Do you miss phones with replaceable batteries? By 2027, you won’t anymore because, by law, almost every smartphone will have them again.
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I don’t have a problem with this. Anything to make phones less disposable.
I do have problem with it. Why 2027 and not sooner?
I’m all for it but how will this effect the way they waterproof devices?
Samsung Galaxy S5 had both waterproofing (IP67) and replaceable battery. Details: https://www.anandtech.com/show/7942/galaxy-s5-followup
There are devices like Samsung’s Xcover products that have the back cover snap into place in a way that creates a water-proof seal around the battery and components inside. It’s incredibly tight and has a rubber ring.
Just waterproof everything that isn’t removable and add a short failsafe for when water is around the battery.
good, but i am afraid they will just find another way to artificially shorten the length of a phone life.
They do that already. From my experience with Samsung phones is that after 2 years they start reboot or off sudden, HTC (RIP) sometimes misses some incoming calls.
After we moved from vacuum tubes to transistors, electronics got more robust, but apparently that doesn’t apply to smart phones.
I have a Pinephone and a Librem 5 and they both have removable batteries. They might be anemic and featureless, but they are ahead of the pack on this. :)
TL;DR
- The European Council has ended its adoption procedure for rules related to phones with replaceable batteries.
- By 2027, all phones released in the EU must have a battery the user can easily replace with no tools or expertise.
- The regulation intends to introduce a circular economy for batteries.
Great news. But given the long timeline I wonder if that will give corporations a chance to make lawsuits and reverse course. Though the EU seems to legislate pretty well in the arena of consumer protection
I’ve never owned a smartphone with a removable battery and I don’t feel like I ever needed one.
As a mostly iPhone user, will this mean we go back to phones with plastic bodies?
of course not. It might mean a slightly thicker phone, but with a bit of smart engineering and a regulatory incentive, I’d expect something quite elegant. Think about how your SIM tray pops out.
I absolutely love how LG G5 handled it: https://youtu.be/8l4QHBMpXLo
That is, until they also jumped on the non removable battery bandwagon.
Replaceable batteries were great. I could keep phones going for years until Samsung started pumping out bloated software updates that slowed them down.
When we had replaceable batteries you could just buy a new one and performance issues would be corrected almost immediately. Apple was sneaky AF about this back in the day, throttling performance in an attempt to increase battery life, something that wouldn’t be needed if you could easily swap out the battery every few years
Counterpoint: I’ve never owned a smartphone without a removable battery as I see it as a requirement.
This is encouraging news for me.