For a long time, smartphones had non-removable glued batteries that you had to charge, which kind of sucked. I’m sure many young people have never even owned a smartphone with a removable battery. You may not even know how wonderful it is to use your phone until it dies, opens the back, takes a new battery out of your wallet, puts a new one in, and is back to full functionality in less time. Less than 2 minutes (including startup time). Even my fastest charging 120W Mi 10 Ultra takes 24 minutes to fully charge. Of course, that’s much faster than charging an iPhone in 1 hour or 3 hours, but it’s still much longer than the 60 seconds we used to take to replace a battery.
HTC’s XDA 2, one of the first smartphones from 2002, actually came with a docking station that had an extra slot for charging a backup battery. This way I can keep a battery fully charged, and whenever the phone battery dies, I can take it out of the phone, put the fully charged battery in the phone, and then put the dead battery in the charger on the base of the phone on so it’s ready to go next time I need it. It’s so simple and convenient. It doesn’t make sense why you would want a sealed battery when removable batteries are so much better.
What if it explodes?
Anyway, more convenience isn’t the biggest advantage of removable batteries…the biggest advantage is that you can replace them before they start to swell and completely destroy the phone…or worse, start a fire.
Back in 2020, the Google Pixel 3 received a lot of bad press for battery swelling issues, and Samsung devices sometimes exploded, but the same swelling issue keeps happening across devices.
My old, barely used iPhone is several years old because of a bulging battery that pushes the screen off the edges, despite Apple’s claims that their products are built to last.
Pictured above is the Motorola G8 Power, which has a huge bulge on its casing that looks like it’s about to explode.
My Huawei Mate 20 Pro broke due to a bulging battery after less than a year of use. Huawei did a good job of replacing it as this happened before the warranty expired.
I’ve had this problem with dozens of smartphones and tablets over the years!
I also had this problem with my Microsoft Lumia 950, but guess what… that phone had a user-removable battery, so all I had to do was get a new one and the phone still works fine today.
By 2027, they will all need to be removable!
Back in 2023, the European Union passed a law stating that all mobile phones should have user-replaceable batteries by 2027. See: Council adopts new regulations on batteries and waste batteries – Consilium (europa.eu) This gives manufacturers enough time to redesign and redesign. Design their hardware to be more repairable and consumer friendly.
Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, and many other established smartphone manufacturers have been very good at making devices with removable batteries, especially in the first decade of this century. This makes sense. Of course, there were some sealed battery devices around 2002, but the industry quickly discovered the advantages of removable batteries.
That was until Apple came along and made the glued, non-removable battery acceptable in the iPhone, which was marketed extremely well after 2007. The battery appeared in ads everywhere. This allows other manufacturers to ignore good design and seal the battery as well. Not only does this save on engineering and design costs, but it also makes the phone disposable, meaning people will have to buy new phones within a few years, guaranteeing a steady income for the manufacturer.
Apple doesn’t want to follow the rules
Of course, Apple seems to be the most vocal company about the EU’s mandate for removable batteries.
On Orbit’s YouTube channel, we see John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, saying: “Sometimes you can make an internal component (like a battery) easier to repair by making it discrete and removable, but this essentially adds to the Potential point of failure to the overall product.” OK, but making it non-removable definitely adds a point of failure to the overall product.
Another issue Apple believes may exist with user-replaceable batteries is water resistance. This may sound like a reasonable argument since removable batteries require a door or lid to open, but many other electronic devices have been waterproofed while still having removable batteries or even removable memory cards.
I have a cheap waterproof camera that does this. You might be saying, “But what about smartphones?” Well, Samsung has done that too. The Samsung Galaxy S5 is waterproof and dustproof, and has an easily removable battery cover so the battery can be replaced at any time. It is 100% possible to make a removable battery and waterproof case correctly.
on the other hand
On the other hand, there is the issue of using poor quality batteries in devices. Some battery manufacturers may not make their batteries to proper safety standards, so they may be sold at a much lower price. It’s certainly something to consider, but I think being able to remove a bad battery rather than leaving it stuck in the device until it explodes is a smarter approach. We just have to remember not to buy low-quality batteries and stick to brands that have been tested for safety.
in conclusion
Personally, I’m definitely looking forward to the return of smartphones with removable batteries. The advantages are huge, not only in terms of longevity, extended use, sustainability and the environment, but also in terms of safety; removable batteries are easier to replace before they explode and harm someone else.