This argument always comes up when talking about replaceable smartphone batteries and headphone jacks. But Samsung had waterproof phones before Apple, and they still had replaceable batteries and, gasp a headphone jack.

I actually had a Galaxy S5 which I used as a GPS attached to my motorcycle's handlebars under heavy rain. It never skipped a beat. The only problem I had was that raindrops on the screen made it difficult to see the map. It was also thinner than the iPhone 7 which replaced it. Now I have an iPhone 14 pro which is even thicker than the 7.

I also had to replace the battery on that iPhone 7, which was an unbelievable PITA. Had to stand in line to talk to the service person even though I had an appointment, go away for a few hours, come back, stand in line again to pick up my phone. Fuck that. I'd much rather go to some store, buy a new battery, and replace it in less than one minute, on my terms.

So, yeah, pardon my French, but these tired arguments are just bullshit. There is prior art that proves them wrong.

Also, Apple (and I assume others) were building stuff with non-replaceable batteries before they were building stuff that was waterproof. Clearly they're not sealed off in order to make them waterproof, because they were sealed off back when they weren't waterproof too.

The battery on the Pixel 6a should be good enough to make the phone run a whole day with no problem. It's almost exactly the same size as the battery in my iPhone 16e that has excellent battery life.

My watch could handle a day (about 22 hours) with occasional direct network access. Nowadays, that’s out of the question. I cannot use it for the night, only if I charge it twice per day. I bought the exact same time as the iPhone.

I bought a beefy laptop two years ago. I used it with some battery saving option, and never charged more than 80%. I could use it for about 4 hours on battery. At first. Then now, I already can use it an hour less than back then with the same usage.

All of these devices lie to me, that I lost less than 20% of battery health. Where in reality it’s somewhere between 25-50%, and when they wouldn’t pretend that maximum output is any way a good indicator of the real battery life, aka how long you can use a device.

And yeah, apps. If we pretend that I don’t have misbehaving apps all the time. The difference is, that when I bought these devices, I could ignore them completely.

FWIW, I've only directly witnessed this so far on Oneplus devices, others have remarked the health gauge on these seem to use gacha mechanics where health % will be all over the place. (like >10% variability). I have theories as to why this happens, it's in firmware not OS as LineageOS shows same behavior.... but tough to really know for sure if this was by design or not.

Oh and charge thresholds only do so much, heat kills batteries reliably fast. Deep discharges under 20% or so seem to run more risk of electrolyte breakdown. Don't fear fast charge in bulk charge range, it causes less wear than other factors. I slammed the 65W charge into my 8T's and still got years of >80% battery, replacement wasn't too hard to do on these.

I'd really love to know the reasoning behind not allowing this charge-limit thing to older iPhones, since AFAIK the 15 and up have it.

I might be doing something wrong, but battery life always degraded for me. I've even bought the same Pixel on eBay when it stopped being sold by Google, so I can save money on buying the latest.

My Pixel 8 had to be replaced because the screen starting randomly detecting presses in a spasmic fury, which would happen with no known correlation.

There are NO new features worth getting on the new Pixels. I love taking photos - insider tip - huge megapixel sensors don't make better photos.

I liked the pixels that had the fingerprint sensor on the back best

Years ago I had and loved the Samsung phones with replaceable batteries.

I buy new ones because they make me, not because I chase as aesthetic novelty like a stereotypical Apple consumer.

Apologies about this part, you are correct that this wasn't your words, the rest of what I wrote I still stand behind. Mostly, it's a problem that you seem to believe that because of incremental improvements in battery technology, we're at a point where it's acceptable to make devices an end-user can't service. That we can't design for water/dust ingress protection and have an easier to replace battery.

Realistically batteries currently made reach end of service life around 3 years, previously it was around 2. People using devices heavily (gaming/videoconferencing) or living in hot climates will have shorter service life. You can push them past the 80% health threshold, but then it's throttling, risk of bulging, etc. You got 9 or so years out of a SE using the battery long past its service life.

But you, (yes, you!) act like everything's currently fine with designs and that we won't burn up the batteries sooner. I'm saying that is misguided and it doesn't line up to the reality you've experienced directly (which is that batteries are still a consumable that need to be replaced eventually). You probably haven't got your hands dirty to DIY, nor are you aware of how they made it harder than it has to be (some manufacturers don't put adhesive tabs on the batteries to pull off). You don't understand that it's possible for the engineering divisions to design a no compromise device that's easier to service and the only reason manufacturers don't is because of the pervasive mindset of: 'Well the battery is cooked, time to buy a new device'. Apple basically still designs their devices for maintenance, but they did it in a way to require specialized equipment.

You're clearly not a device lessee if using the device that long, so why have lessee mindset?

I was perfectly happy with the battery life of my iPhone SE and my iPad Mini 4 far longer than just three years. Those batteries were not "currently made", were they? And it was not like I was a light user of those two devices...