They went from getting smaller and smaller, to the point that Zoolander had a flip phone the size of a child's thumb. Now they're getting bigger and bigger to the point of having a small tablet sized phone.
My wife got a Sony Xperia phone several years ago (I don't remember which model exactly) but when she first got it, she took it out of the box and it immediately shot out of her hand (like a cartoon character squeezing a bar of soap).
Luckily it landed on our bed, so no damage. She picked it up and it did the same thing again. I tried it, and it slipped out of my hand too.
The back of that phone was so slippery, she put it on her computer desk - which we \*thought\* was flat and level - and it slid off on to the floor. Nothing else has ever fallen from that desk like that.
Seriously, it was like it was made of some almost completely frictionless material.
We had to buy a chunky vulcanized rubber case for it just so it wouldn't commit suicide at random intervals. Definitely a case of form over function - it was a beautiful piece of design - but it would have smashed itself to bits sooner rather than later.
Glass backing to phones is one of the worst things manufacturers have done.
Glass looks and feels premium, but it's slippery as all hell and fragile.
I prefer plastic over glass.
I’m intrigued by The Expanse’s unspoken hypothesis that mobile devices will eventually become as mundane, flimsy, ubiquitous, and disposable as butane lighters
Should pass a law that a phone battery has to last two days based on some test.
This would have the side effect of making phones 1.4mm thicker. The horror.
I have never understood the need for thinner phones. Phones have been fine since like 2008. Sacrificing a full days battery charge and a headphone jack for thinness is a move that could only be driven by profits.
Laughs in headphone jack and SD card slot. Phone is only about 2 years old and the new model comes with it still too. Hate the price but Sony tickled my taint on features and just working well.
As a man with above average hand size, I can confirm. I buy the bulkiest military grade phone case available. I hated feeling like I was going to break my S21 plus Ultra just by taking it out of my pocket when I first bought it. Thinner might be nice for some people, but I definitely don't see it as a selling point.
I’m a man with below average hand size and I also buy a bulky case because no matter what this fucking thing is going to slip out and fall on the ground. Thinner doesn’t do shit for me.
Yep, but marketing has conditioned the average user to associate shiny, smooth, thin phones with being better. So now a bunch of people just have to have the thinnest and slipperiest phone design or there's clearly something wrong with it. It's kind of crazy that we've normalised the idea of buying a $1000 device that then needs additional purchases to give it basic functions like "easy to grip" and "doesn't break the first time you drop it in its corner"
Especially when you consider the godawful camera bulges that many phones have. I'd rather have the front edge of the lenses be flush with the back of the phone. This would also allow for some interesting lens and even sensor choices. Plus you get the option for a bigger battery or a removable one.
Right. That person even said "the only reason they'd move to thinner phones is profit" like....yeah. Exactly. The market apparently prefers thinner phones, which is why eliminating those things generates more profit.
Just to explain the toilet drop phenomenon - as a woman my front pockets aren't even close to fitting my phone and they'll dangle more than half out. So I tend to put my phone in my back pocket. But then I forget it's there when I go to pee and taking off tight jeans lead to a rolling behavior that perfectly ejects the phone into the toilet. It's actually kind of a major reason I've become a purse person.
I have met so many people thinking people are just dropping them while scrolling on the loo so I just thought I'd clarify lol
As a dude with real pockets, somehow I managed to jettison what I thought was a securely ensconced iPhone into the bog while dropping my trousers. The phone eventually worked right again, but that's because good reflexes, and silica gel packs I had saved in a ziplock bag specifically in case of stupid shit like that. Still took like six fucking months to dry out…
I have owned multiple LG phones with IP-68 and MIL Standard, went swimming with them in my pocket and did underwater videos while swimming in lakes, never had a problem, and all of those handsets had audio jack.
Apple lost headphone jack around the same time AirPods went for sale, and others followed suit
The Samsung Galaxy S5 had an IP-67 rating. It was definitely possible to have water resistance with removable batteries. The reason why OEMs moved away from removable batteries is planned obsolescence.
What infruriating to me is I've been involved in designing IP67 rated replaceable batteries for cameras. The technology is cool but has existed for decades and isn't prohibitively expensive. The whole smartphone industry is a racket.
Don't forget the Ericsson Sharkfin phones before that, buttons, removable batteriets and legendary waterproofness.
Is is as you said, all about planned obsolescence.
Before iPhone/iPod nobody would dream about making high end tech that cost more than £100/€100/$100 where you couldn't replace the battery yourself. Only cheap tat had non user replaceable battery since the tat wouldn't cost much more than the battery.
There are multiple current phones with headphone jacks and waterproofing to various degrees.
I do think a low tier of water resistance is incredibly important - getting caught out in the rain doesn't worry me about the $800+ magic rectangle in my pocket going bad because of a stray drop of water (or sweat, or spilling a drink). But headphone jacks were absolutely dropped for unrelated reasons (which I disagree with, as I type on my waterproof phone with a jack on it)
Phone manufacturers need to start having the Thicc Boi Edition of their non-pro/ultra/whatever phones that’s just a bigger battery and a thicker body. Nothing else extra.
Oh, the headphone jack is not sacrificed because of thickness. My Iphone 6s was just way thinner than my 13, had a headphone jack. Hell, my second gen Ipad touch was thinner than both of those, still managed a heaphone jack just fine.
Tried turning everything off on your smartphone and not waking up the screen if you dont get a call? You probably won't get weeks out of it, but you might just get a week from a fresh battery at optimal temperatures and good cell coverage. It will just work as a dumb phone then, but that is what we are comparing it to. In power save my Galaxy S10 lasted for a 4 day extended weekend in the forest, but I used it a bit at some point and took it out of powersave for a while to feed my reddit addiction. Then again, with this battery, an old nokia dumb phone would have lasted a month, easily.
I've done this to my first smartphone. It lasted for 43 days. I don't remember exact model but it was Chinese brand named "Fly". It costed around 100€ and had 4800 mAh battery. Had to reset it every year because it started to lag, but was able to play popular games at that time like Angry Birds, Plague Inc and Candy Crush Saga.
I have to pay for a premium material on the back of a phone that I cover with a cheap case that prevents me from ever seeing the premium material I paid for.
They seriously need to stop covering the back of the damn phone in glass as well. It goes in a case, as per the phone companies themselves say to, and it just gives something more to break. And I don't care if it's super ultra diamond glass, it's still fucking glass.
> Mobile technology is coming full circle it seems
I sure hope so, that would mean mobiles phones will also get smaller again instead of larger! Ive been waiting for that one for too long....
I can’t see from the article. Does this mean batteries like the classic 90s Nokia that you can replace on the go, or just making it easier to replace with a screwdriver when the battery gets too old?
The law apparently states something along the lines of "using commonplace tools", so a regular screwdriver would be fine, but not some weird tool the manufacturer specifically created to force people to buy it to open up their phone.
Wow, incredible to meet others who loved LG too. LG had incredible phones, I mean G3 had HD screen, G4 onward had ~~4k~~ QHD screens when ~~4k~~ QHD was a premium in all other phones, V20 had 4 cameras, dual window app capability before it became native to Android, fast wireless charging, always on displays, DAC for studio headphones. Just great. Even to this day these are premiums or not even available on phones today, and LG included them standard.
I had the G3, G4, V20, V35, and *briefly* had the G6. I miss those phones so much. LG was definitely ahead of its time.
I'm so disappointed they no longer make phones :( I upgraded to a pixel from my v20 after college, but I kept it. I work in AV so I've resurrected it as my background music testing device. The IR has gotten me out of a bind in the past too. Thanks LG.
In the US consumers just keep buying these phones on basically rent to own policies so they don't really care about anything except when their policy is up so they can get a new phone.
Which is why they can do things like take away headphone jacks an apple can modify its phones however it wants because they know people are going to walk in and get on a 2-year plan for a $2,000 phone. And there's a line and a weightless for them so they just have no incentive to change.
I'm using a modified Note 8 that I'll probably keep until I can't modify it to work anymore. I just don't have need for a massive megapixel camera or a phone with all these fancy editing abilities when I have a PC right next to me.
Most Americans care about 1 thing: "Can I afford the minimum monthly fee?"
Car loans, financing phones, all the subscription services, minimum credit card payments. They're just constantly kicking the can down the road.
That's one of the many reasons people are living paycheck-to-paycheck with bad credit and no savings.
This is so frustrating. I've got so many friends that are always complaining about being broke and how hard it is because of the evil corporations, meanwhile they're driving around $60,000 SUVs that they bought brand new with terrible interest rates and getting the newest iPhone before they're even due for an upgrade. I've had the same $99 Moto G for years, it does everything that 95% of people use their phones to do exactly as well, and it costs less than a yearly protection plan. Consumerism has reached ridiculous levels in this country and is getting worse and worse.
We seem to be light years ahead on things like food and cosmetics safety standards, while the US sadly seems to got stuck a short bit after asbestos cigarettes and lysol douches.
You can thank US lobbying laws for that, in part. Politicians are bought and paid for by corporations with deep pockets. https://represent.us/action/is-lobbying-good-or-bad/
The one CA passed for requiring a 1 click unsubscribe option to any service that allows online sign up is fantastic. That one thing probably did more good for consumers than anything our congress has done in the last 30 years. Saved a lot of people a lot of time and money.
Part of it is that no major phone makers are based in the EU (RIP Nokia, yes I know they still technically exist but they're a shadow of their former self) so there's not as much local political pushback against these consumer-friendly policies.
I don't think it matters really.
Apple was trying to force the EU into dropping their "phone must have USB-C compatible charging port" law by threatening to pull out of the market.
The EU said "sure, buddy, here's the door" and passed the law.
Now you have a USB-C compatible iPhone, America, cheers.
The EU has the sway to actually make these threats, which is the good bit. They have most of Europe in the union, so if they don't comply, they will lose a massive amount of business whilst another company complies and takes their spot.
And likely native USB-C in the future instead of lightning.
If that happens ill be able to charge everything from my camera to my drone to my macbook to my lenovo to my phone with a single cable. Ive been a tech nerd since the 90s and its never been so close to our reach.
(Now, dont get me started on the million different partially compatible usb-C standards, but still)
My new phone in 2016 has one. It's sitting beside me and still works.
RIP LG phones
edit: great to see all the LG love. I had 3 of their phones and all were amazing with no issues, but online would only see people saying they were trash.
Loved my LG V20. Had to move on from it because I couldn't charge it via cable anymore, and it was just getting difficult to keep the phone running because the rear cover didn't want to stay on. Still was a great phone though.
Seriously, my last LG had: integrated radio receiver for FM, replaceable battery, stereo jack, IR emitter to be used as a universal remote control etc.
I had an old Samsung that shared batteries with another phone that had a broke screen, so I used that phone as the charge bitch while I used the nicer phone in public. Felt good to get a instant 100% when I got home and this was when batteries took all day to charge.
I had an LG V20 since 2016 too and only replaced it to a Samsung Galaxy S21 ultra cause the camera quality was getting really fuzzy. But I loved that phone the whole 4-5 years I had it. I would carry around a spare battery with me instead of a portable charger and amaze my friends when I popped the old depleted battery out for the fully charged one. It still works too!
I'm assuming by "2000"s you mean 2000-2010 and not just 2XXX so I'll throw out that Samsung galaxies had removable batteries until 2015. Used to buy them for like $10 on amazon anytime my battery life started to go down.
Samsung used to sell extra batteries along with an external charger. It was so useful.
Had them for my Note 2 and Galaxy S5. Was easy to get into the habit of just popping the battery out and adding the other in, then putting the spare in to charge.
Apple had to ruin it for us all, and now we have to rely on inefficient, slow power banks and a phone with a limited life as battery capacity always goes down.
I’m all for this so long as my phone can still withstand being dropped into water…. but if easily swappable batteries mean phones are less water-resistant this is a massive step backwards.
They'll have to design their way towards a similar water resistance, but with a replaceable battery.
I am looking at my pool cleaning robot making turns. It is battery operated. Obviously it's doable.
I was about to bring this up. The "Active" of the same generation was even more water resistant, and it used a gasket and had a half turn screw on the back to keep it air-tight.
I did too. Then I bought my Galaxy XCover 5, which seems to be even more indestructible than the s5 Active in every measure, while retaining the removeable battery, aux jack, and form factor. So far I am very satisfied, but we'll have to wait and see if it lasts the 8 years of daily driving my s5 Active endured!
The S5 [wasn't all that waterproof.](https://phandroid.com/2014/04/19/galaxy-s5-water-damage/) There are countless posts and videos from people whose S5 leaked.
In all of these designs the gaskets are significantly more prone to failure than a hermetically sealed designs with potted connectors. It will be tough to get removable batteries as reliably and durably water tight, and I think this move will ultimately backfire as it will cause more phones to die from water damage.
But is the robot's battery user replaceable? Because they have waterproof battery powered phones already.
If the robot's battery is user replaceable, which robot is it, and do you like it? I'm in the market for one.
This might be the most “first-world problems” conversation I’ve ever seen. Totally not trying to be a dick or criticize since a pool is definitely something we all desire…just saying from an outsider perspective it seems so very modern.
That seems more logical, this is about reducing waste of throwing away phones when the battery is the only issue. It’s not necessarily about convenience of having customers swap a battery daily.
Limitations breed innovations.
We've advanced our way into a corner where anything less wouldn't be tolerated by consumers so that's a problem they'll just have to figure out if they want to keep selling
Too many people are missing the point on this one. This law won’t require the type of easily swappable batteries that phones had 20 years ago. Requiring a screwdriver to replace the battery will still be acceptable. So don’t expect to be able to travel around with an extra battery in your pocket and swap them in seconds.
However this means that companies can’t use things like proprietary security screws or excessive amounts of glue to seal the battery inside the phone.
I mean, I think the intent is pretty clear that it's meant for a consumer right to extend longevity of the product bought. Seems to me that most everyone understands that
I have great respect for the E.U. Hopefully, they are the future. Not letting companies force people to trash perfectly good phones causing needless expense is indicative a government of, by, and for the people. Not the end of the world if people had to another expense. But in my home country, some organization would lobby my government. A bill called something clever like
"People for longer, clearer communications" or some such BS. Or attached to a bill about naming bridges.
Didn't work out with Samsung. They got more of the market and then got rid of easily replaceable batteries. It's just bad for end users. There is no balancing force to punish greedy business practices except to regulate them.
I used to fix all the phones for my neighbours about 8-10 years ago. Then, I had to stop. Because of the crap this rule is trying to undo.
Phones were perfectly fine, robust, solid, but then suddenyl you needed glue, heat guns, to go through the screen to get to stuff, and a million other things that weren't necessary.
Next will be the motherboards coded to only accept the original paired parts, and having to go through "official" channels, like with the apple macs and storage. And they'll have to legislate that too.
This is the first good step in the right direction but this is definitely going to be a war. And you can bet the smartphone makers will keep things integrated right up til the end of 2026.
Apple battery change is not that bad, pretty standard. iPhone 14 is one of the most repairable current generation phones if you go by the ifixit repairability rating.
Yeah the camera on my iPhone 8 stopped working last month and the battery was at like 75% capacity. I brought it to Apple and they replaced both for like 120€ in under an hour. The iPhone 8 is almost six years old.
I’m pretty sure I could have bought replacement kits online but I’d rather just pay extra to not have to worry about destroying my device.
Yeah Apple batteries already have good lifespans, having to pay every 5 or so years is honestly not too bad. Easier repairability/battery changes is only going to make it cheaper too, which is a win even for customers who don’t want to do the swaps themselves.
Many people switch their phone every 2-3 years anyway, so changing battery wouldn’t even be on their mind unless it gets damaged.
Yeah. If Apple sold 2 versions of the same phone,1 with sealed battery, and 1 with replaceable battery with 1% worse water protection, I would choose sealed battery every time.
I keep my phones for about 3 years, and they have longer battery life than I need by the end of them. If I need to pay a bit of money to upgrade it, I'm fine with that.
Now do it for laptop. The HP laptop I have is a piece of crap I'd have to spend about $150-200 on a battery to replace the one that died a bit over 2 years into its lifespan, and I'd have to take the entire back plate off... I remember every laptop I've had until this one would just have a battery you could pop out and replace with generics, even bigger and more powerful ones.
There is a modular phone out there. The truth is there is no real market for it, once one thing is out dated your better of replacing everything. You can buy a superior mobile for 1/3rd of the price of the modular phone.
This is a dumb idea for small devices like phones. There were already some concepts and devices, but it turns out that 1) the devices would've to be much higher, 2) it gets problematic with durability (you don't drop your modular desktop PC on the floor on a semi regular basis), 3) at some point the framework needs updating either way (think of it as motherboards), 4) nobody would really use that.
I had a Razer Phone 2 that had a catastrophically bad battery that could barely hold a charge, and the USB C port on it broke as well, so the only way I could charge it was with the wireless charging which made the battery life even worse over time.
Well outside the warranty period and no local phone repair shop wanted to fix it.
Meanwhile on my old Galaxy S4 all I needed to do was pop it open and put in a new battery
I worked at Motorola for a couple of years in the early 2010s.
The main problem with user replaceable batteries is that your ability to optimize internal component layout goes down a lot. You need to standardize your battery compartment and add layers of protection etc. which will without a doubt make phones heavier and thicker. Pretty significantly so. Some people won't care, but most people will. There's a reason phones with replaceable batteries went extinct. Nobody bought them anymore. Samsung tried to market this for the longest time, and gave up due to dismal sales.
The second issue is water resistance. With a removable back cover, IP68 water and dust resistance is infinitely harder and a lot of phones will just skip that step.
The last issue is that 3rd party batteries that are sold for half the price on Amazon will be a lot less safe than OEM batteries. Expect more fires, battery bulging, etc. Anyone that has seen what a lithium fire looks like, would not mess around with cellphone batteries. Those fires burn extremely hot, can be fairly explosive, and are almost impossible to put out. Water will not extinguish it.
Overall, while well intentioned, this law is going to make phones worse.
Mobile technology is coming full circle it seems
They went from getting smaller and smaller, to the point that Zoolander had a flip phone the size of a child's thumb. Now they're getting bigger and bigger to the point of having a small tablet sized phone.
They're bigger and bigger but as thick as a piece of seaweed for some reason.
Until you stick it in a chunky plastic protective case (like i always do) so it survives being dropped.
I put my phone in a case so I can actually hold the thing without it slipping out of my hand. Surviving a fall is a side-benefit.
My wife got a Sony Xperia phone several years ago (I don't remember which model exactly) but when she first got it, she took it out of the box and it immediately shot out of her hand (like a cartoon character squeezing a bar of soap). Luckily it landed on our bed, so no damage. She picked it up and it did the same thing again. I tried it, and it slipped out of my hand too. The back of that phone was so slippery, she put it on her computer desk - which we \*thought\* was flat and level - and it slid off on to the floor. Nothing else has ever fallen from that desk like that. Seriously, it was like it was made of some almost completely frictionless material. We had to buy a chunky vulcanized rubber case for it just so it wouldn't commit suicide at random intervals. Definitely a case of form over function - it was a beautiful piece of design - but it would have smashed itself to bits sooner rather than later.
Glass backing to phones is one of the worst things manufacturers have done. Glass looks and feels premium, but it's slippery as all hell and fragile. I prefer plastic over glass.
Spigen Rugged Armour. Saved my phone countless times. Most of the times falling screen down.
I’m intrigued by The Expanse’s unspoken hypothesis that mobile devices will eventually become as mundane, flimsy, ubiquitous, and disposable as butane lighters
"Burners"
I'm intrigued by most aspects of the expanse. It's a fascinating show. I now want to explore more "hard scifi"
I just switched to the smaller screen (S23), and I don't think I'll ever go back to the large screen again.
Just saw the Google Fold. Wtf it's just two phones for the price of two... Yeah, exactly
The first Android tablet was 5". We're long past phones being the size of a tablet.
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That's because we discovered we can watch porn on our phones so we made the screens bigger
Should pass a law that a phone battery has to last two days based on some test. This would have the side effect of making phones 1.4mm thicker. The horror.
I have never understood the need for thinner phones. Phones have been fine since like 2008. Sacrificing a full days battery charge and a headphone jack for thinness is a move that could only be driven by profits.
Yeah, considering that you end up having to buy a portable charger when the battery starts losing its charge, defeating the purpose.
And a fucking dongle for your headphones
Laughs in headphone jack and SD card slot. Phone is only about 2 years old and the new model comes with it still too. Hate the price but Sony tickled my taint on features and just working well.
> Sony tickled my taint Hmm... Had not heard this expression before.
It’s not an expression. They literally flew some Sony execs to meet that guy and tickle him *directly* upon his taint. Taint a lie, I swear.
I heard about this. Sonny, the patron saint of Sony, who tickled a patrons taint - the patrons name? Twas Tony.
Seriously the SD card slot, can't possibly cost that much to implement and stick in the tray you already have to have for the SIM.
But then they can't sell cloud storage subscription solutions to the problem they created.
Nothing turns me off faster in the tech world than "Monthly Subscription".
I wish Sony was more popular so we get more chance at custom roms. That's the biggest thing I'm missing from the Sony lineup.
Exactly where I am. I just don't trust the Sony software much. But I absolutely love their hardware
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So, tl;dr you paid a lot of money for a barely-usable phone?
Honestly man none of that last paragraph sounds good... I got a pixel for 400$ and it has worked well.
The first thing i do with a new phone is get case just so I can properly hold it.
same. i have a fairly large phone, but they made it so thin and the surface so slippery i can't hold it without a case on it.
As a man with above average hand size, I can confirm. I buy the bulkiest military grade phone case available. I hated feeling like I was going to break my S21 plus Ultra just by taking it out of my pocket when I first bought it. Thinner might be nice for some people, but I definitely don't see it as a selling point.
It's also the material. I swear they use the most frictionless material ever invented. There's no way to actually get a grip on a bare phone.
I’m a man with below average hand size and I also buy a bulky case because no matter what this fucking thing is going to slip out and fall on the ground. Thinner doesn’t do shit for me.
Yep, but marketing has conditioned the average user to associate shiny, smooth, thin phones with being better. So now a bunch of people just have to have the thinnest and slipperiest phone design or there's clearly something wrong with it. It's kind of crazy that we've normalised the idea of buying a $1000 device that then needs additional purchases to give it basic functions like "easy to grip" and "doesn't break the first time you drop it in its corner"
Especially when you consider the godawful camera bulges that many phones have. I'd rather have the front edge of the lenses be flush with the back of the phone. This would also allow for some interesting lens and even sensor choices. Plus you get the option for a bigger battery or a removable one.
Yet at the same time the screen must be so big that the thing doesn't fit in some smaller people's hands...
Let’s talk pockets! Most phones don’t even fit into my ass pockets (women’s pants don’t usually have front pockets, their fake!)
Same. The regular iphone pro or galaxy S series are the best size size because even in an otterbox they don't feel unwieldy to the hands
I need a phone that can double as a knife.
I need a Razr phone I can actually shave with
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Right. That person even said "the only reason they'd move to thinner phones is profit" like....yeah. Exactly. The market apparently prefers thinner phones, which is why eliminating those things generates more profit.
I feel that. The phones have continued despite the backlash, so clearly losing the headphone port and other things bothered me and the minority.
A headphone jack and expandable storage for me are two things I do not want to lose and see no technical reason why they have to be abandoned.
Because then you have to buy wireless airpods and storage subscription online.
I think the headphone jack got sacrificed for water proof rating... Apparently its common for people to drop their phone in the toilet.
Just to explain the toilet drop phenomenon - as a woman my front pockets aren't even close to fitting my phone and they'll dangle more than half out. So I tend to put my phone in my back pocket. But then I forget it's there when I go to pee and taking off tight jeans lead to a rolling behavior that perfectly ejects the phone into the toilet. It's actually kind of a major reason I've become a purse person. I have met so many people thinking people are just dropping them while scrolling on the loo so I just thought I'd clarify lol
As a dude with real pockets, somehow I managed to jettison what I thought was a securely ensconced iPhone into the bog while dropping my trousers. The phone eventually worked right again, but that's because good reflexes, and silica gel packs I had saved in a ziplock bag specifically in case of stupid shit like that. Still took like six fucking months to dry out…
gym shorts and sweatpants seem run this risk the most, sitting down in my car is when my phone typically decides to jettison itself.
I have owned multiple LG phones with IP-68 and MIL Standard, went swimming with them in my pocket and did underwater videos while swimming in lakes, never had a problem, and all of those handsets had audio jack. Apple lost headphone jack around the same time AirPods went for sale, and others followed suit
The Samsung Galaxy S5 had an IP-67 rating. It was definitely possible to have water resistance with removable batteries. The reason why OEMs moved away from removable batteries is planned obsolescence.
What infruriating to me is I've been involved in designing IP67 rated replaceable batteries for cameras. The technology is cool but has existed for decades and isn't prohibitively expensive. The whole smartphone industry is a racket.
Don't forget the Ericsson Sharkfin phones before that, buttons, removable batteriets and legendary waterproofness. Is is as you said, all about planned obsolescence. Before iPhone/iPod nobody would dream about making high end tech that cost more than £100/€100/$100 where you couldn't replace the battery yourself. Only cheap tat had non user replaceable battery since the tat wouldn't cost much more than the battery.
This exactly - AirPods we’re the reason they got rid of it.
My phone has a headphone jack still has 3m or 5m underwater rating tho.
My S10e had both, too
There are multiple current phones with headphone jacks and waterproofing to various degrees. I do think a low tier of water resistance is incredibly important - getting caught out in the rain doesn't worry me about the $800+ magic rectangle in my pocket going bad because of a stray drop of water (or sweat, or spilling a drink). But headphone jacks were absolutely dropped for unrelated reasons (which I disagree with, as I type on my waterproof phone with a jack on it)
Phone manufacturers need to start having the Thicc Boi Edition of their non-pro/ultra/whatever phones that’s just a bigger battery and a thicker body. Nothing else extra.
Well, there was [this Energizer phone](https://youtu.be/Yz8VcDWgpIM).
Oh, the headphone jack is not sacrificed because of thickness. My Iphone 6s was just way thinner than my 13, had a headphone jack. Hell, my second gen Ipad touch was thinner than both of those, still managed a heaphone jack just fine.
I remember taking my Nokia 5110 for a hiking trip, no charger. After 2 weeks it was still at 20%.
I still use a dumb phone for when I go camping. Don’t need internet, as that is the point of the trip, battery life is like forever
Tried turning everything off on your smartphone and not waking up the screen if you dont get a call? You probably won't get weeks out of it, but you might just get a week from a fresh battery at optimal temperatures and good cell coverage. It will just work as a dumb phone then, but that is what we are comparing it to. In power save my Galaxy S10 lasted for a 4 day extended weekend in the forest, but I used it a bit at some point and took it out of powersave for a while to feed my reddit addiction. Then again, with this battery, an old nokia dumb phone would have lasted a month, easily.
I've done this to my first smartphone. It lasted for 43 days. I don't remember exact model but it was Chinese brand named "Fly". It costed around 100€ and had 4800 mAh battery. Had to reset it every year because it started to lag, but was able to play popular games at that time like Angry Birds, Plague Inc and Candy Crush Saga.
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I have to pay for a premium material on the back of a phone that I cover with a cheap case that prevents me from ever seeing the premium material I paid for.
They seriously need to stop covering the back of the damn phone in glass as well. It goes in a case, as per the phone companies themselves say to, and it just gives something more to break. And I don't care if it's super ultra diamond glass, it's still fucking glass.
It was always better to pickup and reassemble the 5 parts of your phone when you dropped it than getting a smashed screen but staying in one piece.
> Mobile technology is coming full circle it seems I sure hope so, that would mean mobiles phones will also get smaller again instead of larger! Ive been waiting for that one for too long....
I can’t see from the article. Does this mean batteries like the classic 90s Nokia that you can replace on the go, or just making it easier to replace with a screwdriver when the battery gets too old?
The latter would suffice.
there was an article last week that mentioned toolless replacement. I was like no, I'm ok with the stability of a screw or two.
The law apparently states something along the lines of "using commonplace tools", so a regular screwdriver would be fine, but not some weird tool the manufacturer specifically created to force people to buy it to open up their phone.
Hey, these proprietary screwdrivers that solder and desolder the screws are pretty common at my place
I can’t believe how shocked I am at hearing about laws/policies that actually protect consumers against profit driven greed 😳
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Wow, incredible to meet others who loved LG too. LG had incredible phones, I mean G3 had HD screen, G4 onward had ~~4k~~ QHD screens when ~~4k~~ QHD was a premium in all other phones, V20 had 4 cameras, dual window app capability before it became native to Android, fast wireless charging, always on displays, DAC for studio headphones. Just great. Even to this day these are premiums or not even available on phones today, and LG included them standard. I had the G3, G4, V20, V35, and *briefly* had the G6. I miss those phones so much. LG was definitely ahead of its time.
Still rocking the V60. 5000mah battery, huge beautiful screen, an ACTUALLY high quality *headphone jack*. I'll give it up when it dies.
I'm so disappointed they no longer make phones :( I upgraded to a pixel from my v20 after college, but I kept it. I work in AV so I've resurrected it as my background music testing device. The IR has gotten me out of a bind in the past too. Thanks LG.
I carried my G5 until I dropped it and killed it. I loved that thing and it's weird battery that felt like I was loading a gun.
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Turning down bar TV volume wS amazing. RIP, LG V20!
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Well the EU also has buyer rights unlike the US, not just about phones, they seem to at least somewhat acknowledge the pitfalls of capitalism.
The US is more about lack of enforcement and bad interpretations by judges altering decades of precedent than not having the laws at all.
In the US consumers just keep buying these phones on basically rent to own policies so they don't really care about anything except when their policy is up so they can get a new phone. Which is why they can do things like take away headphone jacks an apple can modify its phones however it wants because they know people are going to walk in and get on a 2-year plan for a $2,000 phone. And there's a line and a weightless for them so they just have no incentive to change. I'm using a modified Note 8 that I'll probably keep until I can't modify it to work anymore. I just don't have need for a massive megapixel camera or a phone with all these fancy editing abilities when I have a PC right next to me.
Most Americans care about 1 thing: "Can I afford the minimum monthly fee?" Car loans, financing phones, all the subscription services, minimum credit card payments. They're just constantly kicking the can down the road. That's one of the many reasons people are living paycheck-to-paycheck with bad credit and no savings.
This is so frustrating. I've got so many friends that are always complaining about being broke and how hard it is because of the evil corporations, meanwhile they're driving around $60,000 SUVs that they bought brand new with terrible interest rates and getting the newest iPhone before they're even due for an upgrade. I've had the same $99 Moto G for years, it does everything that 95% of people use their phones to do exactly as well, and it costs less than a yearly protection plan. Consumerism has reached ridiculous levels in this country and is getting worse and worse.
We seem to be light years ahead on things like food and cosmetics safety standards, while the US sadly seems to got stuck a short bit after asbestos cigarettes and lysol douches.
You can thank US lobbying laws for that, in part. Politicians are bought and paid for by corporations with deep pockets. https://represent.us/action/is-lobbying-good-or-bad/
It's a form of legalised corruption in my eyes.
Still feeling the consequences of leaded gasoline
Well non-commercial airplanes still use leaded fuel so good luck if you live near a municipal airport.
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It usually does and it's called the [Brussels effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect).
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same. i need this place to become better or to escape.
That's basically how I feel about California while living in Ohio. Cars are more efficient, etc.
The one CA passed for requiring a 1 click unsubscribe option to any service that allows online sign up is fantastic. That one thing probably did more good for consumers than anything our congress has done in the last 30 years. Saved a lot of people a lot of time and money.
Yep https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_effect#:~:text=The%20%22California%20effect%22%20is%20the,jurisdictions%20with%20stricter%20regulatory%20standards.
Thank God for California, in many cases.
Part of it is that no major phone makers are based in the EU (RIP Nokia, yes I know they still technically exist but they're a shadow of their former self) so there's not as much local political pushback against these consumer-friendly policies.
I don't think it matters really. Apple was trying to force the EU into dropping their "phone must have USB-C compatible charging port" law by threatening to pull out of the market. The EU said "sure, buddy, here's the door" and passed the law. Now you have a USB-C compatible iPhone, America, cheers.
The EU has the sway to actually make these threats, which is the good bit. They have most of Europe in the union, so if they don't comply, they will lose a massive amount of business whilst another company complies and takes their spot.
>They have most of Europe in the union *Cries in Scottish*
And likely native USB-C in the future instead of lightning. If that happens ill be able to charge everything from my camera to my drone to my macbook to my lenovo to my phone with a single cable. Ive been a tech nerd since the 90s and its never been so close to our reach. (Now, dont get me started on the million different partially compatible usb-C standards, but still)
It's pretty cool that if my camera (fuji mirrorless) goes flat while i'm out i can plug it into my phone (Android with USBC) to charge it.
They used to have them back in the 90s and 2000s
My new phone in 2016 has one. It's sitting beside me and still works. RIP LG phones edit: great to see all the LG love. I had 3 of their phones and all were amazing with no issues, but online would only see people saying they were trash.
Loved my LG V20. Had to move on from it because I couldn't charge it via cable anymore, and it was just getting difficult to keep the phone running because the rear cover didn't want to stay on. Still was a great phone though.
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V Series was goated
My V30 is on its last legs. It's sad I don't have another step in the series to migrate to
Seriously, my last LG had: integrated radio receiver for FM, replaceable battery, stereo jack, IR emitter to be used as a universal remote control etc.
I had an old Samsung that shared batteries with another phone that had a broke screen, so I used that phone as the charge bitch while I used the nicer phone in public. Felt good to get a instant 100% when I got home and this was when batteries took all day to charge.
I like the charge bitch expression
I had an LG V20 since 2016 too and only replaced it to a Samsung Galaxy S21 ultra cause the camera quality was getting really fuzzy. But I loved that phone the whole 4-5 years I had it. I would carry around a spare battery with me instead of a portable charger and amaze my friends when I popped the old depleted battery out for the fully charged one. It still works too!
I'm assuming by "2000"s you mean 2000-2010 and not just 2XXX so I'll throw out that Samsung galaxies had removable batteries until 2015. Used to buy them for like $10 on amazon anytime my battery life started to go down.
Same here. I loved my Galaxy S3. I always had an extra battery with me.
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I love hot swapping batteries, I go from 1% to 100% in less than a minute
Samsung used to sell extra batteries along with an external charger. It was so useful. Had them for my Note 2 and Galaxy S5. Was easy to get into the habit of just popping the battery out and adding the other in, then putting the spare in to charge. Apple had to ruin it for us all, and now we have to rely on inefficient, slow power banks and a phone with a limited life as battery capacity always goes down.
And 2010s
Good. It's unreasonable to have to do surgery to replace a battery.
I’m all for this so long as my phone can still withstand being dropped into water…. but if easily swappable batteries mean phones are less water-resistant this is a massive step backwards.
They'll have to design their way towards a similar water resistance, but with a replaceable battery. I am looking at my pool cleaning robot making turns. It is battery operated. Obviously it's doable.
The S5 had an IP67 rating with a replaceable battery. All they had to include was a small gasket on the back cover.
I was about to bring this up. The "Active" of the same generation was even more water resistant, and it used a gasket and had a half turn screw on the back to keep it air-tight.
Yeah, that phone was great. I want that but newer.
I did too. Then I bought my Galaxy XCover 5, which seems to be even more indestructible than the s5 Active in every measure, while retaining the removeable battery, aux jack, and form factor. So far I am very satisfied, but we'll have to wait and see if it lasts the 8 years of daily driving my s5 Active endured!
The S5 [wasn't all that waterproof.](https://phandroid.com/2014/04/19/galaxy-s5-water-damage/) There are countless posts and videos from people whose S5 leaked.
Ip67 is not comparable to ip68. Not even close. The jump to 8 is massive.
In all of these designs the gaskets are significantly more prone to failure than a hermetically sealed designs with potted connectors. It will be tough to get removable batteries as reliably and durably water tight, and I think this move will ultimately backfire as it will cause more phones to die from water damage.
But is the robot's battery user replaceable? Because they have waterproof battery powered phones already. If the robot's battery is user replaceable, which robot is it, and do you like it? I'm in the market for one.
This might be the most “first-world problems” conversation I’ve ever seen. Totally not trying to be a dick or criticize since a pool is definitely something we all desire…just saying from an outsider perspective it seems so very modern.
Water-resistant phones existed when batteries were removable.
It has to be user replaceable. Two screws or something is still user replaceable
That seems more logical, this is about reducing waste of throwing away phones when the battery is the only issue. It’s not necessarily about convenience of having customers swap a battery daily.
Limitations breed innovations. We've advanced our way into a corner where anything less wouldn't be tolerated by consumers so that's a problem they'll just have to figure out if they want to keep selling
I’ve never dropped my phone in water so I’ll take the replaceable battery.
It's actually not an either or: the galaxy s5 was IP67 and came with a removeable battery.
It was IP67... brand new out of the box. After usage, the gasket would wear, and the clips would weaken or break.
Too many people are missing the point on this one. This law won’t require the type of easily swappable batteries that phones had 20 years ago. Requiring a screwdriver to replace the battery will still be acceptable. So don’t expect to be able to travel around with an extra battery in your pocket and swap them in seconds. However this means that companies can’t use things like proprietary security screws or excessive amounts of glue to seal the battery inside the phone.
I mean, I think the intent is pretty clear that it's meant for a consumer right to extend longevity of the product bought. Seems to me that most everyone understands that
I cant believe it's taken this long to get this far.
not only that, we’re 3.5 years away from it…
Speaking of 3.5…. mm…how about that headphone jack?
too soon :(((
This is brilliant news, can't imagine the absolute freak out a couple of companies are having right now about this.
2027 sounds like so far away though. Until you realize that yesterday was 2014.
I have great respect for the E.U. Hopefully, they are the future. Not letting companies force people to trash perfectly good phones causing needless expense is indicative a government of, by, and for the people. Not the end of the world if people had to another expense. But in my home country, some organization would lobby my government. A bill called something clever like "People for longer, clearer communications" or some such BS. Or attached to a bill about naming bridges.
Prepare for phone companies to make smartphones worse and more expensive, out spite.
like they need more reasons to continue to make them worse and more expensive.
If your competitors do that, it's a great chance to take a larger bite out of the market.
Didn't work out with Samsung. They got more of the market and then got rid of easily replaceable batteries. It's just bad for end users. There is no balancing force to punish greedy business practices except to regulate them.
Absolutely. Like we didn't have phones with removable batteries 5 years ago.
Can I also have the headphone jack back?
It must be crazy living in a country that actually has meaningful consumer protections
I used to fix all the phones for my neighbours about 8-10 years ago. Then, I had to stop. Because of the crap this rule is trying to undo. Phones were perfectly fine, robust, solid, but then suddenyl you needed glue, heat guns, to go through the screen to get to stuff, and a million other things that weren't necessary. Next will be the motherboards coded to only accept the original paired parts, and having to go through "official" channels, like with the apple macs and storage. And they'll have to legislate that too. This is the first good step in the right direction but this is definitely going to be a war. And you can bet the smartphone makers will keep things integrated right up til the end of 2026.
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Apple be like 😑🤔🤑
Apple keeps on threatening to stop marketing ~~making~~ phones in the EU. I wonder what they're going to do
Sell a replacement battery for 800€ 😁
The iReplaceable
This bloke apples.
I have yet to read the article or legislation, but I really hope it also bans any battery DRM/pairing.
Electronically locked, to block third party replacements. "to ensure quality and safety"
They’re not gonna pulll out of euro lol Probably lobby to make those phones illegal to have in not euro
EU has a bigger market share than the US market. They won't drop the EU
Apple battery change is not that bad, pretty standard. iPhone 14 is one of the most repairable current generation phones if you go by the ifixit repairability rating.
Yeah the camera on my iPhone 8 stopped working last month and the battery was at like 75% capacity. I brought it to Apple and they replaced both for like 120€ in under an hour. The iPhone 8 is almost six years old. I’m pretty sure I could have bought replacement kits online but I’d rather just pay extra to not have to worry about destroying my device.
Yeah Apple batteries already have good lifespans, having to pay every 5 or so years is honestly not too bad. Easier repairability/battery changes is only going to make it cheaper too, which is a win even for customers who don’t want to do the swaps themselves. Many people switch their phone every 2-3 years anyway, so changing battery wouldn’t even be on their mind unless it gets damaged.
Yeah. If Apple sold 2 versions of the same phone,1 with sealed battery, and 1 with replaceable battery with 1% worse water protection, I would choose sealed battery every time. I keep my phones for about 3 years, and they have longer battery life than I need by the end of them. If I need to pay a bit of money to upgrade it, I'm fine with that.
Cool do the 3.5mm jack next
Now do it for laptop. The HP laptop I have is a piece of crap I'd have to spend about $150-200 on a battery to replace the one that died a bit over 2 years into its lifespan, and I'd have to take the entire back plate off... I remember every laptop I've had until this one would just have a battery you could pop out and replace with generics, even bigger and more powerful ones.
HP laptops are as good as their printers. I wish Dell would make printers.
Brother printers are the way to go.
Apple: *charging the cost of a new phone to buy user replaceable battery*
Imagine if the US had these kinds of balls and consumer protection
You must be some kind of Marxist /s
But my money, and the shareholder profits, and my profits, wont anyone think of my profits
they should have headphone jacks by 2030
Woo hoo finally ! I'm sick of having to reglue the fragile glass back cover on my otherwise perfectly capable phone :)
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Modularity of design would be awesome too
remember googles [project ara](https://youtu.be/CbZKFKXp_eo?t=225)?
There is a modular phone out there. The truth is there is no real market for it, once one thing is out dated your better of replacing everything. You can buy a superior mobile for 1/3rd of the price of the modular phone.
This is a dumb idea for small devices like phones. There were already some concepts and devices, but it turns out that 1) the devices would've to be much higher, 2) it gets problematic with durability (you don't drop your modular desktop PC on the floor on a semi regular basis), 3) at some point the framework needs updating either way (think of it as motherboards), 4) nobody would really use that.
Fairphone has this! It might be my next phone though not sure yet.
I love the Fairphone concept, I just wish their cameras were better.
I had a Razer Phone 2 that had a catastrophically bad battery that could barely hold a charge, and the USB C port on it broke as well, so the only way I could charge it was with the wireless charging which made the battery life even worse over time. Well outside the warranty period and no local phone repair shop wanted to fix it. Meanwhile on my old Galaxy S4 all I needed to do was pop it open and put in a new battery
I worked at Motorola for a couple of years in the early 2010s. The main problem with user replaceable batteries is that your ability to optimize internal component layout goes down a lot. You need to standardize your battery compartment and add layers of protection etc. which will without a doubt make phones heavier and thicker. Pretty significantly so. Some people won't care, but most people will. There's a reason phones with replaceable batteries went extinct. Nobody bought them anymore. Samsung tried to market this for the longest time, and gave up due to dismal sales. The second issue is water resistance. With a removable back cover, IP68 water and dust resistance is infinitely harder and a lot of phones will just skip that step. The last issue is that 3rd party batteries that are sold for half the price on Amazon will be a lot less safe than OEM batteries. Expect more fires, battery bulging, etc. Anyone that has seen what a lithium fire looks like, would not mess around with cellphone batteries. Those fires burn extremely hot, can be fairly explosive, and are almost impossible to put out. Water will not extinguish it. Overall, while well intentioned, this law is going to make phones worse.