Today I learned a very disturbing fact about the smartphones that are available today || I have no idea which phone to buy

[james_bond]

The last phone that I purchased was on 2013. Its not a smartphone but at the same time not a basic phone either. This is my phone.

So the point is since I have not purchased any phone since 2013 so I have no idea whats going on in the smartphone industry.

 

Today I met a neighbor of mine. He was looking very disturbed so I asked what's the issue. He told me that the smartphone he had purchased just 3 years back is not charging anymore so he cant switch in ON. Problem is he doesn't have cash right now to buy a new phone. So I said what's the problem just buy a new battery & replace it yourself. He said he can't do that coz the Nokia smartphone that he has comes with a backcover which can't be opened & he got the info from the authorized Nokia service center even if one manages to open the back cover the battery can't be replace by the customer coz its soldiered & the model is already obsolete & so its going to be difficult to find that particular battery. I refused to believe him but then he showed me his phone & I was really shocked when I found that indeed the back cover is made in such a manner that only a qualified phone repair will be able to open it. I felt very sad coz I couldn't help him.

 

Then when I returned home I did some research about this on the web and found that almost all brands of smartphones these days are made with a non replaceable battery. This made me think. What am I supposed to do when I want to buy my next phone ? I will buying my next phone in next 2-3 years & my plan is to buy a Samsung phone. Now all brands offer a warranty period of 1 year. What if the battery dies just after the warranty ends, say 1 1/2 years ? I will have to throw away a working phone with just a dead battery.

 

I am sure I am one the few people on this planet who still doesn't have a smartphone. So all of you who are using smartphones how are you dealing with this situation ?

[Radium_Angel]

Phones are, sadly, disposable these days. When the battery dies in a few years, you toss it and buy a new one.

Welcome to the e-waste society.

 

[james_bond]

2 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

When the battery dies in a few years

If few years is at least 5 years then I am kind of okay with that.

[Radium_Angel]

Just now, james_bond said:

If few years is at least 5 years then I am kind of okay with that.

Maybe, the challenge is, as with all rechargeable batteries, how long is their life, vs how long i their useful life?

Can you live with a cell phone that needs to be charged every 2 hours? Probably not, so a 5 year old cell phone with a two hour battery life is pretty much e-waste.

 

Now, you can open up cell phones and change batteries, even sealed/soldered ones, you just have to be very good and very careful.

[GodOfROG]

7 minutes ago, james_bond said:

If few years is at least 5 years then I am kind of okay with that.

 Linus just covered a phone that  can do that  

 

[Alvin853]

2 minutes ago, james_bond said:

If few years is at least 5 years then I am kind of okay with that.

Modern phone batteries last about 1000 full charge cycles until the capacity degrades significantly.

If you're completely draining the battery each day that'd be about 3 years, but with most modern phones the battery will last several days, unless you have a lot of screen-on time. 

 

Plus batteries aren't completely "non-replaceable", they're just built in a way you can't replace them easily. With most phones, especially the popular ones like Samsung, iPhone and similar, you can probably take them to an electronics repair shop in your area and they'll replace the battery at a reasonable cost, and they have all the tools to do that in a safe way. You'll lose any waterproof rating when replacing the battery though. 

[mariushm]

Yes, there's no bottom lid to unscrew and replace battery.

 

The way one does it is by removing the screen, then the circuit board, and then you get to the battery and you replace it.

Specialized stores and service places have tools/machines which can warm up the phone evenly so that the glue that keeps the screen glued to the case releases the screen, allowing you access to internals.

 

Yeah, you buy your phone and you take care of it for 1-2 years, and by that point you'll probably want to buy a more modern phone, with more performance. If the battery is an issue, then you go to such service/repair place and pay maybe 50$ to replace the battery, instead of paying $150-200 for a new phone.

 

[Chris Pratt]

User replaceable batteries were sacrificed, along with other things, to the make it thinner gods. This has long been the situation with laptops as well. The batteries can generally still be replaced, but you either need special equipment or take it to an authorized service.  There's just no way to make them easily user swappable *and* have a device that is super thin and small.

 

It's also not nearly as big as a problem as it used to be, though. Most modern lithium ion batteries will easily last for years, as long as you don't abuse them. That basically just means don't constantly drain it to zero, and recharge it to 100. A lot of phone software now has battery extending functionalities like trickle charging, only charging to 85%, etc. to help you extend the battery life.

 

Still, we're pretty far past the point where you can keep a phone for a decade. At a certain point, it's just not even feasible to keep it updated with the latest OS and app versions, and once you stop being able to receive updates, it's pretty much a brick anyways.

[james_bond]

@to all who replied

My neighbor "thinks" that the battery died so prematurely coz his son played a lot of heavy games on the phone. Can that be a reason ?

[Alvin853]

2 minutes ago, james_bond said:

@to all who replied

My neighbor "thinks" that the battery died so prematurely coz his son played a lot of heavy games on the phone. Can that be a reason ?

That makes sense, there are two major things, that reduce the lifespan of a battery: charge cycles, and heat. If he was heavy gaming, the battery was probably drained and recharged quite often, and heavy games heat up the whole phone.

[Qyygle]

Depending on the phone, use of a heat gun, some careful application of pry tools, and patience, you can still service most phones (outside of iphones because Apple) in terms of battery replacement, screen replacement, etc. Soldered batteries are not actually commonly used, they are almost always still plugged into the mainboard and replaceable. It's just much harder to get to them.

I recommend you take a look at JerryRigEverything's youtube channel, and iFixIt's website guides and rankings, for more detail on what brands/models are best suited for reparability. The mentioned Fairphone is also a good call, if you want no compromise self replaceable components. It may not be easily available in India however, I think they sold mainly in the EU 

 

It is unfortunate that the industry has moved into this everything glued, non-accessible model of design, though it does come with some benefits, such as water proofing or smaller body/screen ratio.

 

I will note however, it's very rare for a battery to degrade to the point where you cannot charge, or switch the phone on. I've seen badly degraded battery life, as in it'll discharge an hour or so after unplugging, but completely unable to power on seems to indicate something more serious has gone wrong on the mainboard or charging port. Most phones can still be reasonably expected to last ~5 years of typical use.

[GodOfROG]

4 hours ago, james_bond said:

@to all who replied

My neighbor "thinks" that the battery died so prematurely coz his son played a lot of heavy games on the phone. Can that be a reason ?

Its not "games" its cycles, a battery can only really be charged an discharged so many times before it degrades.

[XG BC]

nokia snake oiled him and i mean pretty badly batteries NEVER are soldered they always have a connector on them and that one pops off like a little lego. watcb jerryrigeverythings teardown video to see how to replace a battery on a modern phone. it isnt as easy as it used to be but not impossible!

[Donut417]

10 hours ago, james_bond said:

So all of you who are using smartphones how are you dealing with this situation ?

Well, you have to make a choice if its worth replacing the battery or not. That all depends on the cost of the battery and the cost of labor. I have an iPhone XR, Apple goes out of its way to ensure that 3rd parties cant easily repair the device. So in my case, when the battery degrades enough I will replace the phone. In some cases, the battery might not be user accessible, BUT if you have decent technical skills and you can find a tear down guide, then you might be able to replace the battery yourself. This really depends on the product however, I recall the Microsoft Surface tablets being difficult to open to the extent that you will probably crack the screen to do so. However with companies like ifixit not only selling the tools to do the repairs, but also in some cases selling the parts and providing the teardown instructions. It has made repairing stuff a bit easier. 

 

As @XG BChas stated, I dont believe the battery is soldered to the board. Most likely its held in by adhesive, they just made the device so its more difficult to replace the battery. 

 

The biggest thing to understand is that batteries dont last forever. They have X amount of recharge and discharge cycles they can go thru. So really the life span of the battery will depend on how your charge it and use the device. Because if its light use and your only charging it every few days then is going to last longer. If your beating the ever living hell out of it and draining the battery and having to charge it daily, then it wont last as long.