iPhone 6s Users Facing Battery Problems Due to Faulty Samsung Chips
If you’ve got your money ready for the new iPhone 6s that is due to hit Indian stores on the 16th of this month, you may want to make sure you buy the right one. The internet is buzzing with news of some iPhones 6s units having shorter battery life than others. The reason behind this is that there are two producers of the A9 processor – Samsung and TSMC.
Apparently, the chips from the two firms are not identical. Chipworks, a site that specializes in teardowns, noted that Samsung’s A9 processors use a 14-nanometer processor while TSMC uses 16-nanometer. Early testing revealed that Samsung’s A9 chip fares poorly on battery performance when compared to TSMC’s chip.
Apple’s partner-cum-rival Samsung has produced nearly half of the A9 chipset found in the latest iPhone 6s, while around 70% of iPhone 6s Plus phones have a TSMC processor. A Redditor recently posted tests of a pair of iPhone 6s Plus phones, one having Samsung’s A9 processor and the other having TSMC’s. It was found that TSMC gives an extra two hours of battery life compared to Samsung’s processor under identical conditions.
TSMC A9 Processor
Samsung A9 Processor
“Ran this test a couple times and results were consistent,” wrote Raydizzle on Reddit. “Always about a 2 hour difference in duration. Both phones were tested using the same backup, same settings. Also tried testing them as new phones and results were similar.”
Furthermore, you won’t be able to tell which processor you’re buying when you purchase the iPhone 6s. However, there is an app called Lirum Device Info Lite that can detect whether the new iPhone has a Samsung A9 processor or a TMSC one along with every other information regarding the specs of your device. Once you download the app, click on ‘Model’. If your model is N66MAP or N71MAP, you’ve got a TSMC chip. If it says N66AP and N71AP you got the Samsung one.
