Early reports of the HTC One M9 overheating appear to have been premature. A renewed benchmark using updated firmware shows that the One M9 produces the same amount of heat as any other smartphone. It turns out that the original software wasn’t finished, as the original benchmark warned, and HTC has managed to avoid any problems with the flagship smartphone’s temperature.
The problem was solved by adjusting the thermal throttling settings of the Snapdragon 810, which now limits the maximum frequency of the processor when it hits a certain temperature. This also notably reduced the performance of the smartphone. Putting limitations on the processor is not new, and is generally used by manufacturers to prevent chips from overheating.
A new thermal image shows that the HTC One M9 putting out a more modest amount of heat, and does not stand out from the rest of the devices. It also shows that the metal body of the One M9 does an admirable job of spreading the heat around and preventing it from accumulating around the processor and circuits.
All this tells us is that Qualcomm was right, and the Snapdragon 810 does not have an overheating problem. Although it comes with the caveat that manufacturers know what they’re doing and don’t attempt to push the devices past optimal operating conditions. Benchmarks performed on the throttled processor show that there is a substantial loss in performance, but only for more extreme cases. This will generally have no impact on day-to-day use of the HTC One M9, but it is something to think about.
It is good to see that the One M9 isn’t facing this particular problem anymore. HTC has plenty of things on its mind, and it could do without more problems with its flagship smartphone.
[Source: Tweakers via Phonearena]
