[deelowe]

Thanks for correcting the title HN. Lithium batteries bloat, explode, etc... No manufacturing process is perfect, so there is always going to be a small percentage that do this. The only hard requirement is that the failure be contained.

In other words, there's nothing particularly newsworthy here. The fact that testmunk found this significant and specifically paint it as a problem with the nexus 4 does more to show their lack of experience in the field than anything else.

[quadrature]

So it was just random luck that all their nexus 4 devices demonstrated the same fault ?

[drzaiusapelord]

No, but its a phone from 2012 and its battery has reached or is near EOL by any reasonable metric assuming daily use. Of course you're going to have some battery issues. How many three year old phones work flawlessy? I find by year two they're all fairly roughed up in some way, especially if they're owned by techies who run they harder than most people. Its not surprising considering the age, and perhaps being from the same batch, that they're having issues today.

[shock]

> its battery has reached or is near EOL by any reasonable metric assuming daily use.

Someone tell that to the battery in my Nokia 6230i from 2007, cause it's been used daily and it doesn't seem to mind :)

Seriously, though, what makes you think that a 2-3 year battery is at or near EOL? Battery life depends on a lot of factors and even then it should lose capacity not swell and explode.

[drzaiusapelord]

Because modern smartphones, unlike your Nokia, work batteries very hard. They discharge more, get charged more often, have more capacity, have less room in the case for cooling, run hot in general, etc.

I don't think its controversial to say that 3 year old phones may start having problems. If this was the new Nexus 6, yes, then there would be a lot of concern, but telling me a budget phone from 2012 is having battery problems in 2015 really isn't saying much.

tldr; the Nexus 4 has a 1 year warranty for a reason.

[studentrob]

Typing on an n4 here..

I find it unacceptable that the phone's life is now limited by the battery. Where can you buy a new n4 battery now? Nowhere.. Yet the rest of my hardware is fine

At the time of purchasing the n4, I had tried to find another decent smart phone with a replaceable battery but didn't find anything suitable. My next phone won't be with Google and I'll instead be looking for something whose replacement battery will still be around, manufactured and not out of date in 3+ years (a guy can dream)

[dpark]

> Where can you buy a new n4 battery now? Nowhere.

I see a bunch listed on Amazon and eBay. Some of the ones on Amazon have reviews indicating that they are used, but not all of them. You can probably find a new one if you look for it.