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by Dylan16807 45 days ago
Well, I want a phone that's about one tier below flagship and has certain features. I don't think that's unreasonable.

For comparison: The feature I look for the most is a microsd slot. The last time that option existed that was in the quality range I want, I bought it. For anyone buying a phone right now, samsung has dropped microsd support from multiple more tiers, google and apple have never offered it, motorola and some others have the physical hardware but won't properly update the phone...

That's a feature that has been demonstrated to have no meaningful downsides, and manufacturers won't put it in to good models. I'm not convinced batteries are very different. People's refusal to make huge unnecessary compromises doesn't prove any features are DOA. I can guarantee that the above phone using LCD instead of OLED isn't a compromise for the battery's sake.

The biggest downside of removable batteries is that it's not an option on good phones. There might be some solid physics-based reasons, unlike with microsd, but I'm skeptical.

1 comments

What you think is reasonable is completely irrelevant. What the marketing, business development, and C-suite groups decide is the best course, will be done.

I can want three cupholders, not two, on my next car, and I want it to be a Toyota EV in purple. Not too much to ask - but Toyota has no reason to make it for me. Not even if 100 of us on Toyota superfan sites want it.

For the record, I want removable batteries and the ability to change my phone's OS. But if there's not sufficient market pressure, it ain't gonna happen - without legal force. And that won't happen if the businesses have too much lobbying power (USA), or it's specifically against government interests (3-letter orgs wanting backdoors).

> What you think is reasonable is completely irrelevant.

Sure!

My point is that the ability to "vote with your wallet" is not really there in many cases, and lack of purchases for some niche and low end phone with a feature is not strong evidence that the feature is unwanted.

> But if there's not sufficient market pressure, it ain't gonna happen - without legal force.

And it takes too much market pressure to make certain changes even when the tradeoffs are minimal, so I welcome the legal force in a lot of cases.