Hooray! Younger generations will finally be able to experience the joy of dropping their phone and having to pick up three to four different pieces! /s
(I'm all for this change, by the way)
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Hooray! Younger generations will finally be able to experience the joy of dropping their phone and having to pick up three to four different pieces! /s
(I'm all for this change, by the way)
Oh I remember that with Nokias. It's like shock absorbing for cars lol.
Finally! Now to also force phonemakers to universally provide bootloader unlocks so we can put our own ROMs on our devices once the software support ends.
Honestly, with Apple making it incredibly fucking hard to take out their batteries with excessive amounts of glue, I'm okay with this.
Fingers crossed that this will be implemented well, im tired of having sleek electronics be irrelevant in 2 years when the silicon could go for 5 or six
The silicon could go on for decades if both the modem and processor were fully documented hardware that the community can access and support in the Linux kernel.
I can run a secure and current form of Linux on 30+ year old hardware if I want to, because the hardware documentation was expected by everyone at the time even if some end users were oblivious to what this meant. The whole reason google pushes Android is because they provide a base Linux kernel that hardware manufacturers can easily slip their proprietary junk into without requiring them to add the kind of open source code needed for mainline kernel support by the community. This is the mechanism that depreciates your device. It is totally artificial and an end user exploitation by design.
It's usually not silicon on the PCB that fails, but the other electronic components (usually the capacitors) that fails first, and since they are surface mounted devices it's really difficult to solder them by hand.
Do y'all remember the days when you dropped your phone and it exploded into 3 or 4 pieces? 🤣 Those were the good days.
Fairphone 3 user here. My main reason to choose this phone a few years ago was because the battery could easily be replaced. Too many phones are perfectly functional but the battery is half dead. Another boon of non-glued batteries : You can carry two (or more) batteries to easily switch when the first one is KO. Meaning no need for portable charger and useless cables in your pocket. Phone at 10% ? Just change it, bam 100% in a second. Easy as that.
I'll probably not be the target of such regulations because I wouldn't choose an anti-consumer phone brand anyway, but at least it's going in the right direction.
Excellent! Batteries in modern phones are surprisingly definitely removable and replaceable. I've done it multiple times. However, the unfriendly barrier to entry is glue and clips that require careful prying with spugers. It's quite clear manufacturers are happy blocking you getting in; plenty people just buy new phones when the battery gets too old.
Phones are getting more expensive so people are holding on to them longer, so it's a nice quality of life improvement to remove the barriers to battery replacement so less people have to go down to a phone repair store to get it changed. The more of a hassle battery replacement is seen the more likely people are to just upgrade and create e-waste.
W move for the EU. Very glad they're mandating stuff that should have been common place to begin with (ex. USB C on iPhones).
I do miss being able to swap out a phone battery and this will certainly be a step in the right direction in terms ewaste and device longevity.
One thing that I wonder about is waterproofing or water resistance. Some phones are basically waterproof in shallow water. How achievable is this with a device with a trivial way to remove the battery?
The Galaxy S5 sport had a battery door and water resistance. They just used gaskets.
Although this is obviously a step in the right direction it needs to be followed up with security updates, no point increasing the life of the hardware without doing the same for the software.
Making it illegal to lock bootloaders would make each device community-maintainable.
It might lead to thicker phones, but battery and/or SW obsolescence are the main reasons I have been swapping phone in the last 10 years.
Now make SD cards mandatory and you've got something really good.
If this goes through, I think it would be really good news. Battery failure is one of the leading things that force people to replace their smartphones, and having them be replaceable would go a long way towards making smartphones last longer.
But they are replaceable in that sense. You can take it back the the manufacturer or to one of those independent phone stores and they’ll swap out a battery for you.
I don’t think a user swappable battery is actually a feature most users need. Not when smartphones get over a day out of a charge, you can charge at home, work or in a car, and external batteries exist.
About bloody time! Devices these days are so far technically advanced, no need to upgrade every 2 years. I can hold onto a phone for easily 3-5 years. Especially with hot swap batteries!
LET'S GOOOOO
And now they just have to force manufacturers to either at least security patch devices for, let's say 10 years, or force them to open source everything the community needs to continue supporting this device. It never happened to me that the battery died before support ended.
Just had that issue with my Pixel 3a XL. No more security updates. Had to replace it with a Pixel 6a but I liked the 3a XL more. It there was any community support for the 3a XL, I would rather sell my 6a again.
As an Apple user, I definitely have batteries die before the product stops being useful. The company provides feature updates for old phones for several years, and when that runs out they continue to provide security patches for several more years.
A new iPhone battery is only $47 (if you do the repair yourself, and if you send your old battery back to Apple for a recycling credit), but it's a pretty complex and arduous process with a fair chance of damaging your phone while attempting it. You also have to pay a deposit, over a thousand dollars, to rent the tools off Apple. Ouch.
You can take it to an Apple store, but that takes even longer than doing the repair yourself. And it costs more (though you don't have to pay the outrageous deposit for the tools).
This legislation would force Apple to make it a simple process with no tools. Yes please.
This is awesome. Thank god for EU legislation that directly benefits me as an American consumer. Now I can microwave lithium ion batteries in peace!
I can’t wait to hear the Apple marketing word for this feature. They’ll add some gimmick like the battery is held in with magnets and say “We call it MagPack and we think you’re going to love it.”