People on the internet (or at least the ones that only read headlines) were outraged these last few days to find out that recent iPhones have a feature which slows down the CPU when the phone is in very cold or hot environment or when the battery is getting old and can not support high peaks in CPU needs. During those times, the phone will run a little slower so that battery is now exhausted and the phone can stay operational for a longer period of time.
Apple has become a love/hate target for a lot of people, and a common source for click-bait material for tech media, so this was not entirely unexpected.
Still, this morning I’m finding interesting this part of yesterday’s review of the new Microsoft Surface Book 2 laptop by respected tech site Anandtech:
The 100-Watt AC adapter included with the Surface Book 2 is not quite powerful enough to keep the system fully charged under a high load such as this, so you can see there is some power draw from the battery (the green line in the chart) which is leveraged to make up the difference. Over time, the battery drops to about 95% charge, at which time the system drops the GPU clock a bit to prevent draining the battery any further. Not all games are going to run into this issue, but certain games will require more power from the GPU and CPU than the power input can handle. However, the battery will never completely be drained, as the system doesn’t let it get out of control.
Basically, we have a laptop that can not stay fully charged even when plugged in into a power socket, if you happen to you play a high-end game. When that happens, Windows kicks in and slows down the GPU. Keep in mind, the Suface Book 2 is a $2499-$3200 laptop.
Looking forward to seeing similar outrage from the internet. :)
Also published on Medium.
Tags: Apple, batteries, Internet, Microsoft, technology
