this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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Stand back everyone, I'm going to attempt nuance.
Industrial design is about tradeoffs. Making the battery easily replaceable will come with drawbacks. Maybe it'll be size, or water resistance, or durability, but something will have to be compromised. The extent of the compromises remains to be seen, and people will have different opinions about whether it's worth it.
Ordinarily I'm not a fan of regulators making product design decisions, because that's exactly the kind of thing market forces are supposed to be good at. In this case, though, there's a demand that's clearly not being met, and companies clearly have a vested interest in pushing consumers toward replacing their old hardware rather than repairing it, which creates externalities markets are unable to account for. Market failures like this are exactly the kind of situation where government regulation is needed.
If by size you mean it's going to become fatter, I'm all for it. PSP Slim was basically as slim as I need for things which go into my pocket. Laptops don't, so these can be twice fatter than that.
About "market failures" ... This particular "market failure" is strongly connected to patent law, which cuts down most of the potential competition. So maybe it's not a "market failure" at all if you have monopolies and oligopolies because of patents. Because patent law is not a market mechanism, obviously.
definitely size at the least. We'll probably have to go back to removable backs so I imagine water proofing will be difficult without adding at least a little size.
Considering Samsung during their cost cutting days designed Galaxy Xcover Pro 2 without drawback just fine, I think everyone will be able to do it without drawback just fine as well.
Nope, for battery removal, nope!
Are you going to say that pentalobe screws is also a trade-off.
Also, smartphone are just too thin and it's because you use a case that you tend to forget about it.
It's fine to say that the tradeoff doesn't matter to you because you're fine with the extra size, but it's kind of absurd to claim that there's no tradeoff and also claim that the tradeoff isn't a big deal in the same comment. Some people may prefer the slimmer size that non-removable batteries allow, and we should at least accept that a downside of this regulation is that those people will be left with fewer thin options, even if it doesn't seem like a big deal to you or I.
My phone has a removable battery and it's like 7-8mm thick.
I take in account what has been done by the past in the last decade, a Samsung Note 4 (8cores, 4Gb, etc...) had its battery easily replaceable and it is not any bigger than an iPhone 14!
Sorry, but that's an awful comparison, and it isn't even true. The Note 4 was actually ~10% thicker than the base iphone 14, despite having a smaller screen, slightly smaller battery, and not having waterproofing. Obviously most of that discrepancy is because the Note 4 is 8 years older than the iPhone 14 so it really isn't a fair comparison, but I wasn't the one that tried to make the comparison in favor of the Note 4.
We really don't have any reason to disagree, we're both in support of the new law. I agree with you that the drawbacks are probably going to be minimal and that the tradeoffs will likely be worthwhile, I just still think that it's dishonest to say that we know for certain that there will be absolutely no drawbacks, or that phones with no drawbacks have existed. I'm just asking for a little bit of nuance instead of dogmatism.
I am not fighting you, pal. I just want to avoid the argument "it's not because you don't need it that bla-bla", of course, I prefer protection but we need to find the right tradeoff, Glueing case, removing and risking to break a glued expensive and serialized screen to reach the battery: nope
You don't get it, first 10% (actually ~6%) is pretty ridiculous and I took the biggest phone at the time that people were buying and using, actually I still have it. :) We could take the Note20, which is 0.830mm thick (0.785 for the 14 Pro Max and as big). Clearly, in this model, the backplate wouldn't have needed to get glued, if +0.020mm is all it needs to get a removal plate, let's got for it. I take extreme high-end smartphone as a ceilling, smartphone too big to my taste but which people buy and use.
*When I'm back from traveling, I will compare my wife's iPhone Pro max and my Note4, to see if this one is unacceptable. :)
You'll still want a case even if the phone becomes thicker, so in the end you'll still end up with more bulk?
where did you live the last 10years when battery were replaceable on highend smartphones?
Replied to the wrong comment?