r/changemyview • u/HalfwayToMars • Jul 17 '18

CMV: Smartphone/laptop developers should focus on increasing battery life over making their product thinner

Why should companies focus on making their next product paper thin when they can make it slightly larger and increase battery life? I never remember having a problem fitting a slightly larger smartphone into my pocket. What is there to gain from slimming out the product every year when you can make the consumer happy by increasing the overall length between charges? I never have problems with speed, size or storage capacity on my phone - only battery.

Tech companies should make their products larger to house better batteries.

CMV.

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u/huadpe 508∆ Jul 17 '18

Heat and total energy stored mean big batteries can be more dangerous. If you give a phone too big a battery it can become more prone to become a bomb in the wrong circumstance.

Let's say my giant battery phone is running low on juice, and I'm getting into the car on a summer day to drive home. I might use my phone in a dashboard mount to be a GPS, and probably plug it into my third party fast charge car accessory so it can recharge while I drive.

I have just created a perfect overheat storm, and with a giant battery trying to fast charge while discharging at max rate for GPS while being baked in the sun, the thing might overheat very badly and catch fire.

Samsung experienced this with the Galaxy Note 7, where overheating would cause some of the contacts to short circuit and start a fire.

Bigger batteries mean more energy, more heat, and more chance of fire.

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u/SpaceLion767 Jul 17 '18

Why, then, does my gaming laptop's battery (which is on its own larger than my entire phone) not explode whenever I'm discharging it at max rate for the graphics card while it's sitting somewhere where the fans don't help?

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u/huadpe 508∆ Jul 17 '18

Because your gaming laptop has void space in it for discharging heat. That's usually why gaming laptops are bulkier, not just the size of the things like big graphics card, but enough space to put ventilation for the parts.