Back in the day this was even better:
Original Galaxy S battery was getting weak? Order a new battery from Amazon for 13€. Battery arrives, pop the back of the phone off, pull battery out (just like that, no soldering), push new battery in. Push the back of the phone back on, done.
New battery in and it had more mAh than the original one. Despite overclocking that phone it ran a day longer after the replacement.
If the EU has its way we might all get this.
One can hope.
People can babble about water proofing, etc. There is no legitimate engineering problem.
The battery could power the device wirelessly at this point.
They could even claim they’re saving the environment by not including the battery after a couple release cycles.
Oof i didn’t think of them selling the battery separate possibly with an upcharge. monkeys paw curls
You probably also didn’t think about them no longer making the battery two years after releasing the phone.
Third party has always been the solution to this.
Yeah but then you have to wade through a million crappy Chinese products and be thankful when they merely don’t hold a charge (as opposed to exploding).
I’ve been through this back when batteries were replaceable, decent 3rd-party were not easy to find. Best you could hope for was that the original manufacturer kept making them. Nokia went as far as making one battery model work with multiple phone models.
Honest question, are phone batteries recycleable? Because if there’s going to be a ton of them being made I have to wonder what’s worst for the environment, replacing phones or replacing batteries.
I’m not sure if you’re being serious but replacing a phone is the same as replacing a battery, but worse for both consumer and environment. Of course you’d want to do some research before purchasing the first thing that crosses your path, but both me and my wife have done this before many times with very good results.
I had that issue with an Otterbox case. Bought it, it was bulky but protected the phone well. After 3 years the rubber tore near the charging port. They offer “lifetime” warranty (5 years). Well, wrote them for a replacement and they simply said nah, they don’t have that case any more for a phone this “old”. So they didn’t honor the warranty and just told me I’m out of luck.
What the hell do I buy an expensive phone case for when they can’t even honor a 5 year warranty? That was the last Otterbox for me, Spigen was the choice I went with afterwards. Can’t go wrong with a 10 buck phone case, I don’t care if it breaks in a few years.
When it comes to phones every manufacturer just gives you the finger if it’s 3+ years old it seems.
they simply said nah, they don’t have that case any more for a phone this “old”. So they didn’t honor the warranty and just told me I’m out of luck.
That should’ve been an FTC complaint.
Easy enough to do the same thing they do for cars and force them to make parts for 10 years.
Oooh devious! “We listened to our customers so now all new iPhones will have replaceable batteries.*”
- Battery not included. Purchase a compatible battery from the Apple store for just $99.99.
The battery could power the device wirelessly at this point.
That’s not a thing. Wireless charging is horribly inefficient and produces lots of heat, reducing performance and battery life.
Sure, but it is possible.
Might happen if it has some sort of benefit that we don’t know about for waterproofing separate batteries, even if it is indeed less efficient.
People can babble about water proofing, etc. There is no legitimate engineering problem.
Even if it was a legitimate problem, it’s sad that only about half of the phones are certified waterproof even if almost all are sealed.
Not that the phones are warrantied against water damage even if they are rated as water resistant.
Why is that sad? I can understand why companies don’t want to pay just to get a certification when the phone itself is up to standards regardless
“It’s easier to make the phone waterproof if the battery is not user-serviceable” is a common argument; if it’s really true, way more phones should be waterproof even if not IP-certified (which understandably costs money and raises the end price).
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Samsung Galaxy S5 would like to have a word. IP67 while having user-detachable battery cover.
One of the very few phones like this.
Lol no doubt. Remember when Apple (and other manufacturers I guess) stopped including chargers in the box and they told us it was to reduce waste and was better for the environment? I wonder how many millions of dollars it saved them?
I think the proposal went through. The Deadline is 2027 though. But hopefully, manufacturers will change in preparation of this rule so we maybe see the effects earlier like we saw with usb c? Officially, obligatory usb c usage starts in at the end of 2024, but I think everyone but Apple has already switched and Apple said they’re planning to comply within the time frame.
About waterproofing: I’ve had to replace a G6’s glass back twice and both times the new cover had the seal pre-installed and the phone could still be cleaned with soap and water, no issue.
So my consumer preference for a sealed phone with a specific form factor simply doesn’t matter I guess?
Do you mean your consumer preference as it is currently dictated by companies?
Not I mean my preferences which are dictated by my individual agency.
Yeah sorry, you and that one other guy isn’t accounted for.
Tim.
Very well, either way more choice is more better.
Thanks for reminding me of how I used to never worry about battery life cause the moment one got low, I’d just pop a spare out of my backpack and continue on with my day. Batteries were so freaking cheap!
You even had official charging stands that had slots for the extra battery so you could charge everything at once overnight
I have an Anker powerbank for that, if my phone ever gets low I just plug it in in my bag.
Though it never got this far to be honest, my Galaxy S22 lasts for 2+ days (so charging it in the evening for half an hour is usually enough to never worry about battery).
Bought the powerbank 6 years ago to play Pokemon Go (go figure), but then they removed the steps feature (showing you how far away you are from the Pokemon, leading to people actually hunting them down instead of sitting around in one spot) and I stopped playing (:
Still, plugging in for an hour or more vs just popping a new battery in n having a full charge instantly is not comparable.
Plugging in is less trouble. You still have to pop open the cover, switch batteries and pop the cover back on. And Android takes like a full minute to boot back up. Just plugging a cable in and waiting for 20-30 minutes is more chill. Or you load it over night when you sleep.
The only reason why I’d want a swap-able battery would be cheap battery replacement when the old one is giving out :)
And Android takes like a full minute to boot back up.
Yeah, I miss my brick Nokia’s quick startup time… I think there’s a way to avoid the shutdown problem.
- Hibernation mechanism, known from PCs, could be ported to Android. This way you can pick up where you left off before swapping the battery. Seriously, I hate losing all unread notifications after a reboot. Who the hell though that’s a good idea?
- Hot swapping battery, which means that you can change one half of the battery, then the second half and the phone won’t shut down at all. Foldables make it easier since they already use 2 batteries, 1 for each half. Just wire them up in parallel and the voltage won’t drop when one is taken out for replacement by the user.
I just bought a shoulder bag that has a USB passthrough for this sort of thing. I haven’t put a powerbank inside yet but I plan to. Both mine and my wife’s iPhone 13 batteries are starting to suck bad.
great for you, doesn’t spund great for the environment, I like the push for replaceable batteries, but surely battery banks are a better solution since they are universal
Agreed for general use, but for people who just replace the entire phone instead of replacing the battery, it will reduce the waste of all the rest of the phone for some time.
Charging the internal battery from an external one loses a lot of energy, battery charging is very far from 100% efficient A phone might not use enough energy for this to make much of a difference, but you need to build and carry beefier battery banks compared to internal batteries, and I’m not sure whether you’ll see a net benifit
Lol this post reads like grandma telling her kids about how phones were in her day!
“When I was young, we’d just pop the back off the phone and replace the battery ourselves.”
“Yea yea grandma. Let’s get you to bed.”I mean they’re not wrong tho. This isn’t a I walked up hill both ways to school story. Its meant to convey how crappy companies have become with planned obsolescence.
And it wasn’t even that long ago either. I feel like I’m talking to teenagers.
Kid today don’t know how bad they have it.
New Fairphones still have that feature.
But those were also made with repair in mind.
You can literally replace your usb-c port for 15€ with original parts by yourself, by spending 15 minutes with a screwdriver.
And the parts of a Fairphone 2 are still available, nearly 8 years after it launched.
There was an even bigger benefit that most people maybe didn’t realise at that time or even now, but when the phone fell that energy got distributed into the parts flying apart, which used to reduce the damage the phone took
That’s part of what makes the Noikia 3310 so infamously hard to damage from dropping it, even at extreme heights. It’s designed to come apart on impact instead of staying in one piece and taking the full brunt of the impact.
Oh god, yeah. My original Galaxy S was dropped a few times and the plastic back cover and the battery flew apart. But the screen never got a scratch, just the plastic had a few small scratches.
But in general the new glass on phone screen sucks ass. My Galaxy S22 has small scratches from normal use, just being in my pocket. The OnePlus 5 I had before that? Not a single scratch.
They are making the glass softer now so it doesn’t crack as easily, but at the same time it starts to scratch more. Instead of going with really hard glass that doesn’t scratch and just telling customers to put a case on :-/
It feels like my S22 ultra’s screen is made of LDPE it’s so soft…
Yeah, took like a month or so till I realized I already had a very visible scratch on the display. Never dropped, just on the table (display up!) or in my jean pockets. Total insanity :-/
When you complain about it everyone just tells you to use a screen protector, but they all suck.
Yeah I wish there was a good screen protector for the ultra but I’ve only heard horror stories about the pen, fingerprint sensor and even camera failing : (
Just buy a Fairphone end enjoy the exact same thing
Fairphone sounds great but currently has a poor price to performance ratio
You pay extra because the materials were sourced through moral means and not sweatshops.
I for one like that feature.
I do too, but it’s a hard sell for the masses right now. I want Fairphone to succeed but it’s tough.
Their subscription program is even less competitive.
I only stick to my Note 9 (peak Samsung) because of stylus support that no one else offers. When Fairphone stars offering as awesome stylus support as Samsung does, I’m moving immediately.
Did they make a Fairphone Fold yet? If not then I’m not leaving my Z Fold 3 anytime soon. I regret not waiting for the Pixel Fold…
I don’t think they will, any time yet anyway.
Looking at how my FP3 and the newer FP4 is assembled, I don’t think they can make a foldable and easily repairable device right now (didn’t stop them releasing those unrepairable Earbuds, but oh well)
There’s also the software aspect too
I did the same with my HTC Thunderbolt. That phone had so many features that these newer “better” phones don’t. Removable battery, expandable storage, IR blaster. That generation was peak for smartphones. Now I just get pixel A’s because they are all the same trash, and at least it’s cheap.
My Galaxy SIII took soo much abuse before it finally died, when I got it, a friend of mine had already installed CyanogenMod onto it. Best rooted phone I ever owned.
It was bulletproof in more ways than one, by the time I finally laid it to rest the charging port was broken and I had to charge it by touching wires to the 2 pins meant for a wireless charger, and the phone wouldn’t charge unless it was turned off.
just like that, no soldering
There’s never any soldering involved when replacing batteries tho?
Oh, could be. Looking it up they mostly use adhesives, custom screws and other crap to stop you from replacing. I could have sworn I heard of a phone where they actually soldered the battery in. Maybe I just made that up though.
The batteries are not soldered even in the newest Samsung phones. Everything you’d want to replace is modular. Not sure about Apple.
Also not soldered on any iPhone but for sure stuck behind several layers of adhesive.
My pixel 4a battery isn’t soldered but I needed to spend 45 minutes taking it apart and it’s definitely not something the average phone user would be comfortable doing. We need to pass (in the US) some sort of legislation that makes it simple to replace phone batteries.
Fat chance. Our only hope is that the EU does it
Didn’t they already do that?
The law needs to be signed still but it is estimated that realisticly easily replaceable batteries in smartphones should hit around 2027…
They did. They are required to be on all phones sold in EU 2027.
Oh it took me about 4 hours recently to replace the battery in my galaxy note 10. Most of that time was painstakingly cleaning up the old adhesives and gaskets with alcohol, tweezers and scrapers.
Or, better yet, you should be able to hot swap the battery, which means that you can change one half of the battery, then the second half and the phone won’t shut down at all. Foldables make it easier since they already use 2 batteries, 1 for each half. Just wire them up in parallel and the voltage won’t drop when one is taken out for replacement by the user.
But customers want water-proof devices! Therefore we cannot make batteries replacable, it’s not what the market wants you know /s
This makes no sense. How does a working phone “miss a few vitals parts” necessary to replace battery?
there’s a channel on YouTube, by louis rossman. you’ll find plenty of examples of bs answers from apple tech support in order to make you spend a great deal of money.
furthermore, nowhere it talks about “vital parts”. So yeah, it makes no sense, but for other reasons.Read your comment twice, now I got what you mean. took me a bit, but you’re definitely right.
Does Louis rossman do anything else?
Because I can see making bank off gathering bad experiences. Statistically there must be dozens each day.
The anti-Apple crowd would binge the shit out of that.
Idiocracy is here and now.
You say “anti Apple crowd” like we shouldn’t all be exactly that. Corporations have nobody’s interest at heart but their own. Stop being a fanboy, stop feeling any kind of loyalty for a bunch of rich fucks that’ll screw you over first chance they get. Pro consumer is the only reasonable position to have.
Wide words
Edit: this was supposed to say wise
W o r d s
This one here, yes sir, we need a backup camera and a beeper for this one.
Idiocracy is here and now.
Ironic considering you’re the one simping for a mega conglomerate guilty of known anti-consumer practises. Come on dude, it’s not like the subtle. Grow a brain.
You can just check out his YouTube channel to get the answer, I guess.
Because I can see making bank off gathering bad experiences
The majority of his YT videos tend to have monetisation disabled
you should ask him what else does he do for a living and or hobby.
Idiocracy is here and now.
If ye say so
Salty Apple fanboy detected
The genius bar is pretty infamous for largely being staffed by idiots
Well that’s because there all college kids. Apple is all about the perception not the reality.
Apple but more effort into designing the aesthetic of the store than they do training the staff.
My best guess is he removed the screws from the phone and maybe they couldn’t service the phone because of that? Wild guess, used to work behind the Genius Bar, but that was almost 15yrs ago. But it sounds like a made up excuse tbh.
They claimed my daughter’s phone had a cracked screen and couldn’t replace the battery, while showing a picture of the very clearly not cracked screen.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I imagine this is how Apple would justify it - if there are internal screws or shields missing then it’s a sign that it has been repaired previously by a 3rd party. It might work fine, but it’s not to the original Apple specification.
The Apple store don’t want to take responsibility for those repairs so refuse to do further work in case it leaves them with liability.
“your phone is missing some parts”
I’m sorry what? Did they fall out when I turned it to the side?
I used to do 3rd party repairs, and it’s impossible to describe how fucked up some devices were that came to me from other repair places. Missing screws, shields, screws put back int he wrong places and occasionally they had worked with a bad tech that damaged the mainboard.
“I was expecting $500 inside like in some of those tiktok videos.”
It’s almost like Apple is incredibly anti-consumer, and go out of their way to make buying a new phone more appealing than trying to repair the one you have
You think Apple is bad, let me tell you about a company named John Deere.
It’s not a competition, they can both be shit.
John Deere sure does hate competition
It’s not a counterargument, they can both be inclusive comments.
I went to the John Deere museum in Moline, and they were playing fucking devotional music about their tractors,
For God so loved the world that he gave us his sole-begotten tractor…
🤮🤑
…that we make with proprietary hardware & software that renders your tractor a brick when the electronics break…
Raaaammmmmennnn!!!
Don’t take the name of the noodly Lord in vain
Oh mate, I’m aware of John Deere and their “but we can’t let the farmers repair their own equipment because the environment”
Yes, because independent repair shops are definitely going to sabotage your tractors to make them worse for the environment if you don’t step in and stop them!
It’s totally not about establishing a monopoloy to force farmers to pay exorbitant repair charges, or face paying for a whole new tractor entirely when you refuse to do repairs. Not at all!
/s in case it wasn’t obvious
How are they only just now coming to that conclusion.
A screen replacement for an iPhone is like 80% of the price of the new phone. They’ve been doing this for years now. This isn’t a great revelation.
I mean, they own an iPhone to begin with, slow on the uptake is part of the aesthetic
buys iPhone
complains about unreasonable repair costs
You sleep in the bed you make.
When my phone brakes I’ll either be able to repair it myself or it gets cremated, i don’t trust anyone near my phone.
We are forced to participate in the society we live in. It is not the consumer’s fault that a company is shitty.
How are we forced to buy Apple products? Legitimately asking.
Smart phones are almost essential in this day and age, most people get an apple product because it’s what other people have, they shouldn’t be punished for just wanting to have a smartphone was my point. It’s not their fault apple is like this.
It isn’t most people everywhere. Where I live I’d say about 30-40% have iPhones, about another 20% Samsung and Pixel, and the rest are brands like Xiaomi and One Plus. Personally, I love being able to just order a part or battery on Aliexpress and replace it myself or at an independent repair shop, and worst case paying a quarter of what an iphone costs just to replace the whole phone. Which is why I don’t totally understand people needing to buy specifically an iphone.
Well, for one, that is anecdotal evidence, but aside from that, outside of the US Android does reign supreme, but the majority of the US has iPhones. A lot of work apps are made for iPhone, and some apps in general are only for iPhone. Not to mention apple has intentionally made it super easy to enter their ecosystem and just stay there, but super hard to leave.
Maybe someone got their first Mac and iPhone in college and didn’t really know much about apple, and now they’re so integrated in the ecosystem that it would be very difficult to changeover.
Maybe someone really likes having the all iMessage group chat with their family.
There are tons of reasons that have been intentionally created by apple.
Now, as a fellow power user, most of that stuff doesn’t matter to me, and I am able and willing to put in extra time and work to customize things to my liking, but the average user just doesn’t do all that.
My gf has had iPhones so long she literally doesn’t know where to begin to work an Android.
You have to step outside your personal box when thinking about these things. It’s not what I need and/or want, it’s what the average phone user needs/wants/is used to.
So that’s why I say it’s not their fault, they went with the easy option because they’re worse with tech, and then they get screwed over by apple. Most people don’t know about all the right to repair issues, hell, most don’t even know how overpriced most of their products are. They shouldn’t HAVE to know these things to not get screwed over.
Sure it’s always good to be an informed buyer. But let’s be honest, most people aren’t, especially not somebody like someone’s grandma who walks into their cell carrier store and says “I need a phone.”
True, but also stop giving Apple money
I’m honestly glad that Apple products aren’t popular in my country.
Thanks for being honest
Same
Happened to my friend. His son dropped his phone one time too many and facial recognition didn’t work from them on.
He took the phone to the service center and was told the true depth sensor was broken and would need to be replaced. Cost was 38000 INR to replace when the entire phone cost around 65000 INR.
He said fuck it and came back. After a couple of weeks, it started working on its own.
Genius scamsters, alright.
Apple was shit during the Steve Jobs iphone years, too. Just ask Louis Rossman (used to do mac repair videos on YT, nowadays mostly talks about current computer stuff)
Oh, and the iphone 4 had a “feature” where holding the phone “wrong” made it lose all signal.
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What town was that?
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Casey Neistat got his big break in 2003 with “iPod’s Dirty Secret” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuTcavAzopg
Just as relevant today as it was 20 years ago.
“Your iPhone has detected that the replaceable battery you have inserted is not a genuine Apple battery. Please purchase and install only genuine Apple parts. Think Differently”
A little taste of the future even if Apple is forced to make phones with replaceable batteries…
This actually already happens, look up Hugh jeffreys
What’s funny is that apple did this because “batteries are dangerous”.
Now to replace a battery we have to cut adhesive attached to the battery with sharp tools (if battery is punctured it becomes a bomb), remove and cut off covers for the terminals and the little battery board, cut the leads of the old battery off, sperating the battery board, use a Dremel to prep the leads of new battery terminals and original battery board, place parts into a jig and spot weld the terminals, melting and fusing them together (if the terminals get too hot or it takes too long the battery becomes a bomb again), then plug the new battery and battery board to a sketchy reprogrammer from god knows where in china and then apply new adhesive to plant it back in the phone. Fuck me.
Don’t they use the adhesive instead of, I dunno, screws, because it specifically makes it more difficult to repair?
Haha the adhesive is the least of my worries. The battery is individually paired with the phone meaning if you got 2 identical iPhone 14s and swapped the battery between then youll get a bunch of popups and errors about “non genuine apple parts” and it disables features of the phone too. This practice is called serialization.
It is because of that we have to butcher the battery, remove that special little board (this is the part that is serialized) and Frankenstein the new battery together and then reprogram it (the battery board keeps track of battery health and without reprogramming it will register the new battery as bad health).
Same thing with tons of the components, new screen? No auto brightness. New front camera? No face id. New back glass? No wireless charging. No home button? No touch id. Hell, repair your iPad? No drawing straight lines. (Seriously your apple pencil will no longer draw straight after repair)
Christ almighty
What makes it even more disgusting is pushing the blame towards the repair shops, popups citing “non genuine parts” and completely unrelated issues like not being able to draw properly on iPads.
I want to laugh but a licensed Samsung repair shop couldn’t repair my phone because I lost the stylus and Samsung licensing requires 100% pass of a test that includes the stylus before returning phones to customer.
Borrowed one from the Verizon shop down the street - gave them my driver license as collateral. Worked out but I was less than pleased with Samsung. They can still have my babies tho.
I work at an AASP and I can 100% guarantee you that’s Apple’s fault too cause they literally started that practice. It’s bullshit.
I went to a Samsung certified repair shop to get my screen replaced and they said they couldn’t do it cuz they couldn’t repair my color of phone. Idk what they have against white phones, but I ended up having to mail it to Samsung to get it repaired.
Another Samsung Store couldn’t fix my screen without wiping my data (because procedures) and of course they had to do a full replacement of both the glass and the actual screen.
A Ukrainian guy came to the rescue and replaced just the glass (screen was working just fine), thus at half the price, and most importantly, kept my data intact. As it should’ve been at the official store.
I will never bite the Apple
Oh i will, but in a literal sense.
Bite a apple fan boy day!
And it sells like fresh cookies
And people setup camps lining up for new ipoops. Holy fucking hell.
Does that really still happen?
Would’ve been nice if they told us the location, still.
They’re just talking about those repair shops you see everywhere, they will have a sign outside saying something like “repair iPhone/Samsung/Laptop/Computer”
AndOne for the un
