European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

Re:European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batt... by dkjaudyeqooe on Friday June 16, 2023 @07:19PM (#36365315)

Controlling water in machines is not new, neither is phone design. It's been done a million ways and all of those ways have certain trade offs. It's just another design challenge and the flipside of your comment is a suggestion that there isn't some person other than me that is up to the challenge. Customers can make their own judgements about looks and size versus (replaceable battery) functionality as they always have.

The fact is gluing is simpler and cheaper but most importantly it reduces the repairability of phones by third parties. Quite often trying to repair a phone will cause it to be destroyed, making replacing a battery more risky and difficult. Companies would love not to have to use glue, but <design excuse>! Nothing at all to do with built-in obsolescence.

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Re:European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batt... by kgantchev on Friday June 16, 2023 @08:31PM (#36365831)

I'm sure many people want a repairable smartphone and a replaceable battery. Of course, there are many that don't. I don't understand how it make sense to force those people, that don't want a repairable phone and a replaceable battery, to get such a smartphone.

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Re:European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batt... by evilos on Friday June 16, 2023 @09:05PM (#36366088)

Because the cost of the waste these throw-away phones generate isn't priced in. There is a societal cost that isn't being paid by the firm or the consumer.

Honestly, it probably only adds a few bucks to the BOM and the consumer who doesn't care about repairability still likely comes out better off in the long run because their phone lasts them longer and/or resells for more because it isn't junk after 3 years.

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Re:European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batt... by kaba0 on Saturday June 17, 2023 @05:09AM (#36368565)

Iphones are arguably not too repairable, yet they absolutely dominate the whole market in their lifetimes - often having 2-3 owners.

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Re:European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batt... by evilos on Saturday June 17, 2023 @11:00AM (#36370767)

Yeah iphones were premium/valuable enough that people would go through the trouble to repair them even if they had to deal with some glue.

With android phones the resale value/demand wasn't there (also due in part to bad software support lifetimes which would also need to be addressed) so they'd just get tossed/shelved after 2 to 3 years even if they were perfectly functional.

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