[mschuster91]

I hope Samsung (and others) learn from this clusterfuck and decide to employ user-replaceable batteries in the future.

I had my Note 1 battery also expand in volume - probably due to a crappy charger and the electronics didn't filter voltage fluctuation enough - and had to get rid of it before it exploded.

[BinaryIdiot]

> I hope Samsung (and others) learn from this clusterfuck and decide to employ user-replaceable batteries in the future.

Na. Won't happen and honestly I'm fine with it. Replaceable batteries are a very tiny niche that the vast majority of users not only don't care about but don't want to have to deal with. It also further complicates waterproofing. You can even shove a larger battery in the phone if it's not replaceable.

> I had my Note 1 battery also expand in volume - probably due to a crappy charger and the electronics didn't filter voltage fluctuation enough - and had to get rid of it before it exploded

To be fair it's supposed to expand versus catching fire / exploding so it doesn't necessarily indicate that it will explode though you should most certainly get rid of it ASAP.

[mschuster91]

> It also further complicates waterproofing.

I own a CAT B15Q, which sports a replaceable battery and is waterproof enough to have earned back its price by betting random people in bars "can this phone survive dunking into a mug of beer".

> To be fair it's supposed to expand versus catching fire / exploding so it doesn't necessarily indicate that it will explode though you should most certainly get rid of it ASAP.

Yes, but with a fixed backplate you won't see the battery expanding until it's too late. Also, phone vendors can't ship the battery separate from the phone, which has two issues:

1) no more "take out the battery" to reboot the phone, as vendor you have to rely on a secondary processor to monitor a key combination for rebooting - and if this goes wrong, no way short of disassembly to force a reboot.

2) as Samsung is experiencing right now (and various manufacturers before them), extremely expensive callbacks in case of battery defects. With replaceable batteries, just give any store (or the consumer!) a way of checking if the battery is vulnerable (a simple web interface with a serial number input), and a stock of replacement batteries, and it's done in under 5 minutes. Disassembling will usually require specially equipped stores (clean rooms, replacement glues, special training for nondestructive opening, ...) and time, both of which are expensive and reduce the number of service points available to the consumer.