Among the many changes, the new rules would require batteries in consumer devices like smartphones to be easily removable and replaceable. That’s far from the case today…
User choice is always good, but for me, I prefer the water resistance rather than a swappable battery.
Can’t say I have ever needed the water resistance, but I also never drop my phone, so I guess I’m in the minority.
the old razer flip phones were horrible. I went through four of the things in the course of a year because they got so much of a whiff of water they’d crap out. the last time, it was left in the truck while I was fishing and the humidity killed it.
Another model… got done in at a pool, it was left on a table and kids happened.
it’s not that people are klutzes and drop their phones. It’s that shit happens. Yeah, it was a trade off, but, sealing it against stuff… is a lot easier when it’s sealed
Yeah, if you keep a phone for 5-6 years, you usually only have to change the battery once. I reckon the dust hasn’t settled on this though - I think there will be compromise where battery replacements are cheaper, but still need to be done by a professional
You can have a swappable battery and water resistance. Samsung galaxy s5 had a removable plastic cover and IP67 water resistance, so if the manufacturers tried they could easily have them both.
Also, if you do any repairs on a new phone you lose water resistance (unless you replace the silicone), while on the s5 you could just replace the battery and would just need to press the cover back on. After the repair the phone would still be water resistant, unlike the new phones with glass backs.
The only weakness with the S5 was the charging port having a cover that could easily break off, but modern ports these days are waterproofed, so they could just make one of those.
Personally, if they remade the S5, with a modern board and charging port (rather than the Micro-USB 3.0 monstrosity), I’d be very tempted to buy it. The IR blaster and everything else was just nice to have.
I prefer non swappable phone batteries. If I need to charge my phone while out I use USB power bank, which is infinitely more useful than a naked phone battery that can only be used in the phone. Non swappable batteries also allow for phone casing to be much more resilient to impacts and the elements, and can help reduce the phones size.
A phone battery is not to going to reach end of life for 2-3 years in normal use, so it doesn’t seem too much of hardship to get the toolbox out or go to a service centre when it does eventually need replacing.
Maybe require manufactures to not use such incredibly strong glues that some use to secure the batteries, but mandating they be swappable seems the wrong approach to me.
Interesting.
I remember struggling to find a phone with replaceable battery. The galaxy S3 was good because of this. “We can’t make the battery replaceable, otherwise the phone won’t be waterproof”, yeah that was bullshit.
This will make the phone more expensive and this is totally fine and expected.
Oh gawd yes. I love the EU.
Lmao no this is shit. Say goodbye to durability as well as any water resistance while making phones bulkier to boot. You can already swap the battery on most non-fruit-branded phones while maintaining water resistance if you do it right (actually it would “reup” the water resistance if anything due to fresh adhesive, again assuming it’s done right).
There’s no reason you HAVE to sacrifice durability and water resistance. It’d just cost a tiny bit more in materials, which I’m perfectly fine with given how much this would save the environment.
You can already swap the battery on most non-fruit-branded phones while maintaining water resistance if you do it right.
? How do you swap batteries on most phones nowadays in 5 seconds?
How do you swap batteries on most phones nowadays in 5 seconds?
Where did I say anything about swapping the battery in 5 seconds? So if it takes longer than 5 seconds it doesn’t count?
They found out how to waterproof walkmans with replaceable batteries and cds. Pretty sure they can figure out phones.
Source? Or, or more specifically, model numbers of these waterpoof walkmans?
Screw the environment. I demand convenience instead!
The level of entitlement people have nowadays is insane, especially regarding issues that they are happy to say are super important. They just refuse to give up an iota of cenvenience to do anything about it.
Pssst, the environment isn’t affected at least as far as Android phones are concerned as they allow battery swapping. I’ve swapped the batteries myself personally in my Nexus 4, 5, 6p, Pixel XL, Pixel 3 XL, and Pixel 4 XL. It’s not that hard. You’re allowing yourself to support bullshit with the virtue signal of muh environment which works out really well! Just look at Germany! Oh, right…
Finally. So tired of having to replace a phone simply because the battery no longer lasts a day, while the rest of it is still functional.
As someone who tends to hang onto my phone for ages, I like being able to get replacement batteries… but I wish they would just take everything fairphone does (removable battery + lineage + and especially right-to-repair stuff) and base new standards on that.
OTOH, I also believe that would not be impossible to engineer a phone that could be taken apart where you could have replacement parts for both the battery and seals (e.g. while many companies currently frame things as “removable batteries OR water resistance”, I see no technology reasons why BOTH couldn’t exist in the same device) … There just hasn’t been a big push for businesses to develop something like that bc everyone buys their products without them needing to put that much effort into it.
If companies stopped auto-voiding warranties over users opening a phone and stopped treating everyone as incapable of doing their own repairs, I could totally see user-replaceable seals being a thing. You can basically look at other markets that do have right-to-repair. Sure, replacing seals on a phone might be a bit much for grandma. But grandma is also probably going to call either a repair shop or someone in the family who is good with it. Really not much different than upgrading laptop ram/hdd or doing your own plumbing or changing the oil on a car today… pretty damn easy if you know what you’re doing, but not something everyone is going to know how to or want to do.
When Samsung and Apple are seemingly incapable of producing repairable devices while Fairphone comes out of nowhere and are doing it just fine, it’s not a question of it being difficult. It’s a question of it being profitable. If Fairphone managed to make a repairable device, Apple or Samsung would have managed to create one that is both fully waterproof and repairable if they considered it a priority.
From the view of the industry, the logic is that “if you’re not going to have your phone break down in heavy rain, at least make sure you’ll have to replace it in three years because the battery starts sucking”. There’s absolutely no incentive to make a product that will actually last.