As far as I understand, Europe will push for removable batteries by 2027.. So we might actually get back to those glory days.

I still won't buy a phone without a microSD slot.

GET OFF MY LAWN!

That's actually making a comeback because the EU got pissed.

My phone's brand new and it has a removable battery, not even in the EU

Coz batteries degrade over time, and this way you’re either forced to buy a new phone, or have to pay to have the battery replaced

No headphone jack
No memory card slot
No ir blaster

Why are they making it a useless device??

To sell you more phones. Duh.

They used to have microSD..

The only valid reason is waterproofing. If the phone isn't waterproof, it's only to limit repairability... Also one factor in that was, I believe, the thinness war, but that's pretty much over now as they all got to the practical limit I guess.

Why do you think my old ass bought a fair phone

Take away user choice, use really bad excuses like water proofing and space saving, and you can be sure consumers will iteratively buy more frequently and spend more for cloud services.

Bye battery Bye bye headphone jack Bye bye user expandable storage.

Capitalism has steered us to this as the preferable product.

My Fairphone 3 still has a removable battery. I replaced the battery myself last year. It took me 10 seconds once it arrived.

A lot of anti-user design choices were first introduced by the iPhone. As someone who has owned iPhones since the iPhone 3G, I blame myself.

Integrating the battery saves a small amount of space and weight. That makes the phone very slightly thinner and lighter, which is what most people seem to prefer. Same with not having expandable memory. IMO it's a bad tradeoff, but I still miss physical keyboards.

"There removable, see all you need is 7 specialized tools!"

"We cant have users replacing there own batterys what if they puntchure or swallow the battery?"

"Making the battery removable would make the phone more bulky and limits innovation"

-Companys BS reasons

Computers were not stopping you from running any software you want, until they got small enough for people to forget they are still computers.

Some still do. I just started working at Walmart, and they give you a Samsung phone to do your job. You use the camera for scanning tags, shelving, check item status, and a bunch of other shit. It's a modern phone, with USB c, fingerprint sensor in the power button, android 13, stupid hole-punch camera, etc. And when I pulled off the otterbox case they gave me with it, I found that the back pulls off and the battery pops out, like all of my phones used to do back in the day. I assume that's so they can more easily keep these phones in use, as they can pull out a failing battery and pop a new one in without having to send the phone sent off for servicing.

Capitalism removed!

This is so the spyware can't be disabled via battery removal

I remember when my mom had a phone with a removable battery, she would drop it a lot and it would separate into a gazillion components but it wouldn't break. I miss the days

Recently switched from a certain predatory fruity phone to a phone from a certain Dutch manufacturer that has removable battery and replaceable parts. At some point, it got water damaged, and the charging circuit stopped working. While I'm waiting for the replacement part to arrive, I can continue using it by charging the battery with a bench power supply. Feels good man!

I suspect that this was considered a feature when it was fist envisioned and technology progressed so quickly that you needed a new phone each year just to use available services. In that light, it didn't matter if your battery only lasted 2 years.

Now that you can run your cell phone easily for 5 - 7 years, batteries are important again. Thank you EU for requiring replaceable ones in the future, you may have helped the entire world.

Planned obsolescence

EU, I belive in you!

Fairphone is doing it

They also had keyboards that worked well and there was even real competition for on-screen keyboards until Google bought out and dissolved the best keyboard because they really want your ducking typing data.