Google’s New Pixel 4a Update Is Going To Lower Battery Life For Some Owners

6 days ago

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Google has announced that it is shipping an unexpected update to Pixel 4A phones this week. According to Ars Technica, nan institution emailed Pixel 4A owners to show them nan update will reside artillery capacity stableness but that their batteries whitethorn not past arsenic agelong aft it’s applied.

Google repeats that successful a caller thief page titled “Pixel 4a Battery Performance Program,” wherever it writes that it had noticed issues pinch “some” Pixel 4A phones.

From January 8, 2025, Pixel 4a devices will personification an automatic package update to Android 13. After nan package update is downloaded, your instrumentality will restart automatically to usage nan update. For immoderate devices (“Impacted Devices”), nan update includes caller artillery guidance features to amended nan stableness of your battery’s performance, truthful nan artillery whitethorn past for shorter periods betwixt charges. Users of Impacted Devices whitethorn too announcement different changes, for illustration reduced charging capacity aliases changes to really nan battery-level parameter connected your telephone shows your artillery capacity.

We want our customers to personification nan champion imaginable acquisition pinch their products, truthful users of these Impacted Devices are eligible for an appeasement from Google.

Not each Pixel 4a devices are impacted by nan simplification successful artillery capacity and charging performance, truthful if your instrumentality is not impacted nan artillery will execute nan aforesaid arsenic before, and you will not beryllium eligible for an appeasement.

Besides having small runtime, nan update could mean “reduced charging performance” aliases alteration really nan telephone shows artillery capacity. Google hasn’t been circumstantial astir what’s down nan issue, but nan circumstances are akin to Apple’s iPhone “batterygate” messiness successful 2017. Apple said its package slowed down iPhones pinch aging batteries to forestall accidental shutdowns, but it didn’t walk customers astir why their devices had reduced capacity and ended up pinch hundreds of millions successful tribunal colony payments.

In this case, Google is too offering owners pinch affected 4A devices their premier of compensation: They tin opt for a free artillery swap, a $50 payday, aliases a $100 successful installments toward a caller Pixel telephone from its online store. 4A owners tin participate their IMEI number connected this page to find retired if theirs is affected.

Google didn’t instantly respond to our questions astir why nan 4A, which hasn’t been updated since precocious 2023, needs this attraction now.