Back in the day this was even better:
Original Galaxy S battery was getting weak? Order a new battery from Amazon for 13€. Battery arrives, pop the back of the phone off, pull battery out (just like that, no soldering), push new battery in. Push the back of the phone back on, done.
New battery in and it had more mAh than the original one. Despite overclocking that phone it ran a day longer after the replacement.
There was an even bigger benefit that most people maybe didn't realise at that time or even now, but when the phone fell that energy got distributed into the parts flying apart, which used to reduce the damage the phone took
If the EU has its way we might all get this.
One can hope.
People can babble about water proofing, etc. There is no legitimate engineering problem.
The battery could power the device wirelessly at this point.
They could even claim they're saving the environment by not including the battery after a couple release cycles.
Oof i didn't think of them selling the battery separate possibly with an upcharge. monkeys paw curls
You probably also didn't think about them no longer making the battery two years after releasing the phone.
Third party has always been the solution to this.
Yeah but then you have to wade through a million crappy Chinese products and be thankful when they merely don't hold a charge (as opposed to exploding).
I've been through this back when batteries were replaceable, decent 3rd-party were not easy to find. Best you could hope for was that the original manufacturer kept making them. Nokia went as far as making one battery model work with multiple phone models.
Honest question, are phone batteries recycleable? Because if there's going to be a ton of them being made I have to wonder what's worst for the environment, replacing phones or replacing batteries.
I'm not sure if you're being serious but replacing a phone is the same as replacing a battery, but worse for both consumer and environment. Of course you'd want to do some research before purchasing the first thing that crosses your path, but both me and my wife have done this before many times with very good results.
I had that issue with an Otterbox case. Bought it, it was bulky but protected the phone well. After 3 years the rubber tore near the charging port. They offer "lifetime" warranty (5 years). Well, wrote them for a replacement and they simply said nah, they don't have that case any more for a phone this "old". So they didn't honor the warranty and just told me I'm out of luck.
What the hell do I buy an expensive phone case for when they can't even honor a 5 year warranty? That was the last Otterbox for me, Spigen was the choice I went with afterwards. Can't go wrong with a 10 buck phone case, I don't care if it breaks in a few years.
When it comes to phones every manufacturer just gives you the finger if it's 3+ years old it seems.
The batteries are not soldered even in the newest Samsung phones. Everything you'd want to replace is modular. Not sure about Apple.
My pixel 4a battery isn't soldered but I needed to spend 45 minutes taking it apart and it's definitely not something the average phone user would be comfortable doing. We need to pass (in the US) some sort of legislation that makes it simple to replace phone batteries.
Fat chance. Our only hope is that the EU does it
Didn't they already do that?
The law needs to be signed still but it is estimated that realisticly easily replaceable batteries in smartphones should hit around 2027...
Thanks for reminding me of how I used to never worry about battery life cause the moment one got low, I'd just pop a spare out of my backpack and continue on with my day. Batteries were so freaking cheap!
great for you, doesn't spund great for the environment, I like the push for replaceable batteries, but surely battery banks are a better solution since they are universal
Charging the internal battery from an external one loses a lot of energy, battery charging is very far from 100% efficient A phone might not use enough energy for this to make much of a difference, but you need to build and carry beefier battery banks compared to internal batteries, and I'm not sure whether you'll see a net benifit
"your phone is missing some parts"
I'm sorry what? Did they fall out when I turned it to the side?
I used to do 3rd party repairs, and it's impossible to describe how fucked up some devices were that came to me from other repair places. Missing screws, shields, screws put back int he wrong places and occasionally they had worked with a bad tech that damaged the mainboard.
This makes no sense. How does a working phone "miss a few vitals parts" necessary to replace battery?
there's a channel on YouTube, by louis rossman. you'll find plenty of examples of bs answers from apple tech support in order to make you spend a great deal of money.
~~furthermore, nowhere it talks about "vital parts". So yeah, it makes no sense, but for other reasons.~~
Read your comment twice, now I got what you mean. took me a bit, but you're definitely right.
I'm honestly glad that Apple products aren't popular in my country.