Great news! I remember the first cell phone I ever had I replaced the battery on twice. It’s absurd that tech companies today just expect us to trash our phones when the battery starts going.
It’s like the only way they sell new ones now.
If batteries didn’t fail, phones from 5 years ago would still be fine. Mobile OS and app demands haven’t increased that much, so the only barrier to using our devices are the wear on the battery, and the refusal to provide security updates.
Next we need laws forcing some kind lf bare minimum of software support, though I have no idea what that would look like.
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Nah, its the biggest driver for people who care. Most people will see the “you just got your last update” notification and happily keep using the phone for several more years. It’s not safe, but the reason that actually makes people dump their old phones right now, is the battery.
There are ways to make phone batteries replaceable, and water-resistant. One would be to allow water to enter the battery compartment, but make everything inside impervious to water, and merely protect the electrical contacts with something. We survived thicker phones before, we will again.
And besides, the main reason people value water resistance, is because if you do drop your phone in a lake, you can’t have it affordably repaired, so people pay a premium for phones that are resistant to being damaged in the first place.
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Weird, I’ve only replaced a battery on one phone, my wife’s Samsung S3. Here’s my history with phones:
- ghetto feature phone - switched for better features and different service
- fancier feature phone - had a qwerty keyboard and everything; hinge broke, and I wanted a smart phone
- smart phone - went through the wash and shattered the screen
- power button stopped working, and the screen was cracked
- my current phone
That accounts for about 15 years of phones, so about 3-4 years per phone (I had the first for a year). I didn’t need to replace the battery on any of those phones.
I’m more interested in longer software support. My smartphones all stopped getting software updates after 2-ish years, and that’s a pretty big deal to me.
On a side note, are there any plans for the Fair phone to reach other nations?
The thought of fixing a phone with a single Philips and easy parts access gets me giddy
Yes! I can’t believe this wasn’t a law previously. I hope my current phone lasts until 2027 because I don’t plan on buying another device without a user replaceable battery.
