New mobile phones have nearly half the capacity and many pre-installed apps and alarming standby traffic.

A mobile phone with a nominal 8G capacity has only 4.26G of usable capacity, accounting for only 53%; a new mobile phone has 71 pre-installed software; another mobile phone consumes nearly 80MB of traffic during the process of booting, registering to the network and 120 hours of standby...

The results of a comparative test of smartphones on the market released by the Shanghai Consumer Protection Committee on June 15 showed that insufficient storage and software anomalies in smartphones are quite common. Legal experts said that such behavior of manufacturers is suspected of infringing on consumers' right to know and right to choose, and is even suspected of commercial fraud. Consumers can fully protect their rights according to law.

New mobile phones come with up to 71 pre-installed apps, and the standby traffic is staggering

Recently, the Shanghai Consumer Protection Committee purchased 20 smartphones through sales channels such as operator outlets, large electrical appliance chains, and mobile phone stores, 10 of which were customized by communication operators and the remaining 10 were non-customized. The test mainly involved the performance of the mobile phone imaging system, pre-installed software, and capacity.

The comparative test found that among the 20 mobile phones, except for one mobile phone that could not be turned on after the imaging system performance test, the remaining 19 mobile phones had as few as 30 pre-installed software, and the largest number of pre-installed software reached 71. When simulating the operation of ordinary consumers to uninstall pre-installed software, it was found that 3 mobile phones could not uninstall any software, and the remaining 16 mobile phones had the largest number of uninstallable software reaching 33 (the total number of software on the mobile phone was 58), and the smallest number was 10 (the total number of software on the mobile phone was 30). In terms of the proportion of uninstallable software, the largest number accounted for 57% of the total number of pre-installed software, and the smallest accounted for only 26%. The authority given to consumers to choose software by various brand manufacturers varies greatly.

In order to understand the data usage of pre-installed software in mobile phones in standby mode, the Shanghai Consumer Protection Committee randomly selected 10 mobile phones (5 customized and 5 non-customized) from 19 models for simulation testing. All 10 mobile phones were restored to factory settings, and SIM cards of corresponding operators were inserted. In the same environmental conditions, in standby mode without any third-party software manually opened, data usage was recorded every 24 hours for a total of 120 hours.

The results showed that 9 mobile phones consumed data when they were turned on, registered and in standby mode, with the largest amount consuming nearly 80MB of data. Analysis showed that the mobile phone consumed about 68MB of data when it was turned on and registered, and consumed about 1MB of data at 10:41 and 23:11 every day during the entire test period, for a total of about 12MB in 120 hours. The remaining 8 mobile phones did not have the problem of regular data consumption, but still consumed 80KB-4281KB of data during the 120-hour test period.

Three types of rights and interests are damaged, experts say consumers can protect their rights according to law

In addition, the Shanghai Consumer Protection Committee found in its survey on mobile phone capacity that there are three main ways to express mobile phone capacity. One is the capacity claimed by mobile phone manufacturers in product packaging or advertisements, which is the nominal storage capacity; the other two are the actual storage capacity and available storage capacity that consumers can only view in the mobile phone system settings. The 19 mobile phones in this test have capacities ranging from 4G to 32G. According to the ratio of available capacity to nominal capacity, the mobile phone with the highest proportion has a usable capacity of 27.1G and a nominal capacity of 32G, accounting for 85%; the mobile phone with the lowest proportion has a usable capacity of 4.26G and a nominal capacity of 8G, accounting for only 53%.

After uninstalling some pre-installed software, the changes in mobile phone capacity are also different. Among the 16 mobile phones with uninstallable software, 4 showed no change in available capacity after uninstalling the software. Experts said that this shows that the software is still there and has not been physically uninstalled at all.

Lawyer Liu Chunquan, deputy director of the Policy and Law Committee of the China Electronic Commerce Association and senior partner of Shanghai Fanyang Law Firm, said that this practice of smartphone manufacturers has infringed on the rights and interests of consumers. The first is the right to know. Smartphone operators should inform consumers of the actual capacity of the phone on the product packaging or in publicity. The second is the right to choose. Consumers should be able to choose to install software according to their personal needs or preferences when using smartphones. Operators should pre-install a moderate amount of software on the phone for the convenience of consumers. The third is the right to fair trade. Pre-installed software that is irrelevant to the normal operation of the phone and cannot be uninstalled by consumers, as well as pre-installed software that steals traffic, actually violates the principle of fair trade. To put it more seriously, it is suspected of fraud. Consumers can fully protect their rights according to law.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.