European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

[NumberSix]

I'm all for a plastic back and a replaceable battery. You have companies like Google and Apple banging on about sustainability but then charge you the earth to replace or repair things. Most aftermarket repairs dont guarantee the waterproofing anyway.

 

[bviktor]

Uh, there's ONE very simple reason why replaceable batteries went away: IP rating.

So yeah, if this passes, the EU can enjoy their non-resistant phones.

And once again, the dumb end user will blame the eeeeevil corporations.

 

[NumberSix]

And yet a simple silicone gasket prevents ingress via the charging port & SIM tray.

 

[triffid]

The removal of the headphone socket was always about maximising profit. Look at the price of Apple's head/earphones. You can't get audiophile-grade wireless headphones. £50 wired headphones generally beat £500 Bluetooth headphones in sound quality. Samsung is essentially the same. Also, people paying huge premiums on larger capacity iPads and iPhones goes some way to explaining the vast profits made on the backs of the consumers. Look at the markup of larger capacity iPads vs the actual cast of the memory involved.

 

[Uncle Al]

I see it as a good move otherwise we all agree to planned obsolescence ..... In any device I want flexibility, not some rigid standard to which we all must comply.

 

[Vanderlinde]

The communists will soon be deciding we all have to have the same phone, instead of letting the market decide whats needed. if user replaceable batteries were desirable above other features all phones would have still have user replaceable batteries.

Lol...

I think it's fair to say that we consumers should have the right to replace our own battery's instead of being into a locked vendor type of thing apple and others are doing.

We're paying 4 times as much compared to replacing our own battery.

 

[AndreV]

Bull you can do all three in one package... Samsung Galaxy S5 did it in 2014. It was water resistant, had replaceble battery, and was sleek and thin. They can totally engineer a water resistant, sleek slate phone, with replaceable battery - IT CAN BE DONE! They just don't want to do it because then they can't sell you as many. Sure it will cost a bit more but that is worth it to some of us.

Anyway, battery replacement costs on iPhones at an Apple store really isn't that bad. I had one done on my iPhone 7 a few years ago. It wasn't that expensive and gave me another 2-3 years. Considering their phones can last 5-6 years and still get OS updates, a battery replacement mid way through is perfectly reasonable in my eyes. I now have a 12 mini for nearly two years now and its battery is at 95%, but I also take care of it by avoiding leaving it at >90% and avoid heat. I expect to get 5-6 years out of this phone as well.

"battery replacement costs on iPhones at an Apple store really isn't that bad. I had one done on my iPhone 7 a few years ago." a few years ago, meaning before the recession?

 

[3djlab]

Even tough this would be very good for consumers I'm against it for personal reasons.

This would remove one source of income from 3rd party repair services, at least for me major part of income comes from battery replacements, there are more battery replacements on my repair service than any other, after batteries come screen, usb and other services.
Now I could adjust my business model to sell those batteries instead but would lower sales considerably.

There are some that say even aftermarket battery replacement services wont re-seal the phone properly, that is simply not true if service is doing things properly, all aftermarket service needs to do is properly install new sealing tape gasget and then that phone is waterproof as it was before.

Aftermarket battery replacements cost maybe 50-60 euro/dollars when using oem quality or oem battery, so replacement costs for consumer isnt that high considering alot of time the phone where battery is getting replaced is worth 300 euro/dollars or more.

There would really not be downsides for consumers from this, unless they buy bad quality batteries. Some say "goodbye to waterproofness", they dont know what they are talking about, simple gasget fixes this issue, this just requires manufacturer to design their phones such way that they are waterproof even after opening and closing the covers.

 

[Greggs]

I read something that included the actual text of the rule which stated it was acceptable to use "commonly available tools" which seems reasonable. When we could pop the back off to change the batteries they were lower capacity and didn't last as long. Today's devices don't need to be replaced as often and having long lasting software and more serviceable devices is far more important to sustainability than removing a charger from the box.

 

[wwwendigo]

The communists will soon be deciding we all have to have the same phone, instead of letting the market decide whats needed. if user replaceable batteries were desirable above other features all phones would have still have user replaceable batteries.

Congrats, the stupidity of that comment is epic.

Calling "communists" to the EU regulators is that. I'm not going to argue about that when the EU is clearly in the capitalist and liberalism train.

It's excellent to observe that the people think that it's all about Freedom of Market when "the Market" changes and imposes tecnologies as the non-removable batteries.

The change for non-removable batteries didn't happen because the Market and the buyers "chose" non-removable batteries against removable ones. That change was a imposed one through the oligopoly of the mobile market (2-3 brands have >>90% of sells), they decided that the "new trend" in the market was that, and all the top-tier models changed to non-removable batteries.

That "free of election" is a fake one, because never the makers of that models offered a real option:

The same model, with and without removable batterie, with same specs and only differences in that point of sell.

¿That happened?NOPE, so its a false dilemma and an invention calling that as a option in a free market.

The best of that is that the Cell-makers have many reasons to prefer the non-removable battery, improving their post-market services and sells related with that.

The regulators for EU, OR USA, are there for (theorically) garrant that the products in the market are reaching minimal specs of security and SERVICE.

Callins "communists" to that regulators is an evidence for a sick that affected all the western "world". Ignorance and believing that your interests (as a buyer) isn't the same as the interests of the Firms. All that aren't the interests of these Firms are "communists". What a dystopic view.