Discussion Ode to Removable Batteries in Mobile Phones

[GodisanAtheist]

I've been running an LG V20 for the last 4 years and the phone is fine for my needs. I don't do any serious gaming, the Camera is perfectly acceptable (not great, not terrible) and it handles web surfing, watching streaming movies, music and whatnot fine.

What was becoming a problem was the battery life. The built in battery had degraded to the point where the phone wouldn't make it longer than a couple hours with lite use and the phone would often times crap out at 20% battery life if something caused the phone to suddenly pull power (like the screen turning on at max brightness).

Was planning an international trip with the family and would not have that guaranteed access to a socket like I do day to day and was ready to drop $300 on a "new-ish" phone but decided to try replacing the battery instead. Spent $25 on a compatible off brand battery that upped the mAH from 3200 to 4380, it was a bit of a tight fit, but holy cow. I went from having a phone that lasted a couple hours to having an all day phone again.

As phone performance starts to plateau and the "upgrade every generation" bug begins to fade, I wonder if a disruptive manufacturer will bring back the replaceable battery and tout the longevity of their products.

 

[mindless1]

Not a big deal to me. You just need Little Tools to get in and replace the other batteries and if it takes 5 minutes and only needs done once every few years, that's acceptable.

Instead of whether it's the cartridge style "removable" battery with contacts or not, I wish the industry would settle on some standardized form factors, pinouts, connectors, so we only had about 6 possible batteries for ALL phones: Small, Medium, Large phones, then each as cartridge vs integrated. Most phones would get the medium integrated battery, then users who want longer runtime with higher weight and thickness would go for the large phone battery.

On the other hand, even though it's not a big deal to me to swap an integrated battery, I would still be fine with a little larger phone for a removable cartridge style, but before the phone size increased for that, I'd MUCH rather have the ports bigger for durability reasons. Make a larger Jumbo USB-C, and as big as phones are these days, they could even shoehorn a 1/4" headphone socket in.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Eh, I'm mostly over it as long as the cost/ease of getting the battery replaced isn't too bad. The price for it on iPhones for instance is acceptable (sure would be nice if it was cheaper or they offered a single freebie replacement). I do like the move towards bigger batteries in general that started to trend the last year or two. I wish some would offer optional still larger batteries from the factory - possibly with some other features from a bigger phone. The Apple one is a total joke and I cannot fathom what they were thinking doing that instead of just a special model that is thicker with bigger battery inside.

I just upgraded to a V60 after using a V10 since 2015 (which never had good battery life, always had issues where some app would cause stupid excessive battery drain). I'd actually gotten a 5000mAh battery case (was gonna get the ZeroLemon 9000 one but it wasn't available any longer, I had one on my Note 3) for it in like October or November of last year, and it still wasn't getting great battery life (better than the stock 3000 but that's not saying that much). The V60 meanwhile gets waaaaaaaay better battery life on similar use (it has 5000mAh battery too). I had also gotten the spare stock battery (part of the promotion when I bought it where I got a 200GB microSD card and spare battery and battery charger), and used to swap batteries but it was more hassle than it was worth, so I had changed to just switching the batteries like once a week.

 

[mindless1]

I have a drawer full of old phone chargers, portable USB power banks, computers, vehicles, etc. to charge from. There's no way I'd tolerate having a big 6.8" phone in order to get 5000mAh.

On rare days when I'm running through more than the prior night's charge, I just add some charge whenever it's convenient as there's seldom 25 feet I need to walk to get to a charge opportunity, only needing to get through the day and then recharge fully while sleeping, or just take a USB power bank with me if I need several days use off the grid and away from a vehicle.