It's official: Smartphones will need to have replaceable batteries by 2027
It's official: Smartphones will need to have replaceable batteries by 2027
Do you miss phones with replaceable batteries? By 2027, you won't anymore because, by law, almost every smartphone will have them again.
Producers got away with going to non-replaceable batteries because "most" people replace their phone before the battery wears out. Only a portion of consumers have a problem with it.
I'm sure there's a few of us that can comfortably get six years off a phone. In fact the phone I'm currently using is coming up on three years. I could probably get another three years out of it, but I'm going to have to replace it soon because of battery wear.
Non-replaceable batteries are bad for the consumer and bad for the environment. It forces obsolescence putting more financial strain on consumers and increases environmental impact with higher production and waste.
A phone replaced before three years could be sold second hand with a battery replacement. Otherwise consumers could keep a phone twice as long. So they're basically doubling the rate of production and waste to squeeze as much money as possible out of the consumer. Then there's zero regard for the environment. But you know that's typical of how corporations do business, rape the Earth, screw the consumer. We have to keep a leash on these guys.
Yes yes, but companies mandate is to maximize profits and have constant growth. All those things you're mentioning sound very anti-capitalist. The elite would have a hard time taking all the wealth and keeping everyone as slaves.
I just barely replaced my galaxy s8, and it wasn't the battery that became the issue, it was the lack of any new software updates.
I was starting to have software compatibility issues, where installing new apps would say "android verision x is not supported". Also, I'm pretty sure it was getting any security patches from either samsung or upstream google.
I'm now looking at repurposing the s8 into a security camera since I think it's a waste to just throw it in a drawer.
I had an old galaxy a5 with a badly degraded battery sitting around. A few weeks ago I had nothing better to do so I opened it (breaking the glass back in the process because of how strongly it was glued), ripped the battery out and soldered a charging cable straight to the phone's battery contacts. It now lives on a phone stand in my car, connected to a bluetooth OBD2 scanner and I use it to show a couple of additional gauges like oil temperature, instant fuel economy and engine load while driving. The 12v output provides just enough power for the phone to reliably run and with the lack of battery I don't have to worry about it exploding if it sits in the sun for hours. I haven't found a way to make it turn on as soon as it gets power, so it's mildly annoying to turn it on manually every time I start the car, but I can live with that.
You are right. My iPhone XR is around 4 or 5 years old, and now I need to charge it in the afternoon if I have used it during work to spend some time. I guess that in a year I’ll have to replace it because the battery will last even less.
While I do agree that we need more modular phones, laptops, etc. having a replaceable battery would prevent phones to be fully water proof.
But I do agree with you, I have a 2-year old phone and I already experience the battery degradation. I would most likely use this phone for another year, max two, but then would be pissed by how often I need to charge it and start looking into purchasing a new one.
Planned obsolescence is definitely a thing that enriches corporations
There are so many ways you can waterproof a phone and have a user replaceable battery and still keep it thin and sleek. But that doesn't sell a new iPhone to someone every 2 years. It's why anytime Apple, or any company like them, spouts off about how green they are, I know they're full of shit. They intentionally cause so much waste it's insane.
They could just incorporate a gasket + screws. There are a ton of waterproof devices that have replaceable batteries.
I don't think an actual waterproof phone even exists. They're water resistant.
My Samsung Galaxy XCover 6Pro has a removable battery (and a headphone jack) and it's ip68 rated. You wouldn't be able to tell from the outside that the back cover comes off.
The Galaxy S5 active is evidence that you're just wrong. Classic removable battery but still IP67.
Waterproof ratings are all nonsense anyways IMO. The way appliances are tested does not take into consideration human error.
Gotta drop the phone a couple times onto concrete to simulate how morons like me treating it, then check its water resistance.
I don't really mind that my battery doesn't work well. It lasts through the day, though I'm perpetually at 40% or less and I don't use it that much. If it's really a problem then a battery bank charge mid day totally fixes it.
However, if I could replace the battery for $50 I would.
The question I've been asking, since this whole water resistance thing became a trend, is why do we even need water resistant phones in the first place?
We survived just fine with flip phones, walkmans, Gameboys, pagers, etc that had no water resistance.
Its NOT just smartphones
Its damn near everything!
Electric cars, other electronics etc
Some are just not "user replacable" (such as a cars batteries)
this law will change all iPhones. It will also change all tablets, laptops, EVs, e-bikes, and anything else with a rechargeable battery
Headphones, gaming mice, gaminh controllers. Its gonna be great
The big one at the moment - at least in the UK and IMHO - is disposable vapes. I see them everywhere, just tossed on the ground or at the side of the road. The reason I see them is because of their flashing blue LEDs still running, meaning there's at least a working battery and support circuitry in there. It's disgusting that something like that is tolerated. I'm hopeful that the requirement to have user-replacable batteries will eliminate them by making them uneconomical compared to standard vapes.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again (someone else definitely said this before me) I’m totally fine with a user replaceable battery but I don’t really need a “hot swappable” battery. Don’t you guys remember the old memes where an android phone is dropped and the Lego brick breaking sound effect is used from the Lego video games. I’m ok with a semi sealed device for water resistance and what not. It would just be nice to be able to replace the battery when the time comes
The memes I don’t remember but … I’m old. And..
Reading this gave me an instant flashback of dropping my old Ericsson on a train and it just .. lost all its parts! Man that was 😱
Yes I had to hunt for: the battery, the battery cover and the SIM card! In those days the latter was bigger than we have now but very expensive.
To be honest: hot swappable wasn’t all that cool or user friendly at all. You had the dropping issue, the dirt and grime got in the cracks causing it to loose contact. Just like a mouse ball back in the day. All that and .. when it was time to change it, never found a replacement and the phone was just outdated anyway.
Now all those different chargers we had? That was the real nightmare. Man! Very glad that is solved, even with the mess usb-c is.
I fear this is again one of those rules politician’s make without any knowledge; or they just ignore reality. Per usual.
just the first one I found but basically this . and I feel that with the move to USB C or even with iphones and the lightning cable. You either have one of those two so it's pretty nice now compared to back then
The legislation allows that. It just says that batteries have to be available and replaceable by non-specialists using standard tools. Think a small torx screwdriver, maybe a spudger, no glue type of situation and definitely no soldering or crypto-locking batteries to the mainboard and CPU so even specialists can't replace stuff without signing their first-born to the manufacturer (hello Apple).
Some make the argument that batteries are already replaceable if you get the right tools, but it's not even a matter of making it possible.
I think it's more about making it so you aren't voiding your warranty and that the option is there.
Otherwise you replaced your battery and they decide they will never offer any support for your phone because you dared touch it.
I can't really remember if that was an issue for my S4. I'm sure it happened like once or twice but I don't really drop my phone and I'm sure the majority of people nowadays have a case that will pretty much prohibit the battery cover from opening. What I DO remember is keeping a spare battery in my wallet and anytime my phone was low (I'm terminally addicted and 3 hours of screen on time was the best I got back then) just popping that bad boy in. Was a great feature and took a lot of stress off of me in the days when battery life was terrible. I hope they can revive a feature like that in a modern premium phone.
You can do that now with a heat gun and some very basic tools.
That's an overstatement. It takes a lot of work for some phones and you risk damaging it. Not everyone is able to do it even with the right tools. We need to have a solution so that anyone can do it
You can do that now with a heat gun and some very basic tools.
A heat gun is a specialized tool. That's the problem.
Change this to “you can do that now with…some very basic tools” and we have a deal. It should only require a “normal” screwdriver, nothing outside of tips such as cross, flat, hex, torx and which I’m forgetting. Basically none of that Y shaped bullshit or the torx-looking tip with the little raised dot. Fuck all of that shit. And of course no heat gun requirement. I don’t think it’s asking a ton to be able to remove like 10 small screw (or whatever it takes) and pull an old battery out, insert a new one. I like to believe we can figure this out as a species…or rather, I know we already CAN but it’s just profitable for all the manufacturers to basically build in a “phone death date” because they know the battery will shit itself under 4-5 years and be reduced considerably in only the first 2. Make it a hassle/expensive to replace and force upgrades. Bad for the world and bad for consumers. At least those precious investors get their returns… the almighty investor…
Hyperbole. To do it correctly you need a lot of tools which companies like Apple have made it very difficult to obtain. The risk of damaging the device is high for the average person.
I get that the majority of people here on Lemmy are likely to be more tech savvy than the average person, I don’t think we should set the precedent of exaggerated comments, we don’t want to become Reddit.
People are gonna hate on this comment but it's true. I can replace the battery in my iPhone in an hour if I want to, even if it's not as easy as it used to be with removable plastic covers on the back of phones.
I wonder how apple will react to this
Apple fanboy here… but they’re probably gonna market the feature with some cool new trendy name and make the battery replacements proprietary.
It will be built from the ground up 😂
$300 battery for your iPhone
Now i hope it says something about availability of the replacement batteries...
Due to unexpectedly high demand, the $300 battery you ordered has 5 months waiting list. Payment in advance, of course, for your convenience.
I mean....battery replacements were ALWAYS proprietary. You can't pop a Galaxy S4 battery in a GS 5.
"And we think you're gonna love it"
🙏
It will be magnetic
They're going to see the battery is replaced and show your phone down. Just to be safe you know.
Oh you probably shouldn't go around admitting that so willingly.
By designing a model of iphone with replaceable battery, of course.
I think they're already complying. Tri-tip bits are already bought easily and affordably on Amazon. Same with suction cups, picks and tweezers. Literally $30 or less to get all of the above in one nifty carrying case. If you have suction cups then you can break the screen seal without using heat and let's be honest, hair dryers are perfectly adequate for these repairs. It's literally what I use for friends and family repairs that I do at home rather than in my workshop.
I think it's a step in the right direction but not even remotely strong enough to force change on current cell phones.
Probably voiding warranty for any phone that has its battery replaced by the user instead of having it done at an apple store/apple vertified store. Or some good old planned obsolescence where the phone detects a replacement battery and just stops working as fast as it used to. Anything to get people to buy the next new iphone every year.
I don't think Apple really want to be caught to do somenthing they are already been condemned for, at least not in EU...
Design batteries that can also function independently as a powerbank? That would be useful.
in Europe
Tim Cook can suck a fat one.
Oftentimes EU device laws affect other markets because it's easier to send the same device everywhere than to design and produce a separate one just for Europe.
He'd probably just enjoy it.
I just hope the battery doesn't cost as much as a new phone would.
The EU almost forced the phone industry to start using standardised/interchangeable batteries.
If the batteries cost as much as a new phone, they'll reconsider that decision.
It's so dumb that a standard hasn't been developed yet. Like AA/C/D, 18650 batteries, etc. They could have modular batteries with different sizes and capacities that work interchangeably.
From what I got from the article posted a few days ago, I believe it is by large a sustainability/climate effort, targeting all kinds of industry machinery batteries as well as phones. There is likely a bonus for end user usability, but that is relatively incidental.
One of my phones battery became swollen and hated not being able to change it without removing the adhesive stuck backing, camera, wireless charging cable, brackets preventing battery cable to be removed normally, battery being adhesive stuck to the battery slot. I hope all phones go back to removable batteries.
Good. I also read appliances (like your electric toothbrush or headphones) will also have to follow this guidance. This should make it easier to repair and recycle electronics.
My toothbrush uses AA for just that reason.
A lot of rechargeable gadgets like Philips Sonicare do not.
but only the EU though, everywhere else is still fucked
Chances are most companies aren't going to make two separate production lines with and without a removable battery. The cost likely outweighs the profit i'd wager. Much like how we see apple finally begrudgingly moving to USB-C despite no NA law requiring them to do so.
Why not? Many companies already have US exclusive SKUs. Some companies like Samsung even have a history of shipping completely different SOCs.
I hope so too. But if somehow the cost to manufacture phones with removable batteries is higher then I doubt they'd switch the existing production line to removable battery. I hope I'm wrong, to be honest.
It's not so much the batteries for me but the USB C port that has been my main issue and that damn humidity/water sensor that thinks that I've dipped my phone in water when I haven't
It's not a Samsung device is it? Their sensors seem to be super sensitive. Meanwhile my pixel has been used in the shower and not said a word...
That's part of the problem I have with this. Most electronics life cycle is gone before or around the time the battery is gone. Only people that abuse the batteries by over charging / full draining typically benefit from replacement batteries. -And this just mostly needs awareness.
The vast majority of batteries operated devices are stuff that in its use is going to be "abused". The hell is the harm in letting people switch out a fucking battery if that's the issue. Companies won't let people switch batteries out so they are being made. Apple have been fighting tooth and nail over repair shops
This is the best news I've read in a while. Hopefully the US (or at least Cali) jump on board as well.
Seeing as our (Cali) CCPA is about as strict (if not moreso) than the GDPR it's not a longshot that they might.
Wonder how waterproofing will hold up
Depends on how important it is to customers. Waterproofing was always just an excuse to seal the case and make repairs harder, and wasn't a feature that the market demanded. We always had waterproof phones for people who needed them. You can seal a battery compartment to IP68 with a bit of effort, and IP44 is essentially what you need to put it in your pocket anyway.
The Samsung S5 has an IP67 rating and the battery on that was easy to replace.
If you drop either phone they are probably just as likely to be compromised.
I could see a latch that you need the sim ejector to open. Something that still very secure, but possible for an user user to replace with out the need of a freaking heat gun. While still keeping the design.
Pretty nice, if you know how to do it.
For example, the Nikon AW130 (ok, a camera not a phone) is rated for 30 meters deep and it is rather easy to change the battery.
I'm looking to upgrade my iPhone 11 for no reason other than the battery life is starting to bug me. None of the features released since the 11 hold any interest for me, I literally just want more battery life. Looks like that'll cost me about $1000 if I want to stay with iOS. Absolutely insane.
Although I am not experienced with iPhone prices, shouldn't a non-official replacement cost somewhere between $30 and $50? I tend to repair my Android phone batteries every 2-3 years at home, and alongside light software mods they become impressively more usable in the long run.
Just hit up an apple store bud - they'll swap a new battery for like $89. I had the battery replaced on my 11 a few months ago. Took like 20 minutes.
You know you can get the battery replaced, right? Not as cheap as buying a replacement yourself, but not that much compared to a 1000$ phone.
I'd also say an $89 battery replacement is pretty much the cheapest option (barring aftermarket batteries), especially if you don't care about the developments in the latest phones.
Good, no reason why my Pixel 6 shouldn't last until I accidentally drop it instead of the slow death of worsening battery.
I am curious how Apple will get around that this time. I’m almost sure this will be as funny as the whole story about the USB-C cables
Simply remove the battery and sell iPhones with magsafe battery pack cases instead?
Hopefully all Apple employees are still on Reddit.
or just like the vision pro - a wired external power pack with a proprietary connector to the iPhone, but USB C on the power pack :D
Lmao that’d be hilarious!
Super capacitor instead of battery. lol
They're now slowly moving to be repairable anyway, as far as i can see. Probably an Image thing.
Yurop did it again.
Has anyone else always had a spare phone battery in the pocket to swap on the go?
Imagine you could just do that.
You can carry around an external battery pack with any phone. It's not quiiiite as convenient because you have have your phone plugged in and that can sometimes be awkward to carry (but not bad if you normally carry a purse or backpack). Though it does avoid the need to power cycle your phone and my battery pack can charge my phone several times (and can charge multiple devices).
Honestly, best purchase I've ever made. It's so stressful having a phone die and the battery pack keeps that from happening.
Never had that. I used to carry a power bank on longer hikes though. Has a few pros over a replacement battery (multiple recharges, device independent, not as flimsy etc.) at the cost of being bulkier.
Well, there are some significant negatives to a powerbank solution.
And of course, when (not if) the battery dies, you can replace it at your leisure, instead of searching for a repair shop in the case of phone being glued shut. Battery is pretty much the only perishable component in your phone. If you keep your phone safe from falling or drowning, it can work just fine for decades. But the battery will need to be replaced one day, regardless of how careful you are. You also wouldn't need to pay the extra service fee if you can open the phone and put the new battery in yourself.
Does this mean they'll mandate SD card slots and headphone ports too?
Don't worry. Phone manufacturers will appease this in the most frustrating way possible. Kind of like how apple does the at home replacement hardware.
Only EU though
It's only the EU bit these kind of law tend to impact products all around the world.
Maintaining different products for different markets is difficult and expensive. Making the battery replaceable is not very hard to do so it's easier to produce one kind of product with replaceable battery for the whole world rather than maintaining two different production lines.
Boy you are underestimating apples pettyness
Maybe. I know it's a different scale but in the EU there's a standard connector for all electric cars (CCS Type 2 Combo) and that's become the defacto standard for most cars in most countries, but Tesla maintains their own connector in non-EU territories. I wouldn't put it past Apple is all I'm saying: controlling the charge port is very important to companies that profit from tight vertical integration.
Apple's market share is quite a bit lower in the EU than in the US.
However, there is an exemption for high-performing and durable batteries until 2027. This means devices with high quality batteries that retain over 80% of their capacity after 1000 charge cycles do not need to comply with the removable battery requirement until 2027.
So premium phones like the iPhone would be exempt.
I don't think you said anything differently? The article said ALL batteries must comply by 2027. You appeared to say high performing batteries don't have to follow the law until 2027. Both of these statements, the original post and your revision, are true -- all phones, including high performing batteries, must comply in the EU by 2027.
I have mixed feelings on this. I think there were a few good reasons to move to sealed batteries. In an ideal world you could give consumers choices between the various trade-offs and offer multiple models or variants.
But of course that will never happen because non-replaceable batteries present a far better business case. If they were forced to offer options, the manufacturers would deliberately make the user-replaceable models far shittier and then complain to the regulators that they were unpopular.
There are plenty of smartphones with user replaceable batteries, consumers just don’t want to buy them. Gaskets that are robust enough to keep out every bit of humidity are always going to be a little thicker than adhesive, which means phones that use gaskets are always in the “rugged” market segment, or the less-premium segment where people don’t care about a few mm dimensionally.
https://www.androidcentral.com/best-android-phone-removable-battery
*In the EU.
Manufacturers aren't going to make a different model for the rest of the world. It's much cheaper to just make one model.
A good example is Tesla models 75D and 100D - they both have the exact same battery pack but the 75D is electronically limited so that the range is less than on 100D so it's cheaper tho it's the same car.
I had an S3 for ages because you could get a replacement battery for like $12. Upgraded to an S10, can no longer swap the battery. Biding my time.
I hate this forced upgrade/payment model and how phones seemed to double in cost almost overnight.
They're even trying to get sneakier with the contracts. 3 years now to payoff your device, instead of 2, but the payment is the same. Absolutely bonkers.
Wherever possible buy outright, it is always cheaper. If needed, get a 0% interest credit card and use that to buy it outright. Do not fall into their trap of paying hundreds more for convenience and interest, all while never actually owning the device.
They would just "underdevelop" other areas to make their phone "breakable" or "prone to accidents". I am not that hyped because of that.
I absolutely loathe the EU and it's institutions, but every once in a while a pro consumer standardization is a good coming out of them.
Loathe is a strong word. Why? Honestly curious.
Loathe is a strong word. Why? Honestly curious.
EU is a a wonderland for anybody who subscribes to liberalism and American led world order and hell for anybody else and prison for those who try to deviate form it even a little. EU never became a another pole in the world, it just became a American vassal management system and enemy of the actual living Europe. It empowers nameless bureaucrats and is fundamentally anti-democracy and pro-global oligarchy, and at best basically has made a vassal of every small to medium sized nation in EU to Germany and France, countries like Greece being at the bottom, in permanent debt and austerity hell. I could extend this list for days.
Gonna be fun to see new tech for it to still be water resistant.
I thought there were large exceptions for water proofing etc..?
Based EU
Threads will *never prevent you from replacing your battery. Try it today!
* Subject to change. Please read our terms and conditions.
I mean this could happen in Europe, but I suspect something as integral to design/engineering might have Apple wanting to go ahead and split the designs between Europe and other markets. They just love control too much I think to go big in on this feature everywhere.
Great
Guaranteed Apple will have code that says:
If phone > 2 years old:
Slow down phone
If battery changed:
Slow down phone
Etc
They'll still make you buy a new phone. Don't you worry about that.
I mean fuck Apple and all but what they were doing with downclocking the CPU of phones with aging batteries was absolutely a good thing for users.
If they didn't do that, the phones would have randomly shut off as the voltage dropped. Their misstep was not telling people about it.
Glad to see I’m not the only sane person on these threads.
Apples a corporation that only exists to generate profit, they definitely suck as much as every other corporation, but the ‘Apple slowed down phones to make people upgrade’ thing is so braindead that it hurts.
If they didn't do that, the phones would have randomly shut off as the voltage dropped. Their misstep was not telling people about it.
Which if you have a replaceable battery it it's not an issue
2027 wow they could have taken like 3999 With that. It has to come NOW or it has literally 0 effect.
Personally I find this terrible news. Expect people to replace their batteries with cheap Chinese fire hazards. With the size of these batteries and the density id be terrified living in an apartment building. There is already a lot of this going on with cheap electric scooters and recreational vehicles.
Add on the fact that I don’t miss the days of bulky phones where I drop them and the battery goes flying out (also dangerous).
Personally I find this terrible news. Expect people to replace their batteries with cheap Chinese fire hazards. With the size of these batteries and the density id be terrified living in an apartment building. There is already a lot of this going on with cheap electric scooters and recreational vehicles.
Add on the fact that I don’t miss the days of bulky phones where I drop them and the battery goes flying out (also dangerous).
Pfft! By 2027 Smart phones will be irrelevant.
Why do you think that?
Because we'll all have brainphones by then, duh.
I wonder what percentage of the user base is wanting this? Seems like most people wouldn’t care about it at all.. a battery seems to last a few years and costs about $100 to replace with a genuine part including the warranty of opening watertight phone and maintaining its integrity.
quite a lot of Samsung users with the recent years of battery swollening that instead of 100 dollars can be replaced with easily available 30 dollar battery if they were replaceable. Iphones could stop throttling their phones once the battery starts dying do you wouldn't have to buy a new one (they will still throttle but for different reasons)
In certain countries and cities there aren't many repair services that work on niche android phones. Often they will only say iPhone/Samsung
I support replaceable batteries, I do. But I want one person to show me all the cellphone models that are going to have to change their design to comply with this law. No device I have done this repair on is affected. You don't have to have thermal energy, and all the bits and picks needed are already available for $30 or less. So I'm seriously failing to understand just why people keep conflating this with cellphones when they already are abiding by this
The law affects every device with a rechargable battery. Not just phones.
So b3øecause the law just says all devices with a rechargable battery, and we all have phones..
A lot of phones are not easy to replace batteries on without ruining the glass back or whatever. Thats not "user replacable" basically. Some are easier than others though.
The law doesn't touch on that at all my man. Commercially available tools and without the use of solvents or thermal energy. You may not consider that user replaceable but that's the law as written. And that's able to be done currently on the overwhelming majority of cell phones. In other devices it is a major change, but even this thread is "Smartphones".
Tbh, I don't miss this.
Phone batteries generally last 3-4 years (sometimes longer depending on the size), and by that point it's usually time to upgrade to a new phone anyway for the latest security updates and such.
Here's a thought, what if phones weren't made to be disposable?
They don’t?
I’m pretty sure you can install iOS 16 on an iPhone 8, which came out in 2017, almost 6 years ago. And that’s a major system update. If you just need security updates, the latest one was in January and supported phones as far back as the iPhone 5s, released almost 10 years ago today.
But in reality, people want better phones and better cameras every few years, so they buy them. And they tend not to throw out their old ones, but sell/trade them or pass them along to someone else.
I have a ten year old iPad that i pretty much only use to watch TV in the shower. It just became incompatible with Hulu last week due to the iOS and I’m super frustrated by that. I can still use it for Netflix and paramount + but i was in the middle of several Hulu only series!
Hell, I have a laptop that's over 10 years old. It isn't officially supported on Windows 11, but I'm sure I could get it on there in some unsupported way, using Rufus or another tool that removes the TPM requirements and have it be usable and secure. It runs Windows 10 without complaints. I can run an up to date Linux distro on it and be completely up to date and secure. So, like you said, why can't phones do the same?
Security/OS updates: 4 years on typical android at this point (fair phone claiming 7) 5 on an iPhone.
I did a battery replacement on my iPhone 7 at about the 3 year mark and got another 2 years out of it. Full updates from apple and 100% App Store app compatibility that whole time.
iPhones get OS updates for ~6 years, security patches for longer. In 2021, apple updated a 9 year old phone with a security patch.
Apple is objectively the only way to go if you want a device that you’ll be able to use for >5 years.
There's abolutely no reason a smartphone couldn't be designed to last +6 years. My laptop is 7 years old and it still works perfectly fine - even has the original battery in it. My PC on the other hand is almost 15 years old and still in use.
That's been true, but I wouldn't expect the year over year differences of phones to continue indefinitely.
Advances were very rapid when it was a nascent industry, but it's already slowed down significantly. It will slow more by 2027.
I kinda agree. Going back to back panels that fall off and batteries popping out isn’t a win in my book. However, making it so that batteries are replaceable by the consumer with some use of tools is a reasonable compromise.
On a side note I see that the Reddit etiquette of downvoting comments you disagree with is in full effect already.
Not it's not. You should read about throttling down
this is straight-up BS. there were many phones with ip68 and user-replacable batteries back when sealing the battery in a phone was frowned upon. not all but many.
The term "premium-feeling" does a lot of heavy lifting in that paragraph, one might almost say that it's a bit subjective.
It's true though. I've become very accustomed to the premium experience of being forced to use premium apps and services that don't work half the time in a very premium manner.
I think it would be pretty premium if I could have a spare battery on the charger for a quick swap rather than relying on a cable to charge my phone.
What they really mean is "very slightly thinner than the previous generation or current rival because we think that's a super marketable thing still even though we've reached the practical limit where it no longer makes sense to go thinner."
I have a two-way radio which floats in water and has a replaceable battery. It's just excuses. However I do believe they got rid of replaceable batteries to save on space and thickness of the devices.
Thickness is the only concern I have. I’d love to be able to replace the battery in my iPhone safely and easily, but I don’t really want to give up having a phone that’s less than 10mm thick.
I have an old LG V20 (released in 2016) with a removable battery that's just 7.6mm thick. By comparison the Iphone 14Max is 7.9mm thick, the Samsung S23 Ultra - 8.9mm and the Oneplus 11 - 8.5mm.
IMO the purpose of non-replaceable batteries is (just like everything else) profit. Companies want to push us to replace the entire phones every two years rather than just the batteries. They've been remarkably effective at doing just that.
I think you're right. They then quickly learned that it's in their best interest to have a sealed system. Makes it cheaper to obtain higher IP ratings. Sells more devices. It obviously did nothing that hurt sales. Samsung is making an IP68 rated device with replaceable battery and still takes SD cards right now. It's only $600 to boot making it handedly cheaper than flagships. So why isn't it what everyone's pointing at in these threads? Cause the majority of people, even in these very threads, aren't buying it. These are not the factors that decided buying a phone. Otherwise removable batteries, SD cards and 3.5mm jacks would still be ubiquitous, but here we are.
I had a Galaxy S5 which I think was IP67 (someone fact check me on that), and a removable battery. It definitely didn't have a premium feel, and it got eviscerated in reviews for that. That didn't bother me though. Though, the backing cracked and the little plastic clips broke off rather quickly. I think if they had a metal backing that was held on by a regular (albeit tiny) Philips head screw(s), they could have a user replaceable battery on a premium phone with IP68 no problem.
According to wiki, you remembered right!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S5
It's mentioned in this thread here that there is the xCover model series which have user replaceable batteries still. The 6 pro was released just last year So much for manufacturers having to figure things out from ground up bollocks
Nooooooooo
Most cellphone covers on these premium phones don't feel all that premium themselves, so it's ok if the phone doesn't, either.
One of them being the Galaxy S5 (I think)
You're correct, though the Galaxy S5 is a bad example. Tthe device looked and felt like a Fischer Price toy. It had flaps everywhere, was annoying to use, and even had a billion software notifications to keep reminding you to monitor and close said flaps. Nowadays we can certainly do better.
Yeah, I scuba dive and have multiple pieces of equipment with replacable batteries that are good down to 500+ ft. Not only do some of them get opened frequently, and without replacing seals or anything, but they're also all way cheaper than my phone! Anyone who says you can't easily meet an IP68 rating on a phone with replacement batteries is full of shit.
Do those have the same size and weight requirements a phone has? This isn't about "can this be done", it is a question about "which compromises do we have to accept to make this happen".
There still are today. Samsung Xcover series.
Yeah my 2023 XCover 6Pro has a removable battery and ip68 rating. You wouldn't be able to tell the back cover comes off. The only clue that something's off is that it's texturized plastic instead of glass or aluminium.