Billions of WhatsApp users warned upgrade could eat up your data – and cost you more

WHATSAPP users have been warned over a new update making its way to iPhones and Androids that could eat up their data.

The app, the most popular messenger in the world, is used to send more than 100billion messages, links, photos, videos and more, everyday.

WABetaInfo

The feature gives users the option to choose between sending images and videos in the standard WhatsApp quality or HD[/caption]

In the latest free update, WhatsApp is introducing the ability to send videos in high-definition (HD), according to leaks screenshots from WABetaInfo.

Currently, this is only available to a handful of lucky beta testers.

But once this is rolled out globally, WhatsApp users could find themselves accidentally racking up hefty data charges.

At the moment, WhatsApp scales down the photo and video quality so the file size is a lot less bulky.

This makes them quicker to send and uses less data.

Some of us are frustrated by the grainy videos inside the app.

However, WABetaInfo noted that there is still some light compression applied to videos sent through the HD option.

So while the videos won’t be in the exact same quality as they were taken it – they’ll be a lot better.

At the beginning of June, WABetaInfo also revealed that WhatsApp had also been working on a feature to send photos in HD.

The feature gives users the option to choose between sending images and videos in the standard WhatsApp quality or HD.

But it’s important to note that sending HD images and videos to friends and family will use up much more data than a standard clip.

And if you exceed your data limit, your mobile network carrier will charge extra costs to your account – often at a much higher rate than normal.

If you’re an iPhone owner looking for ways to send pictures and videos – particularly lots of them in HD – then you should consider using Apple’s AirDrop feature instead.

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