[smarkov]

This is a step in the right direction but still doesn't address my biggest concern with e-waste - the battery.

Because almost none of the electronics you buy come with a replaceable battery, the second you buy something and use it on a regular basis it's destined to die and be thrown out within the next 4-8ish years due to the battery degrading and becoming increasingly more dangerous to keep around. Something that might be in perfect working condition and could be used for another 10 years has to be thrown out because of one single component.

I understand that batteries come in all shapes, sizes, capacities, yada yada, but imagine if we had standard rechargeable batteries like we have standard non-rechargeable batteries and things were built in a way where you could easily replace batteries like we could on phones a decade ago. You would double or triple the lifespan of a ton of things.

[kelnos]

The thing that really annoys me is that batteries in most phones are indeed replaceable, but so many people just trash their phone when the battery life gets bad. Sure, many/most of these phones don't have a user replaceable battery, but even for high-end phones you can get the battery replaced for under $100 (and that's on the high end; for many you can get it done for half that).

I don't know if this is an education problem or what. Maybe manufacturers make it less obvious that you can get batteries replaced, because doing so would hurt sales of new phones. I dunno.

Sure, in an ideal world standardized batteries would be available off the shelf, and regular people could replace theirs with standard or even no tools. But honestly, I don't think the world we live in is that terrible when it comes to this.

[kalleboo]

I think a lot of people want a new device and use the battery getting weak as an excuse to justify the expense

[kelnos]

And if batteries were trivially replaceable, I'm sure they'd come up with a different excuse: not enough storage space, "it's getting slow", this year's model has a much nicer camera, blah blah blah blah.

It's not that I'm not sympathetic toward wanting the new shiny. I've been there and done that and generated my share of e-waste. But I've managed to (mostly!) get off that treadmill. I only got a new phone last year because my old one stopped getting security updates. The new one will (in theory) be supported for 7 years, so, barring loss or catastrophic breakage, I should be good until 2031.

[rvense]

I think this is changing simply because the rate of change for phones has slowed down like it did for computers. Just like a 2014 computer is a lot closer to a 2024 computer than a 2004 computer was to a 2014 computer in 2014, a five-year-old phone is a lot less outdated than five years ago.

[hulitu]

> not enough storage space, "it's getting slow",

Surely wrinting better software will help. /s

[san1t1]

After happily replacing the battery in a ten year old phone, six months later it was obsolete due to the 3G network switch off; the device was no longer capable of one of it's primary functions; making and receiving phone calls.

[ninalanyon]

I could have had someone replace the battery in my Moto G%+ a couple of years ago. But it would have cost at least 800 NOK (about 80 USD). Instead I bought a Moto G30 for 1 200 NOK (about 120 USD) which has a better camera, faster processor, and more storage space.

Mobile phones haven't yet reached the point of diminishing returns on power, cameras, etc., so it doesn't yet make economical sense for an individual to keep the old devices working. I have kept the Moto G5+ and I use it as an internet radio and to listen to podcasts so it isn't a complete waste. Unfortunately the battery is now in such a poor state that I have to keep it on a timer to cut off charging frequently to avoid overheating.

Android could of course make batteries last longer by giving the user control over the charging regime.

[erremerre]

I am going to say something that I haven't found anywhere but it has been my experience with every single battery replacement I ir somewhat close had.

The new battery, even if it's Samsung original, it isn't as good as new, it is better than the old one, but not anywhere close as first day phone.

Why? No idea. I imagine that although the battery is new it was built circa when the model was in production and somehow that has affected its capacity.

So you get a phone, you pay 60/80 euros, and you get maybe, two hours more of battery when a new phone would give you 6 or 7.

[thayne]

For a 4-5 year phone "under $100" still might be more than the phone is worth.

And then there is the other problem that an old enough phone is no longer getting software updates, including security updates either.

Yes, it is still probably less than buying a new phone but you don't know how long it will be before another component dies. If replacing the battery gives you another 4-5 years it might be worth it, but if something else is going to break in a couple months, probably not.

[econ]

It seems possible to document issues and [partially] brick it until a security update is purchased.

Then we could begin forcing manufacturers to sell security updates regardless of the age of the device.

Lots of questions and puzzles here that would be interesting to figure out.

[gruez]

>Then we could begin forcing manufacturers to sell security updates regardless of the age of the device.

Who's going to pay for those updates? It's hard for the economics to work out. It makes sense for handset makers to pour engineering resources into developing and maintaining operating systems when there's millions of customers. How are you going to scrape together enough money when there's only a handful of customers?

[econ]

I thought you had a point but then I remembered how funny it is. If you are dealing with sensitive customer data you shouldn't get to skip security.

It is actually cheap and easy if we change the question: Should you be allowed to run a closed source proprietary platform with insufficient security? After all, if you open it up and let people do what they want it becomes their responsibility.

Bricking the device at a predetermined date isn't very elegant but it would work. Maybe the user should have the option to return it (working or not) and get some money back.

[thayne]

It doesn't have to be that expensive to continue supporting old devices. If all your devices use the same software, and new versions don't add new hardware requirements it wouldn't be that hard to continue supporting old hardware.

But in the current ecosystem every device has its own medley of custom firmware and software that gets abandoned when the maker stops selling that version, and the makers are incentivized to stop updates to drive customers to buy new devices.

[squigz]

I think this is indeed a problem of awareness - and I'm sure you're right that companies wouldn't go out of their way to let users know they can do so - but also one of trustworthiness: I think a lot of people don't trust third-party repair shops because they feel it's sketchy or unsafe in some way. If phone manufacturers were like, "Here's a list of our trusted third-party repair shops and the parts they can fix" I imagine a lot more people would get their stuff repaired.

[The_Colonel]

Yeah, that's surely part of that. There are authorized service centers in major cities, but that's not very accessible for a lot of people. When I got my battery replaced, it meant 2 trips to a 100 km distant city (no same day replacement) which also meant a day without my phone. I could have opted for an unauthorized repair shop, but again there's the problem with trust, these often seem quite sketchy.

[Krssst]

Unfortunately, after a few years lack of security updates will also force plenty of users to upgrade.

[edflsafoiewq]

Hopefully not trashed. There's always the second hand market.

[edflsafoiewq]

EU regulations requiring portable batteries to be removable/replaceable by the end-user take effect February 18, 2027.

[Reason077]

Apple have already been taking steps to comply with this, with new “electrically-induced adhesive debonding” glue used to secure the iPhone 16 battery, instead of the problematic "stretch to remove" adhesive strips.

Apparantely this makes it significantly easier to change the battery compared to previous models:

https://www.macrumors.com/2024/09/11/apple-makes-iphone-16-b...

[whitehexagon]

Standardized and widely available batteries would also be a huge step forward. Like the old nokia phone batteries that you could pick up anywhere.

Recently I started buying gadgets that have 18650 batteries, seems about the only standard around, but trying to buy the batteries has been a challenge. I even tried a couple European Amzn stores, but they only seem to have third party suppliers. It put me off from buying the MNT Reform even though I love the concept.

And the 18650 USB torch I bought has some stupid propriety magnetic connector on one end, so I'd say any such legislation should include both ends of these charger cables.

[seba_dos1]

> trying to buy the batteries has been a challenge

Huh? I had no trouble getting 18650 batteries in the EU. They're everywhere, both protected and unprotected cells; lots of brands to choose from, including cheap unbranded ones. You can even get ones with built-in USB-C socket for charging.

[Someone]

That is not 100% correct. The wording (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/docs_autres_instituti..., page 55) is

“portable batteries incorporated in appliances shall be readily removable and replaceable by end users or by independent operators”

[alkonaut]

That’s not very clear. How easy is ”readily”? I replaced a few and found the biggest obstacle being the glue they use to keep them in place inside (they must sit in compartments larger than the battery since it changes size). But would it be enough to not have glue and instead Velcro there? Would still require plugging and unplugging tiny cables and screwing out 20 tiny screws. Or does ”readily” mean ”hatch”? Not so sure people want hatches…

[smarkov]

Huh, I've heard about this for a while but for some reason thought it was strictly regarding phones, maybe because they've been making the biggest headlines about it. Looking forward to it then.

[Dalewyn]

I'm going to assume something got lost in this game of telephone because this otherwise sounds like an oxymoron: Of course a "portable" battery would be removable and replacable.

[edflsafoiewq]

The battery in my phone is portable (I carry it around) but not removable without specialized tools.

It's REGULATION (EU) 2023/1542 if you want to read it.

> ‘portable battery’ means a battery that is sealed, weighs 5 kg or less, is not designed specifically for industrial use and is neither an electric vehicle battery, an LMT battery, nor an SLI battery

> [...]

> A portable battery shall be considered readily removable by the end-user where it can be removed from a product with the use of commercially available tools, without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless provided free of charge with the product, proprietary tools, thermal energy, or solvents to disassemble the product.

[Dalewyn]

I think I see where I got tripped up. Essentially, they're saying all batteries in portable electronics will be portable by 2027 and defined as so-and-so; not that batteries today are portable and will be made compliant as defined so-and-so.

Because I think we can all agree: The battery on an ICOM walkie-talkie is portable, the battery in an Apple iPhone is not portable.

[zuminator]

The definition of "portable" that's germane here is the statutory one that was quoted above:

> portable battery’ means a battery that is sealed, weighs 5 kg or less, is not designed specifically for industrial use and is neither an electric vehicle battery, an LMT battery, nor an SLI battery;

> ‘portable battery of general use’ means a portable battery, whether or not rechargeable, that is specifically designed to be interoperable and that has one of the following common formats 4,5 Volts (3R12), button cell, D, C, AA, AAA, AAAA, A23, 9 Volts (PP3);

When words are defined statutorily, that supersedes any "common sense" use of the word with respect to the sections governed by that statute.

It further goes on to state:

> Any natural or legal person that places on the market products incorporating portable batteries shall ensure that those products are accompanied with instructions and safety information on the use, removal and replacement of the batteries. Those instructions and that safety information shall be made available permanently online, on a publicly available website, in an easily understandable way for end-users.

So the goal is for all portable batteries to be removeable. However there's an exemption ("derogation") for devices intended to be used around water or washable. Most high end phones these days are to some extent submersible, which raises the question of whether this will exempt them from the user-replaceable requirement.

[mark-r]

No, we cannot all agree. I think your definition of "portable" is not compatible with most people's. You seem to be conflating portable and removable; those are two different properties that do not have to coexist. If the battery in your iPhone was not portable, you would not be able to move your iPhone.

[Dalewyn]

Given no further context, when I hear "portable battery" I think of a battery that is portable in itself. An iPhone is portable, but the battery embedded in it isn't. Contrast the battery pack that something like an ICOM walkie talkie would have, which is portable in itself.

Other ways to see it: An Electron program is portable, a .exe program is not portable; they are both programs. A stick of RAM is portable, soldered RAM on a motherboard or in a CPU is not portable; they are both RAM.

[BadHumans]

Portable battery is the exact wording.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20230609IP...

[maeil]

I'll believe it when I see it. With the way the EU has been going, good chance it will get shelved before it goes into effect.

[Kbelicius]

What other rules have been shelved after the date of it coming to effect have been announced?

[ggreer]

Removable batteries are a trade-off. They improve repairability and device longevity, but they increase manufacturing costs, reduce the effectiveness of waterproofing, and increase customer support issues. Battery contacts can degrade or become loose, causing phones to power off unexpectedly when handled roughly. Customers buy cheap 3rd party batteries and then complain to the phone manufacturer when battery life is poor. In some cases, 3rd party batteries malfunction and damage the phone (or even cause injury), and the customer blames the phone manufacturer. Samsung and Apple don't want to see news articles about their phones blowing up, even if it's obviously not their fault. And yes, they do tend to sell more phones if they use integrated batteries.

Rather than mandating a specific solution, a better strategy would be to tax electronic waste so that manufacturers have more financial incentive to make phones that last longer. It might also be helpful to limit the liability of anyone who sells phones with removable batteries, or have more standards for battery manufacturers, as most malfunctions will be due to 3rd party batteries.

[mmis1000]

Most phones don't have battery that is removable. But they are indeed serviceable. The battery alone is generally about 10 to 20 usd. And depends on where you are, add the service fee. Your phone is again good for 2 or 3 years. It's really just a tiny portion of new phone consider high end phones today went up to 1000~1500 usd range.

The official vendor normally have an artificially high service fee because they want you to buy a new one instead which is much more profitable. But servicing it in third party vendors isn't that expensive.

[ggreer]

That's true, but it's also true that the inconvenience of paying $50-$100 and not having your phone for a day (and risking it being damaged) is enough to cause quite a few people to buy a new phone.

I've replaced the battery in most of my phones over the past decade, but that's because I don't like the larger form factor of new phones. Right now I'm on the iPhone 13 mini. Before that I had a 2nd gen iPhone SE (the same form factor as the iPhone 5). If I could get the form factor of an iPhone 4 and the specs of a modern phone, I'd probably be willing to pay $1,000. Unfortunately, like the headphone jack enthusiasts, people with my preferences are too small of a market segment to be worth going after.

[maeil]

> That's true, but it's also true that the inconvenience of paying $50-$100 and not having your phone for a day

Not sure about the US or Apple, but over here if you go to Samsung a battery replacement generally takes less than an hour.

[mmis1000]

> not having your phone for a day

It's generally about 2 or 3 hours here. Probably just watch a movie at theater or workout at gym for a while and it's finished.

[Qwertious]

If people will replace their phone over a one-day wait, then there should be lots of dirt-cheap refurbished options.

[zaroth]

That doesn’t mean the first phone is waste! There’s nothing wrong with wanting to buy a new phone.

The law won’t reduce smartphone ewaste. It will just satisfy the people who want removable batteries over sleaker design.

The battery is serviceable and it can be done quite easily and cheaply. In fact it’s done billions of times over.

Really just nanny state regulation, which as typical, will not bring any benefit and impose tremendous compliance costs and actually make some products worse.

[hulitu]

> Most phones don't have battery that is removable. But they are indeed serviceable

It depends on costs. When both service and a new phone cost 120 €, guess what will the user prefer ?

[merb]

Before the iPhone came we actually had replaceable batteries on most phones and it worked really well. Battery contacts degrading is definitely not a problem for a phone that has a lifetime of maximum of like 7 years. Yes waterproofing becomes harder but it is not impossible. Manufacturing costs are also not an issue since most phones have margins beyond 300%.

[tgma]

Most phones sold have very low and sometimes negative margins, actually. The high-end phones arena which Apple dominates is actually a minority of total phones sold.

[fragmede]

How do you get a margin over 100%?

[Qwertious]

If you spend $100 making a phone and sell it for $200, you have a margin of 100%. If you sell it for $800, you have a margin of 700%.

[fragmede]

that's markup, not margin. At $200, the margin is 50% → (200 - 100) / 200 = 0.5.

[econ]

Many repair shops will put old or cheap batteries in your phone. Even if they buy an expensive one they don't necessarily know what it is.

There are a lot of waterproof connectors on the market. They pretty much all work but if a standard is chosen it will absolutely be one that works.

I've used a good few battery powered tools, even cloths. If any manufacturer made [say] a drill with a glued battery I wouldn't use it if you paid me for it. You just walk to the charger, swap the battery and get back to whatever you were doing. There is nothing special about phones that deserves special consideration.

I wonder if the battery can be smaller if you can easily bring a few extra. My cameras have very small ones 700mah-ish specially when compared to the size of the camera. It is never a real issue. Just bring more batteries. Say phones have 4-5 times the mah and last 8 to 30 hours. You could slide on a battery with a bump and get 60 hours or a slim one with only 4-15 hours. That will eventually outperform the degrading cell.

I don't know where innovation is at but I imagine we could see new batteries with much better size to power ratio. If you already have the newest phone it would be a no-brainer.

[bmicraft]

The Galaxy S5 had a replaceable battery and IP67 10 years ago. It's not that hard.

[wqaatwt]

Wasn’t it made out of plastic? Why would anyone buy a phone like that these days..

[NorwegianDude]

Considering how many people are using cases and even wallet cases, probably very many people. The case/wallet can be attached to the phone as a replacement to the normal backplate, making it much less bulky, just as Samsung did forever ago.

[wqaatwt]

Yet nobody is making high-end plastic phones anymore. Because nobody would buy them (just like no nobody cared about replaceable batteries so all companies stopped making them).

I don’t think that the case situation is necessarily rational but people generally seem to prefer more fancy/expensive/better looking phones these days.

[bmicraft]

The pixel a series is made of plastic too, today. I'm not seeing anybody bothered by that.

[lenkite]

Umm..late comment, but people are still buying smartphones made out of plastic, even recycled plastic these days.

[hulitu]

> reduce the effectiveness of waterproofing

If your phone has a hole (usually the charging port), the water will get in.

[Dilettante_]

That's like saying you get water into your brain through your earholes when diving

[viraptor]

That's just wrong. A port is not necessarily a hole through the case. It may be just a concave area. The water doesn't necessarily get in through ports either - there's lots of water-tight designs there.

[vincnetas]

well, batteries must be also certified. so yeah if you buy black market discarded faulty batteries on random site, you can expect a problem. of course catching all these sellers of crappy fake certified batteries becomes the responsibility of market regulator, but that is their job as far as i can tell.

[ceejayoz]

> You would double or triple the lifespan of a ton of things.

Until they get dropped in the toilet.

Phones have gotten more waterproof as the batteries have gotten more permanently secured (not to mention induction charging). It's not a spurious correlation.

[jcgl]

The Samsung Galaxy S5 was IP67, with a fully toolless, user-replaceable battery (not to mention SIM card!).

That was back in 2014.

[ksenzee]

That was a great phone. Still miss it.

[wqaatwt]

It also had a plastic back cover? How do you do the same with glass?

[madmask]

The battery of my diving torch is removable.. and of course doesn’t flood after 40 meters dives. This is a marketing excuse

[wolrah]

I am certainly very pro-removable-battery, but I feel like it's a safe bet your diving torch uses a round screw-on battery cover that is easy to get a reliable seal with even pressure across the whole thing compared to a flat rectangular opening like a phone battery. They are not comparable.

[madmask]

Yes, that’s true it’s a round screw on cap on the torch.

However, my casio G-Shock often comes with me and it’s only protected by a flat surface pushing on a gasket through 4 tiny screws.. the battery inside is a coin shape.

So I still think that’s an excuse.

[wolrah]

I didn't say it was impossible, just that the flashlight comparison is not great because it's not only a much easier design to seal but it's also a lot more tolerant of leaks.

[vincnetas]

it looks like you thinking about the excuses not the solutions. if you can't solve this problem does not mean that there is no one in the market who can't. and so we as consumers will reward the one who can't solve these new constraints presented by regulations.

[wolrah]

No, my post was literally about the fact that sealing a flashlight is not the same as sealing a modern smartphone.

I didn't say it was impossible, or that people shouldn't try it, just that the flashlight comparison isn't relevant.

[econ]

It's not hard. Can make a disk shape battery that can be screwed into the back of the phone with a flat screwdriver.

[goodpoint]

That's not relevant. Your phone does not need to work for a long time underwater. The phone can be perfectly waterproof even if there's water between phone and battery.

[wolrah]

My phone is a lot more sensitive to water intrusion. Having dropped totally non-waterproof flashlights in pools as a kid they'll generally still work even if totally flooded. Even if they get bad enough to stop working they'll almost certainly work perfectly once dried out.

That's not the case with a modern smartphone.

[Too]

Same with GoPros.

[smarkov]

I'm not denying that there are some trade-offs, but I'm also not strictly speaking about phones here. Think electric toothbrushes, trimmers, Bluetooth speakers and the other endless amounts of electric things with rechargeable batteries that don't have the space constraints of a phone.

[Kirby64]

> electric toothbrushes

If anything, sealing electric toothbrushes is even more paramount than a phone. The normal use case is literally getting it wet through use.

Also, anecdotally, I’ve never had a sonicare toothbrush battery die. They still last weeks after many many years of use.

[NikkiA]

My (oral b) toothbrush uses 2*AA batteries and manages to be waterproof enough just fine.

[eviks]

It's also easy to seal, so that paramount concern also doesn't justify waste. And non-anecdotally we know batteries die in years, not decades

[kelnos]

It's weird to me that your line of thinking is actually a thing. It is not difficult to make a water-tight battery compartment for an electric toothbrush, but also make it trivial to open up and replace the battery. Hell, I just did a quick search for "electric toothbrush AAA battery", and these things exist and presumably work fine.

I feel like modern phones and the marketing around them (mostly from Apple) has pushed this nonsense that it's difficult to make water-resistant or water-proof electronics that still have a user-replaceable battery. Unfortunately this marketing seems to be working. Worked on you, at least. Gaskets, o-rings, and pressure seals are old, time-tested technology.

Admittedly it isn't as easy to make a water-resistant smartphone as it is to make water-resistant electric toothbrush. But it's far from impossible.

[robertlagrant]

A toothbrush doesn't have the same space constraints, so they can just have relatively large seals, and they seal a relatively small opening (enough to fit a AA battery through).

It might well be possible to do this in a phone, but this sort of reasoning to come to that conclusion seems faulty. Like saying "Phones should be able to blow buildings apart. After all, tanks do it, so it's clearly possible."

[smarkov]

It's not my area of expertise so I might just be delusional here, but from my understanding phones are difficult to make waterproof if they had replaceable batteries because they require a massive lid that spans across the entire phone while having a limited amount of thickness to work with and also because they have some expectations about the depth at which they remain waterproof. You don't necessarily have these constraints with a toothbrush. You can have a small opening at the bottom where you insert a tall battery and have plenty of height left to make a waterproof hatch. You're also unlikely to submerge your toothbrush in more than 50cm of water, like in the event of dropping it in the bathtub.

> Also, anecdotally, I’ve never had a sonicare toothbrush battery die. They still last weeks after many many years of use.

Sure, these exist too, though it doesn't reflect the majority of items which cheap out on all components, including batteries.

[Semaphor]

> Also, anecdotally, I’ve never had a sonicare toothbrush battery die. They still last weeks after many many years of use.

It’s the same for me, the whole toothbrush died two times shortly after warranty ended, with the battery having no issues. Not touching sonicare ever again. The cheap honeywell Chinese whatever brand is far more reliable for a small fraction of the price.

[vincnetas]

but you don't go diving with your bathroom devices. they need just splash protection which is not that complicated. i bet inventive competitor can come up with how to solve this problem efficiently and be rewarded by market.

[ceejayoz]

Each of the items you've highlighted are also quite likely to encounter water.

[e12e]

> Phones have gotten more waterproof

Tell that to the Ericsson t888 I washed (phone turned on) for a full cycle at 60C. After drying out for a few days it worked fine.

[ceejayoz]

OK? A modern iPhone or Apple Watch doesn't need drying out after a dip, let alone days worth.

[mr_toad]

iPhones are only water resistant. I wouldn’t recommend putting one through a wash cycle.

[OptionOfT]

I never understood that. Apple claims (for the iPhone Pro Max):

> Rated IP68 (maximum depth of 6 meters up to 30 minutes) under IEC standard 60529

But then, the fine print says:

> iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are splash, water, and dust resistant and were tested under controlled laboratory conditions with a rating of IP68 under IEC standard 60529 (maximum depth of 6 meters up to 30 minutes). Splash, water, and dust resistance are not permanent conditions. Resistance might decrease as a result of normal wear. Do not attempt to charge a wet iPhone; refer to the user guide for cleaning and drying instructions. Liquid damage not covered under warranty.

What is the difference here between being water proof and water resistant?

Is it because water proof is permanent and resistant is time based?

Doesn't that mean that nothing is water proof? A submarine then is also only water resistant, because they have depth limits.

Lastly, they're advertising something, but then stating it's not covered under warranty. Doesn't that go against the Warranty of Merchantability?

[AdrianB1]

iPhone and submarines have different limitations. Submarines have a depth limit because they are (mostly) empty shells at very high pressure and the hull implodes, which is not the case of iPhones. For iPhones, being submerged for extended periods of time water will slowly get in at very low rates, but given enough time it will accumulate to significant quantities to do damage.

[eviks]

It wasn't a dip?

[postepowanieadm]

EU cant deal with single use e-cigarettes! Just think about how much e-waste they generate, for years nothing has been done about it. On the contrary: when recently Polish government considered banning them, they have stepped down because it would require notifying the EU(also "lobbying" aka corruption. One person present at the meeting when the matter was discussed couldn't recall on whose behalf he was there, but treated to sue if called a lobbyist).

[raverbashing]

I think Ireland has banned single use vape devices, seems like Poland had a different issue

[guerrilla]

You have the money. Buy things with replacable batteries. Fairphone 5, Google Pixel, Saksung Galaxy Xcover. These are all good phones. Encourage your friends to get them too. Let's make it the norm. Boycott locked-down unfixable hardware.

[portaouflop]

Often for me not the hardware was the bottleneck but the software - I had some old phones which became unusable because half of the essential software would not work anymore on the outdated android versions - same with iPhone, it gets updates for some years but if I can’t use e.g my banking app the phone is useless - these ungodly apps are half the reason I am forced to use this machine in the first place…

[guerrilla]

Then you definitely want a Fairphone 5. It currently comes with Android 14 (originally 13) and will be updated until at least 2031.

[portaouflop]

Hm given that the Fairphone is about 4 times as expensive as any phone I ever owned I am not sure if I want to make that commitment.

Also 2031 is just 7 years away - my current refurbished iPhone that I got for 100 bucks is supported until 2028.

[AdrianB1]

This is great, but not guaranteed. I consider it a best effort to do the right thing.

[guerrilla]

It's literally guaranteed. What do you mean?

[AdrianB1]

There is no guarantee the company will be around to do it. It is usually a better chance with larger companies, but there is no guarantee anywhere.

[openplatypus]

My Google Pixel has nothing replaceable... At least not by end user.

After checking service manual I am sure I won't be doing anything on it myself.

Sure, if battery dies, I service it with a 3rd party.

I wish I got Fairphone.

[guerrilla]

Wow, sorry for the misinformation. I misremembered. Yes, I'd definitely choose a Fairphone over an Xcover. (I did this time). The Xcover is very repairable compared to most phones but still a pain in the ass (plus locked bootloader) compared to a Fairphone.

[ktosobcy]

The problem is the same as with "compact" phones - there are only few models so the choice is very limited and they are usually "so-so" (or have other issues).

The problem is, as always, with marketing - it's easier to sell "this is newer/better because <x> parameter is higher" [1] so we have gigantic phones with more megapixel cameras and higher waterproof rating though I'd argue that more people would be affected by dying battery than by lack of waterproofing… (no data to back it though). Anecdotally I were changing all my previous phones because the batter was dying and never in 20 years had issue with phone being sumberged...

Those are just dumb trends :/ I would love for a phone that has lumia design - it was polycarbon/rubbery, had easy access to battery and yet was super sturdy and I didn't feel the need to buy yet another cover because, to bump the margins, whole effin world is going "premium".

Same with cars so you have less and less choice for a normal sized city-car and everything has to be "crossover" or "SUV"... ffs...

[alkonaut]

Which devices don’t have replaceable batteries? No iPhone had a battery that couldn’t be replaced for maybe 10% or the purchase cost or so. Why do people consider a smartphone with a degraded battery ”e-waste”? Just go have the battery replaced?

[AdrianB1]

My Asus ZenFone 3 - I cannot find a battery for it, so it is now permanently connected to an USB cable doing other stuff than being a mobile phone.

There is a huge diversity in phone and battery models, it is easy to find a replacement for some, difficult or impossible for others.

[oulipo]

At least for e-bike battery, that's precisely what we're building at https://get.gouach.com :)