Yet I have a PC laptop from 2009 that still runs the latest version of Windows and Linux and has a battery that I can replace in three point four seconds which costs less than $30.

I can’t believe we’ve gotten to the point where there is even an argument about this! Every single consumer electronics device in my home that has batteries makes it easy to replace them—except my cell phones. Everything from remote controls, UPS backups, alarm system, smoke detectors, computers, toys, even my car. They are all end user serviceable. This is how it’s supposed to be! I shouldn’t need to take anything to a business in order to replace a battery. How did this become a weird point of view?

Smartphones are power hungry. In order to keep them running for more than a few minutes they need high capacity batteries. In order to put suitably high capacity batteries in smartphones that fit in pockets manufacturers have gone to lithium polymer batteries. In order to get the most capacity out of the available volume manufacturers have done away with hard puncture resistant casings on the batteries, letting the phone chassis be the protective shell. Without a protective shell no insurance underwriter or regulatory body is going to approve the batteries as user serviceable.

You could make a LiPoly battery with a hard user serviceable hard shell but it would have far less capacity than a glued in battery. Not only would the volume of the hard case take away from electrical storage volume but there needs to be free space for the electrolyte material to expand when it heats up. Batteries heat up when charging and discharging in addition to heat absorbed from components like a phone's internal circuitry. Without expansion space the battery is just a small bomb.

Older cell phones and smartphones had far less power draw than modern smartphones. The old Nokia BL-4 batteries were around 800 mAh. The original iPhone's battery was almost twice the capacity and a modern iPhone is 3-4 times that capacity. Smartphones would weigh twice as much and easily be twice as thick if they had replaceable batteries with the same capacity as their non-replaceable ones. While you might be fine with phones being thicker most buyers would rather have the thinner and lighter phone if the extra weight and bulk didn't offer any extra run time. They definitely wouldn't go for phones that had a quarter of the run time because they could replace the battery themselves.

It's not a conspiracy, it's just battery technology and physics. Also concerns about safety by way of insurance liability.

yet the new Samsung Xcover Pro, targeted for the rugged/business market, managed to make a modern high quality phone with a removable battery: https://www.samsung.com/us/business/products/mobile/phones/g... .

Edit0: specs: https://www.samsung.com/us/business/products/mobile/phones/g... - 4000+mAh battery.

The fact you managed to find one out of dozens of models Samsung sells and it is targeted for business fleet sales is telling. Replaceable batteries are not a hot consumer feature. Samsung's other phones of similar size are thinner and lighter.

Non-replaceable batteries are a net benefit for consumers most of the time. They get the lighter thinner phones with all the features they want. If you want to keep the same phone for a decade, even with a replaceable battery, I wish you the best of luck. In the US I don't think there's any active 2G service and 3G services will be turned off in the near future. It'll make a decent media player or WiFi browser but it won't act as a phone.

That's the one that came to mind - I am sure there are others. You appeared to be claiming it was technically impossible and I found a good example. You keep asserting that you know what is good for me or other consumers with no evidence and this is a pattern I see repeated in this and other threads. Why? What's it to you that I want some control over my device?

Edit0: I've often found much better (repairable, long lasting) products for myself by looking in the enterprise/ fleet catalog. My oft-mentioned HP Elite X360 is another example of a device targeted to the corporate market and as a result, enables easy replacement of the SSD and battery.

I didn't at any point claim it was impossible. I said batteries are a trade off. If you want a thin and lightweight phone with a user serviceable battery, you're going to have to sacrifice capacity. If you want user serviceable and high capacity you're going to at least sacrifice on thickness.

I also didn't claim to know what is good for consumers. It should be obvious that given the choice between thick and heavy or thin and light consumer sales have favored thin and light for the past decade. That's not me dictating what is good, it's just me paying attention to the smartphone market for more than ten minutes.

I am happy for you that you find phones and laptops that last you a long time. Bully for you. But you are not the bulk of the smartphone or laptop market. You represent a tiny portion of both markets. I know this because you have to hunt down phones and laptops with replaceable batteries while pretty much everything on sale at BestBuy is all glued together. Buy the shit that you want but don't pretend that you represent some silent majority quietly yearning to replace batteries in their phones and swap hard drives in their laptops.

I don't understand why this makes you and the other guy so angry. "Bully for you"? "Buy the shit you want.."? It's just sad that you can't or won't appreciate a different viewpoint.

No one is complaining. If you want a phone with a replaceable battery. There is one available. So why complain? I don’t post endlessly complaining about Android manufacturers piss poor support when it comes to upgrades. I just don’t buy them. I don’t look for the government to give me “rights” that I already have by using my own free will and buy a device that meets my needs.

In fact you complain a lot on any thread where Apple or Android are mentioned. Even your response above appears to be dripping with contempt about Android manufacturers and users. Your comment about "rights" sic is surprising: you appear to support corporation's rights to tell me how to spend my money and to pretty much tell us peons to stfu up right to repair. Why? What harm is there to offer an opinion to companies about what they make? You got what you wanted with your sealed/non-repairable black boxes. Companies get repairable devices because they ask for them. Is it wrong for us mere nothings to try to ask for the same? I have read hundreds of your postings and I just don't get you: you would not like it if I did to you what you are doing to me and yet you don't see it. It's sad.

And it has a substandard camera, heavier, thicker, face detection that is not secure, a less than top end processor and a fingerprint reader that isn’t reliable.

https://www.samsung.com/us/business/products/mobile/phones/g...

And since it is a Samsung device, by the time you get ready to change the battery, Samsung more than likely won’t be updating the operating system.

The $399 iPhone SE has a better processor, camera, finger print sensor and given Apple’s history, will probably get operating system updates for five years.

You could get the battery replaced, and have an updated operating system for years and still be at slightly less than $499.

These are irrelevant digressions to the post that I was responding. The parent comment appeared to be implying it was technically impossible and that does not seem to be true. Your ad hominem and irrelevant attack on Samsung is weird: 1) you don't know the support cycle of this commercial device, and 2) often options such as LineageOS become available for such devices.

Yes it’s technically possible if you want a heavier, thicker device.

And you don’t save any money. The $399 iPhone SE with a battery replacement will be cheaper, smaller, lighter, supported, and faster.

you don't know the support cycle of this commercial device

Has any Samsung device ever had six years of upgrades like the original SE/6S?

often options such as LineageOS become available for such devices.

Yeah that’s something most consumers are going to do. As opposed to just going to settings and click upgrade.

So tell me again what is the advantage of the phone again? It’s not price, longevity, weight, size, or performance.

You keep changing the narrative to one that favors your Apple advocacy. You can think of no reason why I might strongly prefer this Samsung over your Apple? Not one? I have seen hundreds of your comments on this site on Apple threads and you never seem interested in seeing the opposing parties point of view. Why? Before you accuse me of the same, know that I have a MBP 2020/16, an iPhone 6s, and other Apple devices. I have recommended Apple to people to whom I felt it would be a fit. I ask you again: can you think of any reasons why I would prefer this particular Samsung?

Your “advocacy” is that a replaceable battery increases the longevity of the device. But how does it increase longevity of a device if it is not going to be supported by the vendor for more than a couple of years instead of six like the original SE? How is it better for the consumer if the phone you linked to is more expensive than the iPhone SE + one battery replacement.

The phone you linked to is worse in every objective measure.

The fact is that even the best Android phones also don’t have a replaceable battery. Are all the manufacturers under the same delusion that consumers don’t care about replaceable batteries?

You never answered the question. Not once. You are not even trying. You changed the topic to me 'advocating' for this phone when I, to clarify to you for the third time, was responding to someone who I felt was stating that it's technically impossible to build phones with replaceable batteries.

For once, just once, I'd like to hear you say something even slightly bad about Apple. Come on, just once?

No one was saying that it is impossible to create a phone with a replaceable battery. There have been phones with replaceable batteries for four decades.

The argument is that the market doesn’t care.

If the market cared about replaceable batteries why are all phone manufacturers creating high end phones with none replaceable batteries? It’s not just Apple it’s the entire industry.

Engineering is about tradeoffs. The phone you linked to proves exactly that - the phone is bulkier and heavier than the state of the art phones from Samsung

> heavier, thicker, face detection

Isn't that kind of facial detection done in software? How can it be `heavier' or `thicker' if it's software?

Quote out of context much?

> heavier, thicker, face detection that is not secure,

Maybe so, but I still am unsure how the words `heavier' and `thicker' can apply to a software function.

Is it maybe a way of saying more computationally intense or more layers in a neural network? It could be a non-native speaker, but to me those adjectives only really apply to physical things. I'm not sure.

That's just a view from Apple fan to complaining Android.

BTW iPhones are really heavier.

Yes and I have a Dell E6500 laptop that was my work laptop in 2010.

https://www.cnet.com/reviews/dell-latitude-e6500-review/

It was my Plex server until earlier this year. It’s thick, it weighs over six pounds, it runs hot and even with a new battery it wouldn’t last more than a couple of hours.

What’s the point?

> What’s the point?

That it was still useful to you until it was ten years old, and it should be the same for phones.

And for fruit. I hate having to throw out apples every week, when my canned tuna keeps for ages.

My iPhone 6s was useful to me for five years.

Apple just released a bug fix update for the 2011 iPhone 4s, June of last year. How many Android phones got security patch/bug fix releases for a 9 year old phone? Yes you can still get the battery replaced for it.

Have you tried using a ten year old Android phone?