wccftech OnePlus Says It Will Not Bring a 7-Year Update To Its Phones, Because The Hardware Will Simply Not Keep Up

[bonami2]

Quote

OnePlus says that just because a company promises seven years of updates does not mean that the software experience will be the same; President also talks about eventual battery degradation

In an interview with Tom’s Guide, Kinder Liu, head of OnePlus, said that offering longer software updates ‘completely misses the point.’ While it is commendable that companies like Samsung and Google are making an effort to roll out the latest version of Android on previous-generation smartphones, it will hardly make a difference if the user experience is not the same. The OnePlus executive states that in addition to the software updates, the fluency of smartphones is just as important.

OnePlus Says It Will Not Bring a 7-Year Update Support Plan To Its Phones, Because The Hardware Will Simply Not Keep Up With The Features

WCCFTECH.COM

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OnePlus President says the company will not bring seven years' of updates to phones because the hardware will not match the new features

 

 

 

This assertion seems far from accurate in my experience. Having avidly followed hardware trends and delved into specifications for years, it's evident that smartphone manufacturers have been increasing lithium battery voltage for quite some time. This ostensibly boosts capacity marginally while significantly compromising the battery lifespan—a clever ploy for planned obsolescence. However, let's not be swayed by these misleading claims.

Modern smartphones are, without a doubt, technologically advanced and often overpowered for the average user. The capability to handle 4k and even 8k output is commonplace. In fact, these devices can effortlessly support multiple concurrent applications like YouTube, Chrome, and others without any noticeable lag. Remarkably, in some cases, they even outperform Windows 11 on high-end hardware. It's clear that the hardware has surpassed the needs of 99% of users in today's technological landscape.

 

Mr.Bonami

 

 

 

 

 

[Andrew]

Software issue, not hardware issue. To be more specific, cost issue and them not wanting to pay for the software devs to support hardware that long. Apple manage fine with 6 years worth of feature updates and a further 2 years of security updates.

 

 

[bonami2]

16 minutes ago, Andrew said:

Software issue, not hardware issue. To be more specific, cost issue and them not wanting to pay for the software devs to support hardware that long. Apple manage fine with 6 years worth of feature updates and a further 2 years of security updates.

 

 

Newer Chromebook will have 10y now too!

 

Chromebooks will soon get 10 years of automatic updates - The Verge

WWW.THEVERGE.COM

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Plus, updates to the Chromebook repair program.

 

[speed_demon]

Interesting. I'm still on my ancient pixel 3 XL and aside from the battery it's been running pretty good for me. Considering its age I'd say it fared pretty well over time.

 

Also agreed it's a money thing. They probably also expect a little bump in sales from people needing something newer once they stop getting security updates.

[ozlay]

I kind of agree with oneplus. If they are talking about cheaper phones. I have seen some phones with 3-4 gigs of ram getting really slow with later android updates. But if you buy a flagship with 12-16GB of ram or more. And with the latest CPU. It should be fine for much longer. So i think flagships should come with longer software updates. Their cheaper phones maybe not. I would expect most phones to come with 8gigs or more now. But i don't think 16GB of ram will be nearly enough in 7 years.

 

My old oneplus 5 had 8gigs of ram and should of easily supported android 14. About 7 years later. I only upgraded because i wanted a better carrier. But now i upgrade every 2 years. Because i get bored. Why can't anyone make a 5.5-inch flagship with the latest snapdragon. Why does a phone have to be massive.

Edited February 10 by ozlay

[bonami2]

2 hours ago, ozlay said:

I kind of agree with oneplus. If they are talking about cheaper phones. I have seen some phones with 3-4 gigs of ram getting really slow with later android updates. But if you buy a flagship with 12-16GB of ram or more. And with the latest CPU. It should be fine for much longer. So i think flagships should come with longer software updates. Their cheaper phones maybe not. I would expect most phones to come with 8gigs or more now. But i don't think 16GB of ram will be nearly enough in 7 years.

 

My old oneplus 5 had 8gigs of ram and should of easily supported android 14. About 7 years later. I only upgraded because i wanted a better carrier. But now i upgrade every 2 years. Because i get bored. Why can't anyone make a 5.5-inch flagship with the latest snapdragon. Why does a phone have to be massive.

I had during covid a lenovo duet 5 tablet laptop with chromeos. With 4gb ram and was able to run both youtube and chrome and discord and everything without any lag. And that with a 1080p oled display.

 

The only reason those phone lag is because the phone company is releasing unoptimised garbage to push you to upgrade.

 

I ran my fx 8300 at 4.8ghz with only 4gb ram and a ssd windows 11 super smoothly and even run battlefield 4 maxed out in 4k.   SSD cache was fast enough to prevent any issue.

Sure i was using my 6800xt with 16gb vram so it help. But still impressive.

Edited February 10 by bonami2

[Snakecharmed]

I kind of get what the head of OnePlus is saying, but I don't know if it really matters one way or another to all but a tiny segment of users. The average user replaces their phones every 2.5-3 years. The longest I've stuck with a phone is 4 years. Using the same phone for 7 years was historically excessive. Ever since battery compartments became sealed for dubious reasons, 7 years is practically unfathomable. I don't think it has much to do with software updates though.

 

I've rooted all the Android phones I've ever had, and I never cared for having the latest version of Android in the first place. Back when I was using HTC phones, the version of Android I had them on hardly mattered because it was all about which modded ROM you were using.

 

When I started using LG phones, debloated stock ROMs based on the factory-shipped version of Android were the best option for preserving all of the phones' unique features. Newer versions of Android always screwed up some core functionality of the phones, so I prevented my carrier from pushing updates by leaving the bootloader unlocked and unloading any services that could create any update nag screens.

 

All that is to say despite all that I did to prevent updates, lag would always creep in over time even without updating to a newer version of Android. The only exceptions are my current phone powered by a Snapdragon 865 and current tablet powered by a Snapdragon 835. I don't know if it's because Android 10+ has better garbage collection or the SoCs since the 835 are powerful enough to overcome the degree of performance degradation apparent to the average user, much like how SSDs did that for PCs.

 

I still have a pair of Snapdragon 820 phones on Android 7 and they are about as healthy as French bulldogs, which is to say they're a pair of lagopotamuses that are useless for anything other than playing music and having a removable battery. That puts the 835 from 2017 as the oldest flagship SoC that I still consider usable in 2024, but for a phone, I would have upgraded to something newer sooner anyway.

 

As far as having access to the updates themselves, the last few versions of Android haven't offered anything groundbreaking. Back when it was still in the single digits and users knew them better by dessert name, every release would bring major quality-of-life improvements. Nowadays, I don't know why anyone other than the most fanatical Android goobers even care.

 

That leaves the security aspect of having an updated version of Android. I pay as much attention to that as I do to antivirus software: I don't.

 

The only relevance software updates have for me is that I can still run all the apps I need. Despite my previous phone beginning to lag noticeably in the months prior to getting a new one, it was a number of apps dropping support for Android 7 that really got me to upgrade.