Do you miss phones with replaceable batteries? By 2027, you won’t anymore because, by law, almost every smartphone will have them again.
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.
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
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.
I had a Galaxy s4! and I remember I bought 2 extended batteries (about 3000mah but they were the same size so who knows) and a wall charger for them from ZeroLemon. I would hot swap the batteries instead of charging my phone. it was such a convenient system I felt so cool 🤓
I really miss hot swappable batteries. Just carry a small spare battery and swap it when needed. So much now convenient than needing to plug it in to top up.
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
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.
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.
I think all phones should be waterproof to some degree
Would you pay extra for waterproofing? If so how much?
I think all phone lines should have a waterproof option that doesn’t have a an easy to remove battery. That way consumers are given the choice at the time of purchase, and the people that want waterproofing are the only ones affected by the repairability tradeoff.
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.
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
I wonder how apple will react to this
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…
By designing a model of iphone with replaceable battery, of course.
Design batteries that can also function independently as a powerbank? That would be useful.
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, no reason why my Pixel 6 shouldn’t last until I accidentally drop it instead of the slow death of worsening battery.
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.
Only EU though
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2027 wow they could have taken like 3999 With that. It has to come NOW or it has literally 0 effect.
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.
Doubtful since those are not required for the life/longevity of the tech.
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Which this isn’t totally solving. Don’t get me wrong this is a good thing. But the real issue with planned obsolescence is OS support.
Very true, limited OS support kills most devices eventually, sadly there is only so much you can mandate as many apps and programs will stop working on old OS as they are updated. What should be criminal is apple patching old OS too purposely slow them down.
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Why do you think that?
Because we’ll all have brainphones by then, duh.
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.
Not it’s not. You should read about throttling down
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.
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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 thought there were large exceptions for water proofing etc…?
