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> Agreed - I'm not sure why we assume that a modern smartphone is designed to be completely taken apart and reassembled with a standard toolkit. The point is t

> Agreed - I'm not sure why we assume that a modern smartphone is designed to be completely taken apart and reassembled with a standard toolkit. The point is that they chose to do it that way because it makes them more money, not because their technology is too advanced to let the user easily change their battery. If companies designed their product in a way that you can exchange parts that often break (batteries) and make generally easy then we would at least slow down the growth of the e-waste problem. But of course it's not our problem because we like to externalize the costs. Here in Europe we ship our electronic waste mostly to Africa where it is a huge health hazard.[0] [0] https://www.spiegel.de/international/tomorrow/electronic-waste-in-africa-recycling-methods-damage-health-and-the-environment-a-1086221.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/tomorrow/electronic-was...

lupire 4y ago
It's $100 for 3 more years of battery. If you can't handle that, buy a slightly cheaper phone or a refurb. The alternative id far worse -- phones that get thrown away after a year or two because they don't get OS updates or they just break.
- Majromax 4y ago
  > It's $100 for 3 more years of battery. If you can't handle that, buy a slightly cheaper phone or a refurb. But tell me, where does it say on the iPhone box that the phone battery only lasts three years, give or take? How is a customer supposed to know what they need to 'handle'? The battery is effectively a wear-item, where a very finite lifespan is an acceptable trade-off for better initial performance. However, designing the phone this way also makes the service an intended part of phone ownership, not merely a response to damage or accident. Apple (alongside the other manufacturers, by this point) is double-dipping by designing a phone that effectively requires service and by being the only reasonable provider for that service.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Lithium battery lifetimes vary greatly on operating conditions, and degrade at a non linear rate. It should be common knowledge by now that lithium batteries start showing performance losses around 700 charge cycles, and definitely by 1,000 charge cycles.
- cheshire_cat 4y ago
  Just because most Android phones don't get OS updates doesn't mean we couldn't do better. On the Google and on the Apple side of things. I hope that a mix of regulations and more sustainable Linux phones actually becoming usable as daily drivers will eventually improve the situation..

lupire 4y ago

It's $100 for 3 more years of battery. If you can't handle that, buy a slightly cheaper phone or a refurb. The alternative id far worse -- phones that get thrown away after a year or two because they don't get OS updates or they just break.

Majromax 4y ago
> It's $100 for 3 more years of battery. If you can't handle that, buy a slightly cheaper phone or a refurb. But tell me, where does it say on the iPhone box that the phone battery only lasts three years, give or take? How is a customer supposed to know what they need to 'handle'? The battery is effectively a wear-item, where a very finite lifespan is an acceptable trade-off for better initial performance. However, designing the phone this way also makes the service an intended part of phone ownership, not merely a response to damage or accident. Apple (alongside the other manufacturers, by this point) is double-dipping by designing a phone that effectively requires service and by being the only reasonable provider for that service.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Lithium battery lifetimes vary greatly on operating conditions, and degrade at a non linear rate. It should be common knowledge by now that lithium batteries start showing performance losses around 700 charge cycles, and definitely by 1,000 charge cycles.
cheshire_cat 4y ago
Just because most Android phones don't get OS updates doesn't mean we couldn't do better. On the Google and on the Apple side of things. I hope that a mix of regulations and more sustainable Linux phones actually becoming usable as daily drivers will eventually improve the situation..