Among the many changes, the new rules would require batteries in consumer devices like smartphones to be easily removable and replaceable. That's far from the case today...
I don’t mind that my phone battery is sealed up. I do mind that I have to bring it to a specialist that might screw it up and make me pay for the privilege.
Actually, this bothers me way more with laptops than with phones. With laptops, there’s no water resistance or any other reason besides thinness to seal the battery up. Particularly with business machines, the computing power will be more-than-sufficient for many years to come, yet many will end up in the trash because the battery’s no longer doing its job. It’s ridiculously wasteful.
@MrTHXcertified I think that no device should be built in a way that it cannot be disassembled anymore. Concerning the argument “but what about water resistance?”: remember that for a long time there are quartz watches that are water resistant to incredible depths - and their batteries can be replaced.
All of them. You could argue that the time and expertise needed to replace a laptop battery is negligible, but I say it’s an unnecessary increase of time and risk required to do so.
What do you feel are the benefits of embedding a laptop battery in the case?
You can more or less forget about ultrabooks or other highly portable laptops if you want externally removable batteries. The latching mechanism and protective packaging takes up a lot of space, where there already is none. I find that releasing a few screws to pop the back cover is barely an inconvenience; to some degree people need to learn to do this stuff if they want the best of both worlds.
This is a big part of why I bought a Framework laptop. Every part is easily accessible and they sell replacement parts. The laptops are even modular and upgradable
I remember when I was looking for a new laptop, I made a replaceable battery a requirement, since my previous laptop’s battery (which wasn’t replaceable) lost its charge very fast.
Out of the hundreds of laptops available today, I could only find two or three laptop models total with a replaceable battery. And none of them were in physical stores, so a less tech-minded person would never find them.
Interestingly, the replaceable battery also seems to be higher quality than the permanent battery was.
I got one of the framework laptop over a year ago and it’s been fantastic other than having a defective trackpad (which took all of 10 minutes to replace after receiving a free replacement part from their support team). I will even be able to upgrade to a newer mainboard with an AMD CPU from the current 11th gen intel later this year when the boards start shipping.
It really grinds my gears when companies claim that repairable devices aren’t possible to make in modern form factors, especially when a rinky dink startup was able to do it.
Out of the hundreds of laptops available today, I could only find two or three laptop models total with a replaceable battery.
Nearly every business class laptop has a replaceable battery, you just need a philips-head screwdriver for most.
Anything that is meant for consumers shouldn’t be bought anyway, Dell Inspirons and HP Pavilions and shit are not made to last unfortunately. Nor are they made to be easily repairable. I’d go as far as recommend an 8 year old thinkpad over some brand new consumer models. It’ll last longer.
Older Business laptops are a reasonable choice in that case. E.g. you can get a ThinkPad T590 from 2019 for about 500€ and the battery (and everything) is easily replaceable by unscrewing a metal plate at the bottom.
I definitely agree 100% with the spirit of your comment. In my experience servicing business laptops like Dell latitudes or precisions etc, it hasn’t been very hard to get to the battery it’s usually just a couple of screws to remove the bottom panel and maybe another fastening screw that anchors in the battery and then you just swap it out. In general, again this is just in my experience, One of the things that you’re paying for when you get a business level device whether it’s a laptop or a desktop computer is the ability to service it more easily and replace broken parts because it’s often more efficient to do it in house than to have the manufacturer do it even if you paid for the service.
The flip side of this though is that a lot of people are terrified of opening up a laptop and that’s totally understandable because there’s a lot of little delicate parts that you could possibly break. I would be totally unsurprised if this was a mindset that was specifically nurtured and engendered by the industry itself because it’s much better for them if you just buy a whole new laptop then a cheap battery especially if it’s from a third party seller.
This makes me wonder what it would take to make people in general feel encouraged and emboldened to take apart and repair the devices that they own. I also wonder if inflation is just the thing to do it.
I don’t mind that my phone battery is sealed up. I do mind that I have to bring it to a specialist that might screw it up and make me pay for the privilege.
Actually, this bothers me way more with laptops than with phones. With laptops, there’s no water resistance or any other reason besides thinness to seal the battery up. Particularly with business machines, the computing power will be more-than-sufficient for many years to come, yet many will end up in the trash because the battery’s no longer doing its job. It’s ridiculously wasteful.
@MrTHXcertified I think that no device should be built in a way that it cannot be disassembled anymore. Concerning the argument “but what about water resistance?”: remember that for a long time there are quartz watches that are water resistant to incredible depths - and their batteries can be replaced.
Yep, we need universal right to repair/ease of repair regulations to stem all the electronic waste.
Many laptops/ultrabooks have easily accessible batteries nowadays, any specific example when you mean sealed up?
All of them. You could argue that the time and expertise needed to replace a laptop battery is negligible, but I say it’s an unnecessary increase of time and risk required to do so.
What do you feel are the benefits of embedding a laptop battery in the case?
Portability for one. You can move your laptop without worrying about the battery latches getting damaged.
I used to refurb laptops and I’ve seen plenty of externally mounted batteries that just wouldn’t reliably sit on the laptop anymore.
You can more or less forget about ultrabooks or other highly portable laptops if you want externally removable batteries. The latching mechanism and protective packaging takes up a lot of space, where there already is none. I find that releasing a few screws to pop the back cover is barely an inconvenience; to some degree people need to learn to do this stuff if they want the best of both worlds.
This is a big part of why I bought a Framework laptop. Every part is easily accessible and they sell replacement parts. The laptops are even modular and upgradable
I remember when I was looking for a new laptop, I made a replaceable battery a requirement, since my previous laptop’s battery (which wasn’t replaceable) lost its charge very fast.
Out of the hundreds of laptops available today, I could only find two or three laptop models total with a replaceable battery. And none of them were in physical stores, so a less tech-minded person would never find them.
Interestingly, the replaceable battery also seems to be higher quality than the permanent battery was.
I got one of the framework laptop over a year ago and it’s been fantastic other than having a defective trackpad (which took all of 10 minutes to replace after receiving a free replacement part from their support team). I will even be able to upgrade to a newer mainboard with an AMD CPU from the current 11th gen intel later this year when the boards start shipping.
It really grinds my gears when companies claim that repairable devices aren’t possible to make in modern form factors, especially when a rinky dink startup was able to do it.
Nearly every business class laptop has a replaceable battery, you just need a philips-head screwdriver for most.
Anything that is meant for consumers shouldn’t be bought anyway, Dell Inspirons and HP Pavilions and shit are not made to last unfortunately. Nor are they made to be easily repairable. I’d go as far as recommend an 8 year old thinkpad over some brand new consumer models. It’ll last longer.
Older Business laptops are a reasonable choice in that case. E.g. you can get a ThinkPad T590 from 2019 for about 500€ and the battery (and everything) is easily replaceable by unscrewing a metal plate at the bottom.
I definitely agree 100% with the spirit of your comment. In my experience servicing business laptops like Dell latitudes or precisions etc, it hasn’t been very hard to get to the battery it’s usually just a couple of screws to remove the bottom panel and maybe another fastening screw that anchors in the battery and then you just swap it out. In general, again this is just in my experience, One of the things that you’re paying for when you get a business level device whether it’s a laptop or a desktop computer is the ability to service it more easily and replace broken parts because it’s often more efficient to do it in house than to have the manufacturer do it even if you paid for the service.
The flip side of this though is that a lot of people are terrified of opening up a laptop and that’s totally understandable because there’s a lot of little delicate parts that you could possibly break. I would be totally unsurprised if this was a mindset that was specifically nurtured and engendered by the industry itself because it’s much better for them if you just buy a whole new laptop then a cheap battery especially if it’s from a third party seller.
This makes me wonder what it would take to make people in general feel encouraged and emboldened to take apart and repair the devices that they own. I also wonder if inflation is just the thing to do it.
Aren’t business laptops usually really easy to open up and repair? I hope that hasn’t changed…