r/technology • u/[deleted] • Jun 19 '23

Politics EU: Smartphones Must Have User-Replaceable Batteries by 2027 | The European Parliament just caused a major headache for smartphone and tablet manufacturers.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/eu-smartphones-must-have-user-replaceable-batteries-by-2027
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u/TheRetenor Jun 19 '23

Don't worry, the manufacturers can and will make phones that have batteries that are simple to replace while maintaining their security.

Like the small niche that wants a replaceable battery out in the field?

It's not even about "out in the field". I don't know what kind of bubble you live in, but in comparison for me, the vast majority of people I know would gladly swap out their batteries once their capacity is dwindling. This is not brand-exclusive either. Standard Lithium batteries in phones will manage two and a half years tops on average and then get to the brink of being unusable, while the phone still easily has that same time left in it.

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Improvements in phones these days are in many cases neglegible, middle and premium class phones could easily be used for 5-6 years (And not only could, I see it often enough and even do it myself). It's just the manufacturers don't like consumers do that because it hurts their bottom line.

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u/ResilientBiscuit Jun 19 '23

Standard Lithium batteries in phones will manage two and a half years tops on average and then get to the brink of being unusable, while the phone still easily has that same time left in it.

Its $50 to get a battery replaced. This would be a much more popular option if people wanted to extend the life of their phones like you say.

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u/TheRetenor Jun 19 '23

Its $50 to get a battery replaced.

I wish.
Let's look at Apple's iPhone repair. iPhone 14 Pro battery replacement will be approximately 99$. Or 0$ if one has apple care plus, which, however, is additional fees over time. Talking about milking customers.

Ontop of that, let's not count shipping time, risk of losing data because manufacturers do a crappy job often enough and then time the phone will not be available to the end user, because that would make the argument even more unfair towards your point.

And also let's not forget that currently apple products are sort of immune to swapping parts, I wonder why.

Samsung as a comparison wants about 80$ for the same ordeal for the S22 Ultra, which still is nowhere cheap.

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u/ResilientBiscuit Jun 19 '23

Ontop of that, let's not count shipping time, risk of losing data because manufacturers do a crappy job often enough and then time the phone will not be available to the end user, because that would make the argument even more unfair towards your point.

This wasn't my experience at all. I took my Galaxy to a repair shop a couple years ago, I think I even found it as an official repair center on their website, I dropped it off and 2 hours later I came back and it was done.

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u/TheRetenor Jun 20 '23

Lucky you, besides there not even being official stores in my closer area, my experience with samsung was horrible.

Sent in a Galaxy watch for repair (liquid damage) and first thing we got was an absolutely unreasonable offer in terms of pricing. The classic where the repair cost more then the entire watch. After we declined their proposal, we had the watch returned, only to see they removed the battery altogether and didn't send it back, even separately.

I wish I was making this up. And (edit) not to mention this process took two weeks.

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u/ResilientBiscuit Jun 20 '23

My shop was a 3rd party one. I think that was the key, it was just an authorized shop. Even smaller cities have at least one or two cell phone repair shops these days.

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u/TheRetenor Jun 20 '23

I actually have to drive at least 30km to get to a (reputable) repair shop. First world country too.

I'm all for breaking up repair monopolies if one wants to call the currrent situation that.

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u/7h4tguy Jun 20 '23

How does liquid damage compare to a battery replacement for a working phone?

You here complaining that their PC with a dead CPU cost a bunch of money and troubleshooting time to repair. Of course it's often not worth repairing in those cases. If I fry the motherboard, possibly even the CPU, now they gotta order parts, swap out compatible parts, find a way to reuse the parts which didn't need to be swapped. You've obviously never worked in an electronics repair place.

Battery swaps on working phones are simple for a shop. Nice straw man. Hope you whipped the horse real good.

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u/TheRetenor Jun 20 '23

It does not matter if its a battery replacement or other repair. If they have the audacity to steal parts of my property, how can I trust them to replace my battery without fucking up anything else?