For Samsung, it was probably one of the biggest setbacks since the scandal surrounding the exploding Galaxy Note 7: technology experts announced at the beginning of March 2022 that the manufacturer was deliberately throttling the performance of its high-end smartphones in the Galaxy S series – presumably to artificially increase the battery life extend. While benchmark tests to determine performance are running at full steam, games and apps are only played back with the handbrake on. Customers feel cheated and threaten a class action lawsuit. South Korean consumer protection also wants to investigate deliberate fraud. The benchmark platform Geekbench banned all Galaxy S models from the past four years from its database. Now Samsung wants to solve the problem with an update.
Update solves throttling – in South Korea
According to the WinFuture.de website, various users of South Korean Internet forums report that Samsung has released a patch with which the “Game Optimizing Service” responsible for the system brake can be optionally deactivated. That should put an end to any throttling issues—at least in theory. In practice, there are a whole series of catches that should continue to depress the mood in the Samsung community. First of all, the update is currently only available in South Korea – and only for the Galaxy S22 series. Other model series such as the Galaxy S21, S20 and S10 and possibly devices from the Galaxy Z Fold division, which also run the “Game Optimizing Service”, are also affected by the problem.
New overheat protection
According to the report, Samsung is also introducing a new mechanism with the update that is intended to protect devices from overheating with the throttle switched off. What that looks like in detail remains unclear. However, heat reduction is only possible by reducing the performance, so that losses could still occur, at least during longer gaming sessions. It remains unclear whether and, if so, when Samsung will release the new update worldwide for devices other than just its latest smartphones. An official announcement is pending.