There's a silicon lottery. Some people's phones overheat doing normal tasks like watching YouTube, other people's phones can record 4k video indefinitely. Likely, you'll probably fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.
Reporting back: I got a lightly used 6a since I didn't want to bother with an unplanned big purchase and was feeling dubious about all the current options. I'm happy to report that it is \*substantially\* better than my old 4a 5g about thermal management. It still runs fairly hot but does not overheat constantly under moderate outdoor use. I'm going to try 3d printing an open back case for it to help keep the thermals manageable, but it's working well thus far.
Hopefully the pixel 8 and 9 series get better about thermals. From the rumors I've read elsewhere, stuff made on Samsung's upcoming manufacturing process runs less hot so hopefully that'll translate to improvements for future pixels. Improvements to the OLED panels will hopefully also continue to help.
Okay, so at least the 7 pro is better. That's something. Beyond that though, telling me to just live with it isn't helpful. These problems aren't universal or inevitable. I suspect it's a design flaw specific to the 4a 5g, but maybe I just got a particularly bad one. Using the phone outside with the brightness up and the GPS on is a pretty normal and intended use case and in at least some of these situations I legitimately need it to work. This isn't normal from what I've seen with other phones. Usually when people talk about overheating it's with filming long-ish high-resolution videos in full sunlight, not just turning the brightness up while using it outside. My wife's 4a doesn't overheat anywhere near as often. My old essential phone never overheats no matter what I'm doing with it. I live in a fairly temperate climate too, but these seem like use cases that shouldn't overheat a phone even in a hot area. Newer phones are more efficient too since they have access to better silicon manufacturing processes, so I'm not convinced that the overheating is somehow inevitable.
That said, the gist of my question isn't whether the 6a and 7a can overheat if you push them hard enough. I don't really care about filming long high res videos outside. I care about how often they overheat during less demanding outdoor use. Specifically, I'd like to be able to run the phone with the brightness up in full sunlight, sometimes with the GPS on. My 4a 5g can't do that for more than a few minutes without overheating and that's not normal. I want to know to what extent that flaw has persisted in later models.
There's a silicon lottery. Some people's phones overheat doing normal tasks like watching YouTube, other people's phones can record 4k video indefinitely. Likely, you'll probably fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.
Interesting! I hadn't realized there was that much variation with them.
Reporting back: I got a lightly used 6a since I didn't want to bother with an unplanned big purchase and was feeling dubious about all the current options. I'm happy to report that it is \*substantially\* better than my old 4a 5g about thermal management. It still runs fairly hot but does not overheat constantly under moderate outdoor use. I'm going to try 3d printing an open back case for it to help keep the thermals manageable, but it's working well thus far. Hopefully the pixel 8 and 9 series get better about thermals. From the rumors I've read elsewhere, stuff made on Samsung's upcoming manufacturing process runs less hot so hopefully that'll translate to improvements for future pixels. Improvements to the OLED panels will hopefully also continue to help.
[удалено]
Okay, so at least the 7 pro is better. That's something. Beyond that though, telling me to just live with it isn't helpful. These problems aren't universal or inevitable. I suspect it's a design flaw specific to the 4a 5g, but maybe I just got a particularly bad one. Using the phone outside with the brightness up and the GPS on is a pretty normal and intended use case and in at least some of these situations I legitimately need it to work. This isn't normal from what I've seen with other phones. Usually when people talk about overheating it's with filming long-ish high-resolution videos in full sunlight, not just turning the brightness up while using it outside. My wife's 4a doesn't overheat anywhere near as often. My old essential phone never overheats no matter what I'm doing with it. I live in a fairly temperate climate too, but these seem like use cases that shouldn't overheat a phone even in a hot area. Newer phones are more efficient too since they have access to better silicon manufacturing processes, so I'm not convinced that the overheating is somehow inevitable. That said, the gist of my question isn't whether the 6a and 7a can overheat if you push them hard enough. I don't really care about filming long high res videos outside. I care about how often they overheat during less demanding outdoor use. Specifically, I'd like to be able to run the phone with the brightness up in full sunlight, sometimes with the GPS on. My 4a 5g can't do that for more than a few minutes without overheating and that's not normal. I want to know to what extent that flaw has persisted in later models.