Snapdragon 810 Overheating Tested By Open Sourced Nubia Z9 Max

Qualcomm’s latest flagship chipset, the Snapdragon 810 has taken a lot of heat over a certain issue. It’s often been blamed for overheating. Devices running the chip include the Xiaomi Mi Note Pro, the Sony Xperia Z3+ / Z4 and the HTC One M9. While the Xperia Z4 is only officialy launching in Japan starting today, Japanese Carrier NTT Docomo has already acknowledged the heating issue publicly. The Mi Note Pro and the One M9 have both shown up on forums from time to time, with users claiming the phones getting excessively hot, to the point of becoming unstable.

Now, yet another device running the Snapdragon 810 chipset, the recently launched Nubia Z9 Max from ZTE, is also overheating like crazy. As can be seen from the images enclosed herein, with a single A57 core running, the phone runs alarmingly hot with the temperature reaching dangerously close to 100 degrees under full-load, and with two A57 cores, the temperature goes through the roof, hits 105 degrees and the device reboots. There are a number of screenshots and test results at the bottom of this post that will strongly support this assertion. However, one thing to remember is the chip’s thermal drive parameters have to be changed to over 120 degrees by modifying some system files after rooting the device, so as to hit the thermal shutdown threshold.

However, regular users will probably never hit the thermal shutdown threshold, as that cap will only be achieved with stress tests like CPU burn. In any case, ZTE says, the stock device, which hasn’t been tampered with in any way, shape or form, automatically underclocks the moment temperatures reach 75 degrees.

With more manufacturers like OnePlus and Motorola planning to launch devices powered by the Snapdragon 810 in the coming months, this has to be the worst possible PR for their devices, prior to their release. Hopefully, they have a plan B in place.