There’s plenty to love about the Samsung Galaxy S23 series, but there could be one feature that gamers are going to find very appealing. According to Malaysian-based YouTube channel NL Tech, the “Pause USB Power Delivery” feature could help prevent overheating during your mobile gaming sessions.
The feature is found in Samsung’s Game Booster Menu, and will stop the battery recharging when activated — provided your phone has more than 20% power. The idea is that the feature allows the Galaxy S23 to draw power directly from the charger, bypassing the battery entirely. This reduces excess heat that could be generated by the battery, and appears to have the added benefit of reducing the amount of power the charger needs to provide.
In fact the video above shows that Game Booster reduces the phone’s power consumption from 17W to just 6W. And it should work on any USB Power Delivery charger.
The obvious benefit is that less heat build-up will make it more comfortable to play for extended periods. But minimizing heat build-up is also better for the phone and the battery in the long term.
Heat is one of the real battery killers, with the ability to speed up degradation and lowering the amount of power the battery can hold. It doesn’t happen overnight. But after two or three years the consequences are very apparent.
While the Galaxy S23 is supposed to have larger cooling systems than previous models, they can only do so much. Preventing excess heat from being generated in the first place is a much wiser option — which is what pausing USB Power Delivery appears to do.
Of course, gaming can be very resource intensive, depending on the game in question, forcing the processor and graphic chip to work harder. That will generate more heat than, say, watching videos on TikTok. But taking the battery out of the equation could do a lot for keeping your phone cool — because it’s one less component that can generate heat.
The downside is that the feature doesn’t seem to be universally available right now. 9to5Google didn’t see it on the Galaxy S23 models in their possession, and so far neither have we — despite running all the available updates. Then again the Galaxy S23 won’t be released until February 17, which is just over a week away. So there’s still a chance the relevant update will be more widely available by that point.
Then again Samsung never officially announced this feature, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
There’s still plenty of time to pre-order the Samsung Galaxy S23 and enjoy everything Samsung is offering in this year’s flagship. The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, in particular, has plenty to love including stellar performance in our photography, performance and battery life testing — not to mention the bright and colorful QHD display.
