Excellent! Batteries in modern phones are surprisingly definitely removable and replaceable. I’ve done it multiple times. However, the unfriendly barrier to entry is glue and clips that require careful prying with spugers. It’s quite clear manufacturers are happy blocking you getting in; plenty people just buy new phones when the battery gets too old.
I do miss being able to swap out a phone battery and this will certainly be a step in the right direction in terms ewaste and device longevity.
One thing that I wonder about is waterproofing or water resistance. Some phones are basically waterproof in shallow water. How achievable is this with a device with a trivial way to remove the battery?
People make this argument and barely anyone really uses the waterprooding features of a phone
You know, I really like my Essential Ph-1. It was a lovely little phone. I had the little 360 camera accessory that snapped on magentically and everything. It was so cool! Then, 1.5 seconds, dropped into water from which I grabbed it instantly, and it was done. No warranty coverage for dropping it in water, and zero waterproofing, and toasted phone. So, yes, more of us “use” waterproofing on our phones than you would think. The thing is that it didn’t need to be this way. There were waterproof phones back before everything was glued glass slabs all the time. Galaxy S5 Sport as mentioned by @HubbleST@lemm.ee above (and other “sport” edition phones). We have a lot of hygrophobic coatings and tech we didn’t have in the day of the Galaxy S5 series. We can do better now, if manufacturers are forced to.
Fingers crossed that this will be implemented well, im tired of having sleek electronics be irrelevant in 2 years when the silicon could go for 5 or six
The silicon could go on for decades if both the modem and processor were fully documented hardware that the community can access and support in the Linux kernel.
I can run a secure and current form of Linux on 30+ year old hardware if I want to, because the hardware documentation was expected by everyone at the time even if some end users were oblivious to what this meant. The whole reason google pushes Android is because they provide a base Linux kernel that hardware manufacturers can easily slip their proprietary junk into without requiring them to add the kind of open source code needed for mainline kernel support by the community. This is the mechanism that depreciates your device. It is totally artificial and an end user exploitation by design.
It’s usually not silicon on the PCB that fails, but the other electronic components (usually the capacitors) that fails first, and since they are surface mounted devices it’s really difficult to solder them by hand.
There are no electrolytics in phones, and most newer phones don’t even have tantalums. So long as there are no flexing stresses induced, which is nearly impossible with the way phones are constructed now, the all MLC capacitors construction has the potential to outlast any PC motherboard or laptop by a large margin.
The most critical issue is board connectors and moisture ingress. The USB-C connector or any other high pin density micro sized connector with a tiny pin pitch, and large electrical potential will fail from charge cycling and a resistance forming between pins. USB-C is particularly bad because reversing the connector doubles the number of pins on the board in a ridiculous amount of space. Just using a standard USB-C connector when ordering a prototype to be fabed at any common board house will double the price. The USB-C pin pitch is too tight for the most common fab process resolution.
I might be in the minority here, but I feel this is actually a step back.
In the 5 years I’ve had my phone, there have been two times I’ve ever really needed to pull the battery, and still the hard reset sequence still eventually worked in both cases.
Anyone remember how some phones had issues with the battery door becoming somewhat loose over time, causing any slight bump to turn the phone off? Many have already commented on how they explode into multiple pieces when dropped. Traditionally the battery covers are incredibly flimsy plastic, even on flagship devices (cough Samsung). Waterproofing is a common concern too, however it actually can be done with a removable battery (e.g. Galaxy S5).
What really needed to be addressed here was how cumbersome it is to get into these devices to replace the battery, and how often people are price gouged to replace them. I believe this could have been better written to allow for either a removable battery, or a standardized and affordable built-in battery replacement process.
Fairphone 3 user here. My main reason to choose this phone a few years ago was because the battery could easily be replaced. Too many phones are perfectly functional but the battery is half dead. Another boon of non-glued batteries : You can carry two (or more) batteries to easily switch when the first one is KO. Meaning no need for portable charger and useless cables in your pocket. Phone at 10% ? Just change it, bam 100% in a second. Easy as that.
I’ll probably not be the target of such regulations because I wouldn’t choose an anti-consumer phone brand anyway, but at least it’s going in the right direction.
This is great.
Do y’all remember the days when you dropped your phone and it exploded into 3 or 4 pieces? 🤣 Those were the good days.
Three. Battery, cover and the rest. Weirdly, no damage to the plastic display. How? I guess it was the
weatherbezelWell, it was plastic. Pretty hard to crack plastic like glass
And when you scratched up the back you bought a new one for $12. No $200 glass or machined aluminum cases that we put $35 covers on just to protect them from every day use.
I actually love all these regulations on smartphones (mainly by the EU), like the recent USB-C standard. That one in particular makes it so much easier to share chargers around the house!
USB-type C to become EU’s common charger by end of 2024
I mean… Sure, but we’ve had USB-C as de facto standard for many years now. When was the last time you saw a micro USB phone?
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Motorola Defy was waterproof with removable battery. A small switch locked the cover in place with a rubber gasket. This was over 10 years ago.
My old Galaxy S5 was water resistant (IP67, 30min/1 metre submerged)
The rear cover had a gasket to prevent water entering the motherboard, micro sd, battery, sim etc.
I can’t wait to hear the Apple marketing word for this feature. They’ll add some gimmick like the battery is held in with magnets and say “We call it MagPack and we think you’re going to love it.”
Really hoping this happens. I want to be able to replace the battery on my phone after a year because the performance on the battery degraded by nearly half.
That being said, I’m also willing to bet some time shortly after this goes into affect, the cost of mobile service (at least in the US) will go up another $10/$15 a month, and phones will increase in cost by another $100-$200. Not because materials cost more, or designs change. But to preemptively screw people over.
on the battery degraded by nearly half.
One year nearly half ? wtf , even my 24/7 power used phone lost approx only 17% on battery health and its a Poco x3 pro
Wonder if phone manufacturers will fragment their offerings to satisfy EU requirements or if we’ll all end up with removable batteries.
It will be a pretty major redesign of the chasis and body to accommodate a removable battery and the cover, so I think it would make little economical sense to maintain two designs for every phone sold here.
This is actually pretty crazy. Wonder how much it’ll affect the overall design of modern smartphones. Will we witness the return of flagships with plastic back covers?
Yeesh I hope not.
I hope everything just becomes brushed aluminum ffs. I hate all these glass back phones
Phones only have glass backs to let wireless charging work so I don’t see aluminium making a come back any time soon.
I hate wireless charging too, though. It’s inherently less efficient than wired, and you have less range of motion while charging. With a wire, I can still use my phone while it’s plugged in. Wireless charging needs to go away imo.
I interested in how your hate for wireless charging has anything to do with this thread?
We’ve had wireless charging in every single material back and it’s absolutely wonderful QOL improvement.
It can’t be done through metal backs, for what it’s worth.
