For years, Apple has been the outlier in smartphone removable batteries. You might have noticed that Android phones started utilizing nonremovable batteries. This has been a popular sore topic for anyone with an iPhone with a slow or unreliable battery. The solution to fixing batteries in our phones that can’t hold a charge has been moving from just replacing the battery with a new one to buying a charging case or a new phone entirely.
In the Old Days
Back in the day cell phones were little bricks and thin flippy things. We keep the same phone for years before replacing the battery or the phone. There weren’t constant software updates overclocking the battery and slowing down response time. If the battery stopped holding a charge we just had to go to our local Radio Shack and spend a bit of money on a new battery that would last for many years.
Nowadays
Now, we are all toting around our thin fragile smartphones that have software updates all the time that we throw out once the newest and coolest version comes to market. Very few of us hang onto our smartphones for the time that it would take for a battery replacement to become an absolute necessity because we are buying a new phone before it becomes a problem.
Why It’s a Good Thing
Aside from not being able to replace your phone battery, there are a lot of perks that companies are able to incorporate in their phones if they don’t have to make their batteries removable. The batteries can be placed in more idle and weird spots inside of the phone to allow more room for better features like fingerprint sensors and wireless charging. Companies can make the shell of the phone out of more durable metal that does not work with removable batteries. Phones can also become more water resistant because there will be fewer access points for water to get into the hardware and mess everything up.
It’s hard for me to realize this new reality because I have always been that one person with a 3-year-old Android phone, hating on Apple’s non-removable slow and faulty batteries.
