[mikestew]

Alternatively, folks buy batteries they don’t need just because they can. I did that with my Galaxy Note, bought a spare because they were $30 and because I could. Never used it, the Note had great battery life. Now it sits on a shelf, waiting for me to recycle it.

[jhiska]

Somehow I am reminded of the lyrics "You spin me right round, right round, baby."

The spin, I feel, is that somehow being able to replace one's batteries is bad. Whereas having an iPhone with degraded performance and an expensive-to-replace battery is good.

You "bought a spare because you could" and "now it sits, waiting for you to recycle it", thus creating waste, but one can argue that anyone buying stuff they don't need creates waste, and that being able to replace one's phone battery isn't about saving the environment but saving one's hard-earned money.

[valuearb]

First, you can replace an iPhone battery, just take it to your Apple Store. It's reasonably affordable ($79) or free if still under warranty/Applecare. User-replaceable batteries don't change anything for the environment.

Second, user-replaceable batteries don't come for free. They come with a series of trade-offs. Small increases in cost, space, even weight. If you plan to keep your phone for more than 2 years, user-replaceable will be more important to you than if you intend to replace every 2 years.

I remember when I switched to MacBook Pros from my Dell laptops. I had two flights a week that were about 5 hours each. I had to buy an extra laptop battery and charger so my Dell would last the entire flight. And sometimes I'd forget to charge both batteries and I'd be back to a dead laptop halfway through the flight.

Then I read the reviews of these new MBPs that lasted 7-8 hours instead of 5 hours, that used sealed batteries. I switched and my new MBP worked like a charm, easily lasting the entire flight every time. One big reason Apple made that advance was entirely because they abandoned removable batteries. They were able to fit more battery using a custom form factor that would have been super expensive to make removable. No one had done this as well before, because Apple was the first to implement good embedded battery conditioning software so they would last a couple years without needing replacement.

Sealed batteries aren't always better, but they typically are for most users and use cases.

[ksk]

> They were able to fit more battery using a custom form factor that would have been super expensive to make removable. No one had done this as well before, because Apple was the first to implement good embedded battery conditioning software so they would last a couple years without needing replacement.

Why speculate on a tech forum, when these things are easy to find out? Just look at the battery specs for both machines.

https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/ is ~ 55 Watt/hr

A few random dells I looked up

http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/xps-13/spd/xps-1...

60Watt/hr

http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/alienware-13/spd...

76Watt/hr

Clearly, it seems to be the opposite. After using all kinds of laptops, the main benefits of Apple laptops AFAICT is that they don't come with pre-installed bullshit, they're easier to test because they only come in like 5 varieties, as opposed to the hundreds of thousands combinations that Windows has to deal with, and that OSX can be easier to use, for some users. I would recommend apple to any non-technical user for sure. I personally have never found apple hardware to be any different than other brands. I'm still using my Sony laptop from 2011 and its just as fast and rock-solid as the day I purchased it. As an aside, Microsoft doesn't usually cripple their popular software (Office, Visual studio, etc) so that it requires the latest OS, unlike Apple which forces you on the upgrade treadmill - sure, its free, but you also don't have a choice. YMMV ofcource.

[valuearb]

So your rebuttal attempt to undercut my description of laptop market technology 8 years ago is linking to a couple present day laptops?

OK, I’ll play. How thick are those laptops? How heavy are those laptops? How does their battery life compare?

And review this so you have some basic technical knowledge and understanding of history.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/2783/apple-s-2009-macbook-pro...

https://www.anandtech.com/show/2783/apple-s-2009-macbook-pro...

[ksk]

>So your rebuttal attempt to undercut my description of laptop market technology 8 years ago is linking to a couple present day laptops?

No, your claim was that making batteries non serviceable means you have more room for a larger battery. It doesn't seem to be the case now. You are welcome to point to an example from the year that you purchased your laptop.

[lloeki]

A cursory search hints me that the XPS 13 battery is not removable, and, according to some reviews, downright soldered, while the Alienware one is a literal brick. To me that makes the case, even today.

I don't care about popping a lid off every three years; swappable batteries, to me, is nonsense. What makes me irate though is a) the fact that they're downright glued when they could be held in place by other, readily serviceable means†, and b) in 2013-2015 I could code/compile stuff and still have a sizable portion of the best-case battery life, while today the battery size is dwindling, compensated by enhanced power management to maintain the "10 hour" figure, but it falls apart under any load that does not involve browsing or watching some hardware-decoded video. We should be shooting for 20, 30, 40 hours of use on battery, not the current "good enough" status quo.

† Clips, double sided tape, whatever. If it's a problem to not use glue then it's a worthy engineering challenge to use some goo that comes off easily. The current glue situation is a lazy copout, it's Steve Jobs's "plywood on the back".

[systoll]

Neither of those laptops have easily swappable batteries.

[the XPSs is easier than MBP & Alienware, but you’re still disassembling things]

7 years later, Dell seems to have captured the same gains.

At present, Apple’s main battery life win is macOS.

[ksk]

>Neither of those laptops have easily swappable batteries.

But any repair shop could do that for you. You're not forced to go to a single vendor who can set arbitrary prices.

>At present, Apple’s main battery life win is macOS.

Yes, I would agree with that.

I was speaking more to the anti-repair/replace design from Apple (also others).

[systoll]

Apple will only provide service under warranty themselves, and issues caused by third party repairs aren’t under warranty. Same as Dell.

If you’re not in warranty, they don’t do anything to force you to go to them. The only difference is that going to Apple is easy, due to their retail stores.

[mikestew]

Alternative ways of looking at things is “spin” in your mind, huh? Well, that’s one way to keep a narrative, I suppose.

[jhiska]

I guess I could call them alternative facts, if you prefer.

[komali2]

Well that's one experience - as a frequent traveler and thru-hiker, extra replaceable batteries are an absolute necessity for me.

[w0utert]

Just get a power bank for that, way more useful than carrying extra batteries that only fit your phone.

[komali2]

That's a fair point, and I'm looking into these now that laptops are coming out that can be powered off USB. For me, though, I like the ability to drain a battery to zero, then hot-swap to a 100% battery instantly, then charge all batteries when I get back to the hostel.

It has been getting difficult with TSA, though.