Author: batteryforpc

The latest update to WhatsApp is draining the battery of Android phones, according to some users.

Owners of OnePlus phones appear to be particularly affected by the issue, with reports appearing in forums, Google Play Store comments and across social media.

Other problems with the popular messaging app also seem to have surfaced since the release of the most recent version for Android.

“Unfortunately, since the last update I can’t download nor send photos [or] videos,” one user wrote in one of the most popular comments on WhatsApp’s Google Play Store page.

“The screen keeps telling me that the media file doesn’t exist on this device. Also, the battery drainage has exponentially grown. When I’m on the road I always need to bring my powerbank to ensure I’m reachable for colleagues when working.”

Other WhatsApp users shared screenshots of their battery usage on Twitter, complaining that the app was accounting for the majority of their battery use despite not using it much.

One OnePlus 5T user wrote: “It really freaks me when I see the battery stats just to know WhatsApp is sucking the battery like anything”.

Despite being tagged in many of the tweets, the Facebook-owned app did not respond to affected users. The Independent has reached out to WhatsApp for comment.

Reddit users reported similar issues with other devices, including the Google Pixel 3, Pixel 4, Huawei P20 Pro and certain models of Xiaomi smartphones.

“WhatsApp has been draining the battery insanely,” one user wrote. “I think I’ve seen 33 per cent of all battery consumption by WhatsApp on the stats.”

The latest WhatsApp 2.19.308 update introduced several new features, including biometric security that allows users to secure their private conversations and group chats with their fingerprints.

Owners of iPhones and other iOS devices do not appear to be facing any problems with their battery when using WhatsApp. 

Microsoft’s Surface Pro X is even more repair-friendly than the Surface Laptop 3, getting a bigger thumbs-up from the teardown experts over at iFixit.

While iFixit scored the Surface Laptop 3 as a 5 out of 10 when it came to repairs, the freshly unleashed Surface Pro X managed to creep ahead with a 6 out of 10.

The most positive facet was the SSD being ‘truly user-replaceable’ as it’s accessed without having to remove the screen, and can be taken out with just a SIM eject pin (and a T3 Torx screwdriver is needed to undo a single screw).

“That’s awesome to see in such a slim form factor,” enthuses iFixit, while observing that the solid-state drive is the same model used in the Surface Laptop 3, and so standardization across the range means it’s easier for third-parties to support repairs on these devices.

Screen pass

All the screws used in the Surface Pro X are standard Torx affairs, and the iFixit team were particularly impressed with how easily the display came out, with no globs of glue holding the screen in place (rather there’s foam adhesive which can be cut easily enough, without requiring any heating and possible accidents with cracked displays).

There’s even a tongue-in-cheek mention of a celebratory dance and the fact that “we never thought we’d get into a Surface Pro this easily”.

The caveats here are that iFixit noted that almost all repairs do require removal of the screen – and it still isn’t a trivial matter – plus the battery remains firmly glued in, so there’s no change here.

Still, Microsoft is clearly moving in the right direction with this and the Surface Laptop 3, and is certainly a long way away from the days when iFixit wanted to give the Surface Laptop 2 a negative score for repairability.

Related product: Microsoft Surface Pro X

Our Verdict:

☆☆☆☆☆

The Surface Pro X is an astoundingly impressive looking and feeling Windows tablet – possibly the best yet in that department. Still, while we understand Microsoft’s faith in its new ARM processor, we’ve yet to see an ARM-based Windows device perform to expectations for the price it will cost you. Consider us impressed, though cautiously optimistic.

FOR Refinement of Surface Pro design

Fantastically bright and vibrant display

Brilliant Surface Pen implementation

AGAINST ARM CPU is worrisome

No more microSD slot

A seeming uh-oh from MSI coincides with the rumours floating around of yet another third gen Threadripper, this time a 64 core 128 thread behemoth based on the 7nm Zen 2 architecture which will likely put further pressure on team blue.

This week, a video from MSI introducing their TRX40 Creator motherboard went live, which fortunately enough for us showed a distant shot of CPU usage on task manager. The video has since been removed and replaced with an edited version, but wccftech was able to snag a screenshot beforehand, where we can spot 8 vertical and 16 horizontal tiles, indicating 128 total threads.

With the TRX40 Creator being a single socket motherboard, this rules out the possibility of a 2nd Gen EPYC CPU being used. With that in mind, this could be our first confirmation of a 64-core, 128-thread TR 3990X, which should get an announcement sometime after the 25th of November, when the TR 3960X and TR 3970X officially hit retail.

Laptops beyond 15-inches tend to offer superior cooling than their smaller counterparts in part because of their larger footprints. So, we expected the HP Envy 17-ce1002ng to demonstrate the best that Comet Lake-U, and specifically the Intel Core i7-10510U, had to offer. However, the device not only falls short of the multicore performance of what we have come to expect from the Core i7-10510U but also even its Whiskey Lake-U predecessors.

Oddly, our review unit exceeding our expectations of its GPU, the NVIDIA GeForce MX250. The device consistently achieved above-average results in gaming and synthetic benchmarks, although it cannot get close to the performance that the GeForce GTX 1650 offers, as the Acer Aspire 7 A715 demonstrates.

Moreover, we are fans of the keyboard and trackpad that HP has also included in this year’s Envy 17, as we are with Wi-Fi 6 being onboard. The device offers a good selection of ports too, which HP has housed in a sturdy and stylish chassis. The device could be easier to open too, a recurring issue among modern HP laptops.

In short, the HP Envy 17-ce1002ng is a mixed bag. While the device has the makings of a compelling desktop replacement, it suffers from too many shortcomings for us to recommend it in good conscience. Please see our HP Envy 17-ce1002ng review for our full thoughts and test results.

Some weeks back, Google added a dedicated set of release notes that are easily seen on any Chromebook after the latest software update. I’ve been asking for this feature for over two years, back when I worked with the Chrome team at Google, so I was thrilled to see this. You just click the “See what’s new” option in the About Chrome OS settings menu. Or you can view the dedicated webpage, which shows the same info.

Now that Chrome OS 78 landed last week, I went to see the release notes just to verify that I didn’t miss any big, new features.

Here’s what I saw on both a Pixelbook Go and Acer Chromebook Spin 13 after the Chrome OS 78 update:

The problem I see may not be obvious to you since I track Chrome OS functionality on a daily basis, so I’ll explain: These are the same features that arrived with Chrome OS 77, a full six-weeks ago.

I double-checked the dedicated, on-board release notes with the linked notes and sure enough, they too still show the features added in last release, not the most current version.

Where is the news about Virtual Desks being generally available, making it easier to group tabs and apps for improved multitasking productivity? What about the ability to tap a hyperlinked phone-number on your Chromebook and have the call placed on your connected Android phone? These are just two examples, but you get the point.

Frankly, for Google to want the public to see Chrome OS as a “first-class citizen” platform as compared to macOS and Windows, it has to see Chrome OS that way too. And something as simple but useful as the new release notes should be part of that perspective.

Sure, Google outlined a few key features in the blog post about Chrome OS 78, but outside of full-time Chromebook users like myself and some of the About Chromebook readers, what mainstream Chromebook user is following Google’s blog posts?

I’d wager those people are few and far between, which means there’s a failed messaging strategy here. And even worse, it fell apart right after trying to improve that messaging strategy.

There’s simply no excuse for this.

It’s not as if Google doesn’t know what’s changing in the platform since it’s the entity actually building, testing and implementing the changes. My hope is that this is a one-off occurrence because publishing outdated Chrome OS release notes is about as useful as not publishing release notes at all.