Technology

European Union is doing the work the U.S. government should be.
U.S. government is too busy worrying about what people are doing in their bedrooms, libraries and doctor's offices.

Beyond being good for right-to-repair, this used to be the one way to be sure that your phone is off and is not listening to you. It's a stride on the privacy side as well.

Great news! No point in 5 or 6 years of software updates when the battery gives out after 3 years.

Yes! mandatory usb C and replaceable battery, and i'd like the 3mm headphonr jack to also be a standard 😁

I don't even want to replace my battery. I want it to last. At least 5 years.

Bring legislation that enforces a 5 year warranty on batteries that are built-in. That would help the environment much more than being able to replace a battery every year that shouldn't fail in the first place. And yes, it's possible to build batteries that last longer. It's more effort, true. But so is building exchangeable batteries or doing an exchange. I rather shell off 50 € more for my phone when I know that the battery will make it 5 years.

Good, now add SD card please.

I don't mind that my phone battery is sealed up. I do mind that I have to bring it to a specialist that might screw it up and make me pay for the privilege.

Actually, this bothers me way more with laptops than with phones. With laptops, there's no water resistance or any other reason besides thinness to seal the battery up. Particularly with business machines, the computing power will be more-than-sufficient for many years to come, yet many will end up in the trash because the battery's no longer doing its job. It's ridiculously wasteful.

The EU has been good at holding phone manufacturers to account on this kind of thing, glad it's gone through. I've had at least two phones die on me through the battery breaking, it shouldn't be cheaper to just buy a new phone than get the battery replaced. So much waste.

Hoping us UK folk will see the benefit of this as I imagine it's less effort to just bring the change about across the board than to be specific about geography.

Laughing in Fairphone

Back in the day I used to just keep 2-3 fully charged spare batteries if I went out. No need for a battery pack to recharge if I can just quickly swap battery and get a days worth of charge instantly.

The language in the article does seem to forget that plenty of early smartphones had replaceable batteries... Yeah, it might add some bulk, but it's not exactly going to be a major hardship.

... but it seems like a good reverse step to me. Any consumer replaceable part is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

This is why I got a Fairphone. I was done complaining about the direction of the mobile market and decided to buy a phone which lets me do all of this and has longer support for software and hardware. It's the best phone I've had since the S3.

It only works for me because I like Android, live in Europe and have big enough pockets, though... the thing is a brick.

I don't really see the benefit anymore. My current device lasts ~40 hours on a charge, so I seldom find the need to swap anything out. Even if I did, those little USB battery packs that charge multiple devices are more practical. On a long flight, my wife and I just share one and it works on the Switch and tablet too.

Sealed devices have way better water resistance, less plastic makes the batteries themselves bigger, and wireless charging (especially with magnets) will be challenging to add to a battery that's also the back cover.

I'm sure I'll be in the minority on this, but, I don't really have any interest in a removable battery, especially if it involves other compromises on size, capacity, and features.

Any battery is replaceable if you pry it hard enough

It must be nice to have leaders that actually do useful things.

Yes! 🥳

I used to have a phone with a replaceable battery and it was awesome. I would charge the other battery while using the phone all day, carefree. When it was about to die, I'd swap out the battery. It was basically like I had an instant charge of 100% on my phone. Those were good days.

Anyone remember the LG V10? Mine came with an extra battery and a charging dock for the external batteries. Never plugged that phone up once in 2.5 years, just took 10 seconds to swap in a full battery.

All for this. The amount of times I've needed to do a full reset that would've been so much easier with a removable battery is wild. Waiting 10 hours for it to discharge is nuts

At long last. I really miss being able to swap phone batteries. Phone batteries are light, compared to external batteries.

Hell yes! This has been a big sticking point for me since they started being removed around 2016. I hung on to my Note 4 until it was tired around 2019/2020, bought an LG V20 as it was the most recent 'flagship' still using a removable battery, then I finally crossed over to the darkside with the S21 Ultra.

Hopefully options will open up over the next few years as even if you don't want a removable battery, your preference shouldn't dictate the entire market. The smart phone market is way too homogeneous where every phone is essentially the same in a mildly different brick shape with a different logo.

I'm fine with internal batteries, but please use some form of standard cell size and connector.

I wouldn't even care about it being super easily replaceable. It would just be nice if the phone wasn't basically filled with glue...

Now require manufacturers to provide like 5 years of OS updates so devices aren't insecure bricks once you get updates.

OR disallow banking apps from blocking custom ROMs/root, so you can just install your own updates ROM without losing updates.

Man I wish the US regulatory body would throw some wrenches like this at the tech companies here. They need a wake up call, start with breaking up Meta. Right to repair is also often gutted

Holy Shit if that holds up it will have massive consequences

Good. With this, my next phone might also last 6 years, as my last one did. I'm not so confident with my current phone, as it's exactly one of these glued shut types where replacing the battery is extremely difficult.

I wish this would and bring replaceable phone batteries back to the US as well, since it would theoretically be easier for brands to just have a single model for all countries, but unfortunately I highly doubt that we'll be the case, as demonstrated by Apple taking extra effort to put geolocation code in their phones that unlocks "sideloading" when you are in Europe but then locks it again when you're outside of your Europe. As it turns out the extra effort it takes to create an exception to your hardware and software for Europe is far outweighed by the extra profit of being able to keep giving a more locked down products to everyone else.

Would this affect the waterproof ratings of phones? It would make the phone less sealed.

This is a step in the right direction, but because phones are now extremely sophisticated they frequent need security updates, but phone manufacturers only support a phone for about 3 years that also needs tackling because that will also help reduce ewaste.