Do you miss phones with replaceable batteries? By 2027, you won't anymore because, by law, almost every smartphone will have them again.

Do you miss phones with replaceable batteries? By 2027, you won’t anymore because, by law, almost every smartphone will have them again.

  • sneezy@lemm.eeEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Remember that consumers expect certain things from smartphones nowadays, which will mean that OEMs can’t just go back to the old way of doing things. An IP68 rating would be very difficult to obtain while still offering a premium-feeling device with an easily replaceable battery, for example. These are hurdles OEMs will need to get over to be in compliance.

    this is straight-up BS. there were many phones with ip68 and user-replacable batteries back when sealing the battery in a phone was frowned upon. not all but many.

    • Pelicanen@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      The term “premium-feeling” does a lot of heavy lifting in that paragraph, one might almost say that it’s a bit subjective.

      • Dirk Darkly@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        It’s true though. I’ve become very accustomed to the premium experience of being forced to use premium apps and services that don’t work half the time in a very premium manner.

      • Mongostein@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        I think it would be pretty premium if I could have a spare battery on the charger for a quick swap rather than relying on a cable to charge my phone.

    • MeanEYE@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I have a two-way radio which floats in water and has a replaceable battery. It’s just excuses. However I do believe they got rid of replaceable batteries to save on space and thickness of the devices.

      • CthuluVoIP@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        Thickness is the only concern I have. I’d love to be able to replace the battery in my iPhone safely and easily, but I don’t really want to give up having a phone that’s less than 10mm thick.

        • gila@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          1 year ago

          The main factor to consider in making an ultrathin phone in 2023 has nothing to do with the battery. It’s the requirement for a certain level of build quality to be suitable for end consumers. At some point we just need to develop new materials, because we can’t make it any more ultrathin without it also becoming ultrafragile using the materials available.

          It hasn’t really been a focus since we realised back around the iPhone 5 that making these sweeping compromises for thinness was yielding diminishing returns and causing other problems. Today that’s still the thinnest mainline iPhone, only the SE and 12 Mini are thinner. 13 mini is thicker, and there is no 14 mini.

          • Piers@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            Ergonomics matter too. At this point going thinner is purely a marketing exercise rather than a practical improvement of any kind. If they were able to businesses would be making them so thin you can’t hold them without risking a paper-cut so long as that allowed them to convince people that meant it was better than their current, designed for human hands, smartphone. Same thing with size. Personally I prefer a larger display and am willing to accept slightly worse ergonomics for it but even with more or less average sized hands I definitely find phones with 6 inch or under screens much more comfortable in the hand than the more typical sizes today and I know plenty of people with smaller than average hands (ie, half of the population) who really hate holding modern gigantic phones (and so often have held off on upgrading to a new model until I’ve steered them to something the same size as their old one.)