Yes! mandatory usb C and replaceable battery, and i’d like the 3mm headphonr jack to also be a standard 😁
Me too, but that one might be dead for good.
Out of the phone vendor fuckery with the connector, battery, micro SD, and headphone 3.5mm, the headphones were always the biggest thing.
Bring it back please EU hear my prayers. Right now I’m listening to music on my iPhone with a half broken dongle that pauses if I jiggle it wrong.
The fucking audacity to remove a quintessential port is typical Apple. Was the same with DVDs, Ethernet, now even USB. Next thing I know there’ll be no more ports, you’ll have to wirelessly (and inefficiently) charge your phone even if you like it or not
Not for any technical reason afaik. My LG G7 is plenty modern and has a 3.5mm jack. It also has Bluetooth, so it’s not like it’s an either/or choice. It’s just the manufacturers dictating what choices consumers have.
It must be nice to have leaders that actually do useful things.
For every good thing they do 2 bad things come next. The grass is always greener on the other side.
Curiously as someone who only usually sees the greener side. As a US Citizen, what EU laws would I be shocked to see?
Well… I can cite a few laws. First, the part that protect DRM, second, the law that require search engines to make contract to quote article, third, the interest in policing private communication, and last, a project that isn’t really advanced to infringe net neutrality.
I doubt a US citizen will be shocked about them. But they are likely to dislike them.
(but I tend to see the greener side of “for 1 bad things, 2 good things come next”)
There’s currently a law in the pipeline that would scan all conversations, videos and images sent over social networks as well as chat apps like Whatsapp for illegal material. It would also include backdoors in encryption technologies and possibly banning any services that don’t comply with the scanning, e.g. Signal. Love the EU in principle, but unfortunately it’s often used by national governments to push things like increased surveillance.
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…
Any battery is replaceable if you pry it hard enough
Every component is replaceable ~by buying a new iPhone~
-Apple
I’m fine with internal batteries, but please use some form of standard cell size and connector.
The EU already standarized chargers IIRC.
I was thinking of the internal connector from the battery cell.
Not sure if that regulation is needed. Back when phone batteries were removable, there were quite a few options available. I remember Nokia genuine batteries being very expensive and it was easy to find third-party cheaper options. That’s kind of how it still works in digital cameras, although Nikon apparently is trying to stop 3rd-party batteries on their models
Yeah, even Apple has to comply
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
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.
And you used to be able to buy super battery packs too. You could get a pack that would power your phone for days.
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.
Already a EU regulation.
Huh? Which part?
Five years OS upgrades. I was mistaken though it’s not law yet, just a finished commission proposal, scroll down to the end and look at the annex.
Oh wait that’s actually the same thing that’s promising replaceable batteries.
Oh shit, amazing!
Would this affect the waterproof ratings of phones? It would make the phone less sealed.
Plenty of phones were waterproof with removable batteries before a marketing campaign.
Yes, I remember my Motorola Defy. I even accidentally tested it in my WC :P
I bet it would, depending on the definition of “removable”. A casually removable cover that’s also waterproof usually involves a rubber seal that can fail a bunch of ways. On the other hand, shrink-wrapping a the electrical parts of a phone is cheap and nearly foolproof.
If they allow batteries that can be replaced with specialised but available tools that might be a nice middle ground.
Most batteries can be replaced relatively easy if you have special tools. The inside of phones is actually surprisingly modular. The hardest part is usually just getting the back cover off without ruining it… and that you can’t easily source original batteries and have to rely on 3rd party ones of questionable quality.
Maybe companies should be required to sell spare parts at a reasonable rate, then.
I had a Sony Xperia Z3 which had its charging port and sim tray covered by small pieces attached to the case that had rubber on them so you could open it and use the port and then seal it again. It also had a magnetic charging port that didn’t need water protection.
But iirc, it was said that the waterproof rating was only true as long as you didn’t use these pieces^^I can think of a design where the battery just sits tight against the top part of the smartphone and you could remove the bottom part with 2 screws (whichs holes aren’t open to the inside of the phone) to spring it out like an SD-Card. That bottom part would just need to have rubber on the inside edges
The motherboard is so freakin’ tiny compared to the actual battery, there really is no reason for it not to be swappable.
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.
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To add to this, iirc Labour said their policy would be to closely mirror EU regulation in most areas unless there was a good reason not to
This is a much bigger demand than the usbc charging. I wonder if they can actually pull it off. I’d be happy with simply the right to be able to use a fully independent 3rd party to replace a battery.
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.
@MrTHXcertified I think that no device should be built in a way that it cannot be disassembled anymore. Concerning the argument “but what about water resistance?”: remember that for a long time there are quartz watches that are water resistant to incredible depths - and their batteries can be replaced.
Yep, we need universal right to repair/ease of repair regulations to stem all the electronic waste.
Aren’t business laptops usually really easy to open up and repair? I hope that hasn’t changed…
This is a big part of why I bought a Framework laptop. Every part is easily accessible and they sell replacement parts. The laptops are even modular and upgradable
Many laptops/ultrabooks have easily accessible batteries nowadays, any specific example when you mean sealed up?
All of them. You could argue that the time and expertise needed to replace a laptop battery is negligible, but I say it’s an unnecessary increase of time and risk required to do so.
What do you feel are the benefits of embedding a laptop battery in the case?
What do you feel are the benefits of embedding a laptop battery in the case?
Portability for one. You can move your laptop without worrying about the battery latches getting damaged.
I used to refurb laptops and I’ve seen plenty of externally mounted batteries that just wouldn’t reliably sit on the laptop anymore.
I remember when I was looking for a new laptop, I made a replaceable battery a requirement, since my previous laptop’s battery (which wasn’t replaceable) lost its charge very fast.
Out of the hundreds of laptops available today, I could only find two or three laptop models total with a replaceable battery. And none of them were in physical stores, so a less tech-minded person would never find them.
Interestingly, the replaceable battery also seems to be higher quality than the permanent battery was.
Out of the hundreds of laptops available today, I could only find two or three laptop models total with a replaceable battery.
Nearly every business class laptop has a replaceable battery, you just need a philips-head screwdriver for most.
Anything that is meant for consumers shouldn’t be bought anyway, Dell Inspirons and HP Pavilions and shit are not made to last unfortunately. Nor are they made to be easily repairable. I’d go as far as recommend an 8 year old thinkpad over some brand new consumer models. It’ll last longer.
I had the battery for my OnePlus 6T replaced, extending the lifetime for probably 2 years. It cost me about $100.
Forcing manufacturers to make batteries easily replaceable by the user without special tools and skills seems like it could make phones less lightweight and less waterproof. I would be fine if they just require manufactures to make it available as a reasonably priced service.
