Do you miss phones with replaceable batteries? By 2027, you won’t anymore because, by law, almost every smartphone will have them again.
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).
*In the EU.
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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.
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 don’t understand why disposable vapes are even legal at all. I mean we banned friggin’ plastic straws but this thing is fine?! Who even came up with such a terrible product in current times?
The EU by going after the self-mixing market. Bullshit like allowing duties on liquid that doesn’t even contain nicotine so you end up paying through your nose for flavoured glycerine/propylene glycol mix. Limiting nicotine-containing liquids to 20mg/ml max, and 10ml bottles at that, while there were never any issues with what was legal here (Germany) under ordinary toxic substance laws (without being a chemist): 50mg/ml in any size you bloody want (usually 100ml because it degrades once you open it).
Before those laws the market was largely modular systems, tank and mod separate, plenty of replaceable batteries, with all that bullshit added on vaping sensibly became so expensive that people went “meh, can just as well use a pre-built”.
The UK actually were the sensible ones in that area, but I guess the market shift reached them by sheer force of Chinese production capacity.
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…
It actually is! Second time I’m having the subboard replaced. 3rd time I can request a new phone or a replacement by law. Still not ok for a flagship phone by such a large manufacturer
Try cleaning it. I used to have the same issue, and had to get the subboard replaced multiple times too, until I realized that mechanically cleaning it with something really thin works as well. Felt really dumb after finding out lol. The pocket lint can absorb moisture and then the sensor doesn’t work properly.
I’ll try it out thanks
It’s almost hypersensitive, well beyond what it needs to be. I couldn’t charge it by cable for 3 days. Not ok at all, good luck with it mate!
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
You use Apple? lol.
Uhhh no I was just using them as an example of a company that is really against customer repairs
They fucking brick stuff that’s repaired.
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.
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.
This is what happens in the US when California passes a big consumer friendly law. The companies just adapt to whatever California said because it’s too expensive to have California versions and non-California versions. California’s population is high and their economy is big. Double plus if NY is in on it.
There’s just going to be more plastic phones.
The cost isn’t that much higher. The profit they get from people buying new phone when battery dies, however, is completely different story
Why not? Many companies already have US exclusive SKUs. Some companies like Samsung even have a history of shipping completely different SOCs.
A different chip is a different scenario. We’re talking about how the entire design, case etc has to accommodate for a removable battery.
Different SOC means different motherboard, different antenna layout, different everything. It’s no different from making battery removable.
* 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.
Yeah I don’t see Apple paying for wildly different phone designs for different markets. But I have no doubts they’ll find some new way to make their phones worthless after 2 or so years.
Updates. That’s all you need to know. They’ve already be caught with the whole slow phone after updates to make you buy a new phone.
I used to say that- but, they did actually have an argument for that- consistent battery life in exchange for lower performance. They thought users would prefer lowering performance of the phone so the battery still lasts just as long- and honestly I don’t think they’re that wrong. 95% of the time as long as it’s usuable I don’t care about the performance of my phone- but I do care about battery life.
He’d probably just enjoy it.
Based EU
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).
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.
So if I understand you correctly, based on your reply, it’s a liberal versus conservatism thing?
it’s a liberal versus conservatism thing?
It’s about that if you don’t see the base level or best possible human existence for all as inherently liberal and especially as western liberal democracy, neoliberalism and pro oligarchy. If one wants something else, then they are out of luck and caged and oppressed in the EU, otherwise one is free in the system. If you can’t see anything beside liberalism and conservatism, then sure. Then i guess I do represent conservatism if it’s that binary choice to you, not that I personally subscribe to any wider concept called “conservatism”.
“Then i guess I do represent conservatism if it’s that binary choice to you,”
Oh I definitely do not think it’s a binary choice, but the way you phrase it I was wondering if you think of it as a binary choice, hence my question to you.
It’s been my experience that liberals are more open-minded and less binary towards conservatives (“as long as they’re not hurting anybody let them do what they want”) than conservatives are towards liberals (“there’s only one way to God and I know the path so you must follow my way”). A way over simplification, but it tends to make the point.
Just one person’s anecdotal opinion, but still, thats what my life experiences have shown me.
Shame this can’t happen for memory and storage.
also for headphone jacks in the future too…
Maybe Framework can solve that riddle one day. I know there was an attempt some time ago by another startup.
I just want Framework to ship to my country… I will keep this lenovo alive on life support until the day Framework arrives.
They would just “underdevelop” other areas to make their phone “breakable” or “prone to accidents”. I am not that hyped because of that.
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.
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.
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.
It took forty years for aa batteries to become a standard. They were a trademark type by I think everready.
BL-5C is becoming a de facto standard size for random electronics, but it’s too small for a smartphone.
Only EU though
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Apple’s market share is quite a bit lower in the EU than in the US.
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.
To be fair a three-phase connector doesn’t make sense in the US with their bonkers electrical system where you get either 110V to neutral or -110V to +110V.
Separate DC charging standards make no sense at all, though. From what Technology Connections says Tesla at least switched the signalling to be compatible, so all you need is a physical adapter. Maybe they figured that they don’t want to fight all the other manufacturers, or make additional money from non-Tesla drivers using their network, or something.
At least Tesla eventually allowed other car companies to use their connector.
True, but we don’t know how many strings are attached to that. The Tesla connector is going to be made ‘open source’, but that doesn’t mean anything in terms of it being free to use or permissable. I hope it’s being done in good faith but The Dipshit has something of a record to the contrary…
I’m pretty sure it is free to use. Check this out: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Tesla-open-sources-its-connector-to-take-on-CCS-with-half-the-size-twice-the-power-North-American-Charging-Standard.668196.0.html
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
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.
$300 battery for your iPhone
Screens are now up there for genuine. Oh, and btw Apple very quietly implemented an “alert” when you have an aftermarket screen.
It will be built from the ground up 😂
You mean built by some other manufacturer and marketed to seem like it was built from the ground up from Apple themselves.
Overcomplicated, overpriced, and they’re gonna incentive just getting the next gen phone.
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.
“And we think you’re gonna love it”
🙏
It will be magnetic
I mean…battery replacements were ALWAYS proprietary. You can’t pop a Galaxy S4 battery in a GS 5.
You can buy third party batteries. The batteries are customized to the phone, but they aren’t exclusively sold by the OEM.
But you can put up a firmware barrier that keeps the phone from booting up, or at least from operating at full advertised capacity, unless it’s an “authentic” battery that’s been officially registered to that particular phone’s serial number, which can only be done via special tools and software that are only available to official Apple repair shops. They’ve done it with cameras and screens and buttons, why not batteries? It’s just another part.
At that point there’s no way they can argue that the battery is user-serviceable without extra tools. Sure, they could argue that the law doesn’t specify that they can’t sabotage the device if you swap your battery but European courts have traditionally taken a dim view of that kind of tomfoolery.
I’m pretty sure that Apple aren’t going to risk having to suddenly take all of their devices off the shelves. It’s cheaper to comply.
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.
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.
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.
By designing a model of iphone with replaceable battery, of course.
Remember that consumers expect certain things from smartphones nowadays, which will mean that OEMs can’t just go back to the old way of doing things. An IP68 rating would be very difficult to obtain while still offering a premium-feeling device with an easily replaceable battery, for example. These are hurdles OEMs will need to get over to be in compliance.
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.
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”.
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.
The main factor to consider in making an ultrathin phone in 2023 has nothing to do with the battery. It’s the requirement for a certain level of build quality to be suitable for end consumers. At some point we just need to develop new materials, because we can’t make it any more ultrathin without it also becoming ultrafragile using the materials available.
It hasn’t really been a focus since we realised back around the iPhone 5 that making these sweeping compromises for thinness was yielding diminishing returns and causing other problems. Today that’s still the thinnest mainline iPhone, only the SE and 12 Mini are thinner. 13 mini is thicker, and there is no 14 mini.
Ergonomics matter too. At this point going thinner is purely a marketing exercise rather than a practical improvement of any kind. If they were able to businesses would be making them so thin you can’t hold them without risking a paper-cut so long as that allowed them to convince people that meant it was better than their current, designed for human hands, smartphone. Same thing with size. Personally I prefer a larger display and am willing to accept slightly worse ergonomics for it but even with more or less average sized hands I definitely find phones with 6 inch or under screens much more comfortable in the hand than the more typical sizes today and I know plenty of people with smaller than average hands (ie, half of the population) who really hate holding modern gigantic phones (and so often have held off on upgrading to a new model until I’ve steered them to something the same size as their old one.)
Thickness of your phone is now dictated by cameras. Because of focal lengths and what not, they need to be a certain size, that’s why they’re always with an overhang.
The size thing is just another excuse.
There were/are phones with replacable batteries that are thinner than most current phones. Some were 7.5mm and even less.
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And it had completely different innards and battery capacities. Just grabbing that old battery and putting it in a new phone would seriously limit the runtime on a single charge. Which is kinda the point, I really hope we don’t trade replaceable batteries for the need to recharge twice a day or switch batteries to even make it the whole day. Or have a noticeable bulkier phone that won’t fit as comfortably in my pocket. Or that it may not survive the rain shower I got surprised by because they skimped on the water proofing.
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.
The Galaxy Xcover 6 pro is a box full of lies in terms of IP68 rating and associated warranty. I have written about my utterly disappointing experience of getting caught in a storm a couple of months after I bought it quite extensively elsewhere. Save to say I will not be buying another samsung product. It seems they have forgotten how they used to make that design work.
Great phone, just not waterproof at all.
Honestly, I never buy a phone without an audio jack and sd card.
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.
There still are today. Samsung Xcover series.
The term “premium-feeling” does a lot of heavy lifting in that paragraph, one might almost say that it’s a bit subjective.
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.
Move over 2010. Who uses a cable?
I do? And most people I know?
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.
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.”
Meanwhile the phone can’t lie flat on its back because the camera protrudes.
Solution: add phonecase! Or just have better (and slightly bigger) internals to make backside level…
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.
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.
I had a Galaxy S5 which I think was IP67 (someone fact check me on that)
According to wiki, you remembered right!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S5It definitely didn’t have a premium feel, and it got eviscerated in reviews for that. That didn’t bother me though.
Most cellphone covers on these premium phones don’t feel all that premium themselves, so it’s ok if the phone doesn’t, either.
Philips head screw(s)
Nooooooooo
Pretty much all Androids I have taken apart were Phillips head screws. iPhones have like 5 slightly different types in each phone, it’s nonsense
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
I have that device. It’s definitely a thick boi but in no way does it not feel “not premium”. I vastly prefer the grippy texturized back cover and sides to slippery glass/aluminium. It’s one of the few devices that feels great in had without a case.
Premium means different things to different people. Plastic is never premium.
Does it really even matter though? Vast majority of people are going to put it in a plastic case anyways.
