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by notanaverageman 983 days ago
For a large group of people, lifespan of a phone is the same as the lifespan of the battery. They complain that the phone gets slower day by day, but they don’t know what causes it. Most of them come up with deleting WhatsApp messages so that the storage will be freed and phone will get faster.

Showing a persistent notification that “the battery has degraded and should be replaced” can increase the average lifespan of a smart phone significantly. These people don’t really care about shiny new apps or security patches. They just call people and send messages on WhatsApp. And maybe do some browsing on Facebook.

On iPhones, if the battery is degraded at least it drains up quickly and this hints that there is a problem with the battery. However, on most Android phones even 4-5 years old batteries last at least a day and they do so by reducing the CPU clock speed significantly. I know that Apple got fined for doing this in the past, but I haven’t heard any Android brand got fined for the same thing.

As anecdata, I have replaced the battery of my iPhone 6S at least three times and I will probably replace it again in a few months. And the phone is still very much usable.

1 comments

Reduced speed with degraded battery doesn't only happen for phones unfortunately. My Lenovo laptop is painfully slow when unplugged. I thought something is broken, but Lenovo told me it's because the battery is degraded. The consequences are similar as with phones: The battery can't be easily changed and the costs for letting it be changed by Lenovo are not worth it considering the age of the laptop. So I'll likely live with it until I'm annoyed enough to buy a new one.
Also with some gaming laptops just cant provide the power output from the battery so needs to be plugged in for full performance.