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The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

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Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#301

Post by happymellon »

sverhagen wrote: post #291
mschild wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would still effectively be 5 years of updates which is a hell of a lot better than what most manufacturers currently offer.

Sure it would be, but I think the implied point above was that including the period the device is sold (what's that? say three years), the total support time is much closer to the ten years that was being discussed up top, and pumping out more new devices may shorten that back to closer to five years.

Does having 3 devices that you are supporting for 10 years make more work than 10 devices you support for 5?

Because while that doesn't make sense in my head, I could easily see that being the methodology used by the Android device manufacturers.

Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#302

Post by vladvasiliu »

scarface_74 wrote: post #226
vladvasiliu wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what you mean by "just right" for the cover. I just clipped it back on, without taking any special precautions, and it seemed fine under heavy rain. Granted, I didn't try throwing it in a pool, though, so I don't know if it would have survived that. Furthermore, the port cover was just in the way if I didn't clip it back in, so I always did, and, as above, never had any issue. While I agree that I much p…

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-galaxy-s5-smart... > After every charge and boot sequence, the phone reminds the user to preserve the IP67 rating by securing the back cover and making sure the USB flap is closed. This reminder gets old fast, but is necessary considering how rushed and absentminded people can be On top of that, to get a reputable battery for it that includes NFC support (because the NFC w…

> > After every charge and boot sequence, the phone reminds the user to preserve the IP67 rating by securing the back cover and making sure the USB flap is closed. This reminder gets old fast, but is necessary considering how rushed and absentminded people can be

So because some people are absent-minded and don't pay attention to what they do (and it's not like you need to take off the cover every day and twice on Sunday), we should all suffer the consequences? Don't quite like that mindset.

> On top of that, to get a reputable battery for it that includes NFC support (because the NFC was built into the battery) was not that much cheaper than just taking an iPhone to an authorized dealer for replacement.

This is correct. A Samsung battery from a reputable store in France cost approximately the same as a replacement for my iPhone 7. Maybe a bit more, accounting for inflation.

But the experience of having my iPhone battery replaced was ridiculously bad. I had an appointment for the service, booked through the Apple website for a "certified" repair shop. Still had to wait in line for 30 minutes before I could drop off my phone. They required me to give them the phone's password for some reason, which required me to remove apple pay and whatnot from the phone before going into the store, then put it back on once I had my phone back. After taking in the phone for repair, they figured it would take about 6 hours, so they'd let me know it was done by... SMS. Right. So, I asked them to give me a time when they'd be sure it'd be done, since my phone would be with them. I come back at the agreed time, to wait for another 20 minutes in line.

The Samsung experience was walk in the store, ask the attendant where their batteries were, wait 5 minutes for him to grab it from stock (it wasn't a current model anymore at that time), go to the cashier, pay, pop the cover, switch batteries, put cover back, done.

So yeah, the issue is absolutely not one of price, but of convenience. Note that I could have bought two batteries and had a spare one when needed on my motorbike trips, instead of carrying an external battery pack or whatever.

Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#303

Post by pelorat »

thesnide wrote: post #94

The battery is indeed the HW part that has the most decay. But in that 5y time-frame the SW part is the one that is the most problematic. It would be nice to be able to replace the ROM easily after the EOL of the device. Will self-regulate itself immediately, as then incentives to have longer life is real and you cannot force customers to just buy another device because you decided it's time. By "replace ROM easily"…

Depends on how you use it. Most people don't know you should not let your battery drain below 25%, and that the recommendation is to have it plugged in a charger as often as possible.

My Pixel 2 has probably more flash damage than batter degradation.

Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#304

Post by pelorat »

systemtest wrote: post #12

It is interesting that the EU only wants to regulate markets that they are not participating in. They don't make smartphone anymore so any regulations isn't hurting them. It would be admirable if they held the same standard for vehicles, including brands from the EU.

We're just pissed that the rest of the world is not taking environmental issues more serious.

Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#306

Post by sverhagen »

happymellon wrote: post #301
sverhagen wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it would be, but I think the implied point above was that including the period the device is sold (what's that? say three years), the total support time is much closer to the ten years that was being discussed up top, and pumping out more new devices may shorten that back to closer to five years.

Does having 3 devices that you are supporting for 10 years make more work than 10 devices you support for 5? Because while that doesn't make sense in my head, I could easily see that being the methodology used by the Android device manufacturers.

If these ten devices are mere SKU updates, then maybe yes, they create a sliding five year support window (plus however long they're being sold), instead of a ten year one. Keeping software working for a five year old hardware platform sounds a lot easier than doing that for a ten year old one. A lot less Git branches also.

Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#307

Post by jq-r »

Kirby64 wrote: post #295
jq-r wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets not use this case as a scapegoat and pretend that slowdowns don't exist in iOS. Pretty much from the first iPhone model it's well known that newer iOS releases will slow down your phone and/or make your battery drain faster. I even remember when they actually broke wifi on a lot of phones with an update and pretended that the hardware was defective all the time (which it wasn't). Hell I'm looking right now my ol…

The specific accusation was about 'wrecking battery life' and the source was the 'batterygate' lawsuits. This has nothing to do with a scapegoat. Honestly, "it's well known" is anecdotal at best. If you're actually saying it was a problem that battery life dropped 40% from going from one update to another, then media would pick up on this. That's not a small amount here, you're saying battery is now 2/3 the previous…

The Batterygate was just a partial response at iOS significantly slowing down even one generation old iPhones, and I don't want to go into that because that's not what I want to discuss.

In your second paragraph you completely dismiss my experience I guess because it wasn't published by some online zine which is ridiculous by itself. Online forums like reddit are full of these, my experience says the same, and pretty much the big majority of my friends have iPhones in this neck of woods and there is no question on whats going on. Why there are no articles about it? Dunno, maybe because by now its an old story as this is going on for decades now so it's an accepted fact. Maybe because in US people buy iPhones more often then in Europe so the effect isn't that noticeable? I don't know, and it's not in my interest to care.

So I'll put my claim into negative and ask you this: are you claiming that iPhones are not slowed down by newer updates? Are you claiming that perfectly good iPhones even as new as 1.5 years and older are as performant as the lastest gen iPhones with the same iOS (even with brand new batteries)? If so, thats an extraordinary claim and the burden of proof rests on your shoulders.

Are you also claiming that you're casually able to install previous versions of iOS so you could get performance back? If car industry did the same after software updates whole industries would collapse. Does your PC even do this nowadays? If you install an OS which actually slows down your computer, you can still re-install a previous version to get your performance back. Not so on the iPhone, you're locked out of that option and we'll screw you, buy a new one.

Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#308

Post by _v7gu »

sverhagen wrote: post #306
happymellon wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does having 3 devices that you are supporting for 10 years make more work than 10 devices you support for 5? Because while that doesn't make sense in my head, I could easily see that being the methodology used by the Android device manufacturers.

If these ten devices are mere SKU updates, then maybe yes, they create a sliding five year support window (plus however long they're being sold), instead of a ten year one. Keeping software working for a five year old hardware platform sounds a lot easier than doing that for a ten year old one. A lot less Git branches also.

If the ten devices are mere SKU updates made solely for the reason of getting around the regulations, then the company can expect a rather huge fine :^)

Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#309

Post by pizza234 »

jeroenhd wrote: post #164
kitsunesoba wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android seems to suffer from a phenomenon similar to "Windows creep" where performance decays over time for no reason in particular, even for users who are good stewards of their devices. It's more of an issue for some devices than it is for others for reasons that are unclear.

I used to think this at well, but then I removed all of the useless apps I'd gathered over the years. The improvements were almost instant. Installing apps doesn't have a noticeable impact on general system performance, but install enough of them and you'll find everything mote sluggish than you remember. My phone feels as fast as the day I bought it, which so far must've been about four years ago now. It came out wi…

Regarding my own case, it was a Google Nexus 5X. Performaed a factory reset, but the phone is still super-slow.

100% sure that this is not perception. I'm talking about seconds-long delays.

Regarding the acquaintances, I don't remember (or know); I think a couple of them were old Samsung Galaxy S models. Again, factory reset didn't help.

I guess that as parent posted, this problem affects some models more than others. I'm still really curious about the technical cause :)

Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#310

Post by pizza234 »

Toutouxc wrote: post #263
pizza234 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, the current bottleneck with (Android) phones is that the get very slow without any apparent reasons after a few years. I've had multiple reports of acquaintances complaining about their phones getting slow after a few years, and I've always assumed that they were just full of apps... until it happened to me. I can't find an unambiguois explanation; my guess is a mix of CPUs deteriorating over time d…

> CPUs deteriorating over time due to heating I might be wrong, but AFAIK this is not a thing within the usual timescales.

It can't be excluded. I remember a friend of mine overclocking his CPU (around 20 years ago!), and notificing that the maximum clock they could achieve, would decrease over time.

I guess that when put under thermal stress (which may be the case for some phone, for whatever reason) may actually have a measurable effect.

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