Pixel 7a Said to Lower Refresh Rate in Bright Sunlight, however There’s a Fix

Pixel 7a — launched by the corporate final month as the ultimate addition to the Pixel 7 collection of smartphones — may very well be outfitted with a characteristic that reduces its display refresh fee when the cellphone is uncovered to shiny daylight. A Pixel proprietor not too long ago shared particulars of how their cellphone robotically adjusts the show’s refresh fee in shiny daylight and within the shade, suggesting that the performance is intentional. However, customers who need their Pixel 7a to all the time use the height refresh fee can allow a particular hidden setting on their cellphone.

According to a Reddit submit by person u/pawlikx_iron, the Pixel 7a reduces the display refresh fee from 90Hz to 60Hz when the cellphone is utilized in shiny daylight. When the cellphone is returned to an space with out daylight, the height refresh fee is robotically restored, the person acknowledged.

Based on the responses within the feedback part, it doesn’t seem like attributable to thermal throttling — a means of decreasing CPU speeds when the chip temperature is simply too excessive. It was not too long ago reported that the Pixel 7a may very well be outfitted with a barely completely different model of the Tensor G2 chip that powers the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro that would result in decrease efficiency in comparison with Google’s flagship chipset.

Meanwhile, Esper’s Mishaal Rahman states that the drop within the Pixel 7a’s show refresh fee is intentional, based mostly on a commit in Google’s open-source code for the machine that’s designed to lock the refresh fee of the cellphone at 60Hz when the ambient brightness is greater than 50,000 lux. Other Pixel telephones must also provide the identical performance, he added.

Users who wish to bypass this performance on their Pixel 7a can use a workaround recommended by one of many customers within the feedback to pressure the smartphone’s show to all the time refresh at 90Hz. The repair includes enabling the hidden developer choices menu by tapping on Settings > About cellphone > Build quantity.

After that is enabled, customers can open the settings app and faucet on Developer choices > Force peak refresh fee with a view to completely set the show’s refresh fee to 90Hz. However, it’s value noting that enabling this characteristic may result in elevated battery drain, because the smartphone will not be optimising the refresh fee for optimum energy consumption.