this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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Makes sense. But you can offset part of the shipping from the fact that you can easily do the repair yourself.
Another possibility would be the HMD Skyline. Less repairable than Fairphones, but still far easier than most other smartphones. Only 2 years of updates though.
But starting from 2027, a removable battery will be mandatory for all smartphone in the EU, which mean most, if not all smartphone will switch to removable battery. This may also make repair a lot easier.
I am of two minds on this. I love repairing electronic equipment, it's what I do for a living, and I buy old tech to fix up all the time.
Replaceable batteries seem like a good thing, in terms of reducing waste for devices that are otherwise still useful... theoretically.
Realistically, the charge management circuitry and the battery chemistry in phones has gotten so good today that most batteries have a useful lifespan that is longer than the useful life of the device. Three years is easily doable for any mid-range phone on the market.
At five years you're probably going to be disappointed with the battery performance, but how many people are continuing to use a 5-year-old phone? At that point the internal technology has changed substantially and there might even be a new network standard that you want to use, so you're probably replacing the whole device even if replacing only the battery is an option.
On top of that, giving the user access to the battery means the phone body can't be fully sealed against moisture and dust, plus the access panel is a big mechanical weakpoint which means the body will be less rigid than a fully enclosed device and thus more prone to breaking when dropped or sat on. Adding those weaknesses back into mobile devices will make them more fragile and (I predict) will lead to more frequent failure and replacement of the entire device, which will offset any waste-saving benefit from the replaceable battery.
Plus, the addional space required to fit in the replaceable battery casing, the removable access panel and the contact points for the battery means either the whole device will have to be bulkier or the battery will have to be smaller (than it would otherwise be with a permanent internal battery).
Replaceable batteries made a lot more sense in 2010 when the batteries were shit (and sometimes still NiCad) and the charge management was basically nonexistent (so the battery cycling wore it out faster). Today it's weight and bulk, plus fragility that will probably lead to equivalent or increased e-waste.
My brother has a 6+ years old Iphone, my parents both have a 5 years old Samsung Galaxy Phone (S21 and A51). None of them complains.
Do you think computer waterblocks are sealed using glue? They aren't. Screws and a good old o-ring are all you need to make a repairable AND waterproof phone. But they don't want a repairable phone, they want you to buy a new one whenever possible.
I dropped my FP5 multiple time. He never broke. My brother IPhone got a shatered back, and he had to replace the screen once for falling from a distance the FP5 just shrug off.
True, but ot also don't have to be the old pogo pin way. Any currently available battery is a removable battery given it is user accessible and isn't glued to the board.
I wonder... What would be the biggest e-waste? A dead battery or a dead battery with a whole perfectly functional phone attached to it?
For the US, its not just shipping, but also an import fee on top of that, since the De Minimis rule just got overturned by the trump administration.