*PSA* Huawei admits memory type is a lottery. Some P10 and P10 Plus feature much slower memory chips

Forums › Android › *PSA* Huawei admits memory type is a lottery. Some P10 and P10 Plus feature much slower memory chips

tehgerbil

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Topic # 213966 21-Apr-2017 10:10

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This is kinda appalling, they got caught out by people posting their benchmark scores, and when their users looked into it further, realized the exact same model can be found with significantly different memory chips, resulting in a high-end price, with mid-range level components.

It's basically lying to your customers, and now they've been called upon to explain, they've blatantly come out and said not our problem - "we never advertised the memory type used inside the P10, so suck it."

This would cause me to be very wary with Huawei's products, if you're sinking $1000 of your hard earned cash on the best, you need to trust the company isn't going to short change you!

Android Auhority with Huawei's response.

PocketNow confirmed the differences could be up around 500Mbs!!

XDA's post on the story.

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Reply # 1768359 21-Apr-2017 10:41

If there have been no assertions about the specification of the memory included in a specific phone, I am not sure how this is bait and switch? What is the REAL world impact across devices (not synthetic benchmarks which usually mean nothing).

tripp

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Reply # 1768399 21-Apr-2017 11:38

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networkn:

If there have been no assertions about the specification of the memory included in a specific phone, I am not sure how this is bait and switch? What is the REAL world impact across devices (not synthetic benchmarks which usually mean nothing).

I also bet the "review" phones that they sent out were the ones with the better specs. If that is the case then it really is bait and switch as if the review phones had better memory etc then that is what the review is based off.

Will be interesting to see what ends up happening.

networkn

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Reply # 1768401 21-Apr-2017 11:41

tripp:

networkn:

If there have been no assertions about the specification of the memory included in a specific phone, I am not sure how this is bait and switch? What is the REAL world impact across devices (not synthetic benchmarks which usually mean nothing).

I also bet the "review" phones that they sent out were the ones with the better specs. If that is the case then it really is bait and switch as if the review phones had better memory etc then that is what the review is based off.

Will be interesting to see what ends up happening.

Well, you'd need evidence to support that claim.

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Reply # 1768406 21-Apr-2017 11:51

i would :P

muppet

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Reply # 1768437 21-Apr-2017 13:04

If they'd advertised the phone as having a particular feature then I agree it's bait and switch.

But they didn't. If you bought the phone having seen particular performance benchmarks and you got much lower ones based on the hardware you ended up with I think you'd be right to be fairly disappointed, but I don't think it's bait and switch at all.

I think the topic is overly alarming and incorrect IMHO. They never offered the "bait" the OP claims.

My old Nexus6 had memory by Samsung in it, but there were (if I recall properly) about 2-3 other manufacturers whose chips could be in a N6. I have always wondered if it had something to do with some people having no lag and others (like me) having consistent lag problems. But it was just bad luck - Google/Motorola never made any promises about the flash chip maker. Just that it had 64Gb Flash storage.

tehgerbil

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Reply # 1768478 21-Apr-2017 14:04

muppet:

If they'd advertised the phone as having a particular feature then I agree it's bait and switch.

Sorry, I initially read that Huawei had provided good quality phones to reviewers however this was unsubstantiated and I apologize unreservedly.

I've messaged the mods and asked them to correct the title or delete this thread. [Edit: this has been done!]

I stand by my comments this is pretty appalling, and underhanded.

As they're very premium phones here with prices up there with devices that carry known good quality components, if I had bought one (I was going to!) then I would be very peeved and wish I'd found out about this before buying one.

If you really don't care about the quality of the memory, by all means, ignore this advice. As this website is catered for the very type who do read reviews etc, I figured this was an apt place to warn people before they sink $1200 into a device as it's not clear in any way, shape or form that the device could be significantly slower than the devices specs they saw in reviews.

tripp

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Reply # 1768512 21-Apr-2017 15:43

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I really don't know if it is bait and switch but they are not the same chips (or same standard/speed etc). Then they should be up front about it to the market they are selling in. It's like how samsung uses 2 different chips for the s7 and s8, in the US and japan the s8 gets the snapdragon 835 however everywhere else gets the samsung designed chip. The big difference here is that samsung tells you.

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Reply # 1768533 21-Apr-2017 16:47

Well here is someone who can check what specs they have in the p10 they are selling if you want to know first?
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=77&topicid=213922

d3Xt3r

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Reply # 1769929 24-Apr-2017 17:49

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Mate of mine has the P10 which he purchased locally in NZ - its got LPDDR4 and UFS 2.0 (instead of 2.1). He bought it just a few days ago so it's still brand new with hardly any apps installed. We ran three runs of AndroBench on Airplane mode and after reboots, and averaged about 550 MB/s (sequential read), so it looks like his device is using UFS 2.0.

If his phone had UFS 2.1, as was originally advertised by Huawei, he would have speeds around 750-800MB/s, as reported by users, Engadget and noted by Huawei themselves in their official presentation for the P10.

As noted by online reports and from the CEO's statement, it appears that users may get any random combination of LPDDR3/LPDDR4/eMMC/UFS 2.0/UFS 2.1 - so it's a luck of the draw, which is very disingenuous of Huawei, considering the significant differences in speeds between the storage technologies.

Unlucky eMMC users have reported and demonstrated speeds of around ~250-300MB/s which is a huge step-down from UFS 2.1. Luckily my mate ended up with UFS 2.0 which isn't as bad, but he still feels cheated as he paid flagship prices for this phone (~ $1000 NZD) and will be getting his phone refunded.

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Reply # 1770017 24-Apr-2017 21:13

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How much real world difference does it make?

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d3Xt3r

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Reply # 1770043 24-Apr-2017 23:19

timmmay:
How much real world difference does it make?

Good question, but the real-world difference is quite subjective and hard to quantify unless you're looking at very specific scenarios.

If you're talking about the average user then it won't make much of a difference. Most users barely push their smartphones to its limits, certainly not on a brand new flagship device.

But for heavy/power users, the difference would be quite noticeable if/when you're:

- Transferring a large number of files (eg: backing up photos/videos/music)
- Loading large games (eg: GTA:SA)
- Multitasking (switching between several content-heavy website tabs)

UFS (any version) is also a requirement for comfortably recording 4K video without any stutter, more so if you prefer recording with higher bitrates for better quality.

So basically you'd notice a difference when you're doing anything that's I/O heavy. For one-off tasks it may not mean much, but it does add up if you take all the minor I/O heavy activities account - say starting from bootup times, app installations, software updates, file transfers, video recordings, loading cached pages, etc.

More importantly, you will notice a difference if you're upgrading from a device which already has UFS storage (eg say the Galaxy S6/S7) and you're downgrading to eMMC, but if your current phone is eMMC then you'll perceive the eMMC P10 as being faster than your current device.

timmmay

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Reply # 1770060 25-Apr-2017 07:35

I agree Huawei screwed the pooch on this, and between this, EMUI 4.1 on the P9 being generally crap, and a poor update record I wouldn't buy one. But they're decent devices, fast, so I don't think it will hurt them all that much. It'll teach them a lesson though.

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Jase2985

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Reply # 1770064 25-Apr-2017 08:18

timmmay:

I agree Huawei screwed the pooch on this, and between this, EMUI being generally crap, and a poor update record I wouldn't buy one. But they're decent devices, fast, so I don't think it will hurt them all that much. It'll teach them a lesson though.

@Timmmay have you used the latest version of EMUI?

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Reply # 1770065 25-Apr-2017 08:22

Jase2985:

@Timmmay have you used the latest version of EMUI?

No, the year old P9 doesn't have it yet, at least not released in NZ. I hear it's better than 4.1.

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Jase2985

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Reply # 1770155 25-Apr-2017 11:42

so you have zero idea about EMUI 5 then? how can you say it is crap if you havent used it?

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