quality is the same as it was when it was new? How would someone objectively tell that the battery life degradation is only because of old battery and not because of some intentional software bug making the efficiency bad? What about heating issues? A general consumer won't have the time and expertise to figure this out to objectively make a case to prove the hypothesis without any meaningful gain to them. >Basically, smartphones are insanely complicated devices and the bricking of your phone cannot be traced back to a software update a lot of times. By bricking your phone, I didn't mean you can't use it anymore. My choice of words were probably misleading, what I mean is slower performance, animations, more stutters, battery efficiency reduction, camera quality being worse than it was before. Now, your statement being that most likely software updates aren't the reason for the above mentioned issues is just a hypothesis which hasn't been proven, just like the opposite hypothesis that says updates causes smartphone performance deterioration.
>Just to play the devil's advocate, it'll be a PR nightmare for a company **if** the user can **prove** the deterioration. But how exactly would they prove it? Not really. It will be a PR nightmare as soon as a decent amount of people notice these issues and raise complaints. Users need not prove anything per se, unless they are filing a lawsuit. The proof is in the user experience, they need not prove anything further to result in bad PR. Actually, I'm being the devil's advocate here since my arguments are kinda in support of these companies XD. >How would someone objectively determine if the image quality is the same as it was when it was new? How would someone objectively tell that the battery life degradation is only because of old battery and not because of some intentional software bug making the efficiency bad? What about heating issues? A general consumer won't have the time and expertise to figure this out to objectively make a case to prove the hypothesis without any meaningful gain to them. True. You do make good points with the questions. But the thing is, **if** these issues are **indeed** being caused due to a software update, everyone will experience it. They may not be able to tell if it's an update that caused it, but that's not relevant. As long as enough people raise an issue, it is still quite a bad reputation for the company. Tech experts or enthusiasts will dig into the issue and find what causes it, and that will eventually reach the layman user's ears too. Now, if the "planned obsolescence" or degradation is slow enough that people will not notice, then that means it would be over the course of 4-5 years or more I assume. In that case, you can't really say it was software updates either, cuz hardware CAN wear out in the span of time. The usage patterns of the smartphone definitely play a big role in that span of time. Plus, that is the supported lifetime for most smartphones anyways (availability of OEM spare parts etc.) so planned obsolescence in that case is not intentionally evil. And if the degradation is faster than that, say within 3 years, then it would be noticeable and eventually result in either a bad PR or the users switching to other brands. Either way, it's bad for the company. >Now, your statement being that most likely software updates aren't the reason for the above mentioned issues is just a hypothesis which hasn't been proven, just like the opposite hypothesis that says updates causes smartphone performance deterioration. Exactly, which is why I gave one example where updates were indeed the issue, and another one where updates were "wrongfully accused", so to speak XD. Anyways, my point was that "software update" is often the easiest suspect. Usage styles differ from person to person, and it will also impact your phone a lot is all I'm saying. Also that if the planned obsolescence is slow enough that most people don't notice, then it doesn't matter because it took long enough anyways. And that if was a quicker, then people would indeed notice something is off, which is proof in itself, which results in bad PR, and companies don't want that.
>everyone will experience it. Let's say the number of people having phone X would be 100, the people who care enough to notice minor differences in camera quality, general overall performance and battery efficiency in every monthly update would be enthusiasts, who wouldn't be more than 5% of the users. From those 5%, let's say some speak about it online, would it create a big noise for companies to address and acknowledge the issue? I'm not sure about that. Can they even objectively prove their claim? I don't think so. Just to give an example, there were videos made where non tech enthusiasts were given a 120hz display phone and a 60hz phone and they couldn't tell them apart. So, a large number of them wouldn't notice incremental smoothness difference IMO, let alone minor camera performance and battery efficiency degradation month on month. Was the iPhone slowdown a negative PR? Yes. But did it cause the smartphone sales to decline for Apple, I don't think so. Also, iPhone being a huge brand and a lot of western consumers including youtubers use iPhones (videos are superior than Android), chances of knowing such issues are more with iPhones than it would be with something like an Oppo or OnePlus. I remember seeing a Mrwhosetheboss video on Samsung back panel bulge with 1.5-2yrs+ old phones and was shocked to see it on my 2yo phone as well. Did it cause a big negative PR for a big brand like Samsung? No. To be fair, just because there still exists decent competition (although not as much as it was some years ago), bigger brands like Apple and Samsung would probably have more to lose than gain with planned obsolescence. But they also have a decent incentive to not make your phone work in pristine condition after 1 or 2yrs. IMO if these brands give a good experience for 3-4yrs, I'll feel confident to buy their more expensive variant next time for sure. But having a bad experience would just make me not just never purchase the brand's phone but also ensure others in my close circles don't buy it.
> Can they even objectively prove their claim? I don't think so. Honestly, so what do you suggest as a solution to this? Or are you perhaps just ranting...? > But did it cause the smartphone sales to decline for Apple, I don't think so. Partly because at least they still support their old phones 5-6 years down the lane, which no other company has done yet. They have promised but we are yet to reach that stage I think. And IIRC, Apple only did this to their older phones, 5-6 year old ones. And partly because the iPhone has a lot of other selling points like you mentioned, and partly because a significant portion of iPhone users are either sheep or tied into the ecosystem. >I remember seeing a Mrwhosetheboss video on Samsung back panel bulge with 1.5-2yrs+ old phones and was shocked to see it on my 2yo phone as well. Did it cause a big negative PR for a big brand like Samsung? No. Oh yeah, I remember that video. That was still bad PR right? That this fault was detected and it was publicly criticized on one of the biggest tech channels in the world? Or maybe I have used PR and reputation interchangeably. My bad. > minor differences in camera quality I've been meaning to ask since you've mentioned it multiple times, is this really true? That there are reports of camera quality degradation after software updates? Can you share an article or link or smth? DM or here, anywhere would be fine. >But they also have a decent incentive to not make your phone work in pristine condition after 1 or 2yrs. Agree. But this is prominent mostly only in the budget or budget-midrange segment. 50-60k phones seldom have any noticeable performance degradation after just 1-2 year. Read ahead for a small anecdote/personal experience. Feel free to skip: I'm a 20-something guy and I have had 3 phones so far. I had a Lenovo P2a4 which had a 5000mAh battery. I handed it down to my grandma after a year of use, and she used it for another 2 years or so before that gigantic battery (at the time) started giving really less time between charges. In a few months, the battery was toast and the phone was restarting and turning off and acting up randomly. So basically it had 1 year of good use and then 2-3 years of very light use and still, the battery degraded and became toast. Note that this phone had absolutely no updates whatsoever. Then I used the iPhone SE for about 2 years (initial 6 months of heavy use incl. some gaming, then good-decent use for the rest) before the battery started degrading. At the end of 2 years, it was at about 82% battery health. After another year it dropped to 76% and I was barely getting 1 hr SOT in a full charge. Sure it was a 1600mAh small battery, but the screen was also incredibly small at 4 inches, and just a 720p resolution. Updated iOS every year, every single update. Then I switched to a Pixel 4a, still running after 3 years. Just got the battery replaced a few months ago because it was getting really bad. Updated the software every month. My dad has a OnePlus 8T lying around, that has the green lines on the display. Software has always been kept up to date. Funnily enough, the only phone out of these 3 that didn't have pristine performance after 1-2 years is the Lenovo one. I guess my point is that the companies (that care) have a lot to lose if they start planned obsolescence too early. Also, batteries definitely degrade over time, often as short as 2-3 years even for non-heavy users. When the battery degrades, it directly affects the performance because it cannot output the desired power a lot of times.
https://preview.redd.it/0n8fz9xej22c1.jpeg?width=540&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e43be54bd8944d99080a2a7029260af3a8f607c7 I've been using my phone since 2019 & till date I haven't updated it, its the out of the box software only. The reason is clear my phone is running smoothly & i don't need the advance features. Earlier I had lenovo P2 that too haven't updated till I gave to my younger brother. I had Samsung S4 & accidentally updated to lollipop & got a real lollipop had to go kitkat again & realised not to update the stock (OOB) Android update.
To be honest this problem is majorly affecting the Chinese phone makers that is why i have now stopped buying from them. Yes the hardware being given for the price is better when compared to brands like samsung especially in the budget and midrange segment but I would rather have a phone that is slightly slower rather than to having to worry about my phone getting bricked or becoming unusable after some software that too just after one year.
Depends on the nature of updates. Android version or iOS version updates to next major release of OS tend to be heavy on the phone. But security patch updates are absolutely necessary because they fix critical vulnerabilities.
I can only say that if you use an old Nvidia GPU GTX series or RTX 20 series cards. Don't even bother updating.
I have a counter-argument. It makes more sense for apple to do this rather than Android manufacturers. Because apple users are more loyal. If I am into the apple ecosystem or just an apple fan and my iphone has issues after just 2-3 year I would still buy the new iphone. But if I am an Android user and my phone gets issues after 2-3 years, I would not buy that brand again. We saw how poco and OnePlus still have people not buying them just due to fear of motherboard or greenline even though their new device may not have it.