> It happens sometimes in cheap devices in which the charging logic is managed in software, but it’s a terrible design decision.
In my experience, this is a pretty common practice, not limited to cheap devices. Many modern battery-driven devices I've looked at closely (for example: e-book readers, smartphones, ...) cannot bootstrap from a completely dead battery. They have to bring up the CPU, which then brings up the PMIC, before it can start charging the battery.
The difference between well-designed and less well-designed devices is mostly in how well they protect the battery from discharging beyond the point where this minimal bootstrap process stops working.
Their write up seems to imply that the device wouldn’t charge if the battery is completely drained.
It happens sometimes in cheap devices in which the charging logic is managed in software, but it’s a terrible design decision.
If that’s the case, a better battery will mitigate the problem but the terrible design remains!