June 16, 2023. According to the plan, a year ago the European Union approved new standards related to the durability of batteries: material recovery, recycling, their easy access. The goal is that, starting in 2027, “portable batteries built into devices must be removable and replaceable.“, Much of the progress that has been made in recent years seems counterintuitive.
Unibody bodies came about for a reason. Manufacturers haven’t stopped making flip phones arbitrarily. Unibody designs bring everything that characterizes the design of current phones: they are water and dust resistant, much thinner than before, quite resistant (at least, at the body level) and have an increasingly efficient internal structure.
The arrival of the unibody means goodbye to the removable battery with a cover and a new piece, now it is necessary to remove the back of the terminal body, in several cases to break the several adhesive layers that stick the battery to the base, etc. In fact, in the case of popular mobile phones like the POCO X3 Pro, you have to remove the camera module itself to access the battery. Something that the average user doesn’t have.
Have a leader in repairability, and lose clean. ifixit clear: iPhones are the mobile phones with the best repairability index. Their only drawback is that they require their own screws and parts but, beyond that, replacing screens, back glass and batteries is one of Apple’s priorities when designing phones.
diversity. For their part, they indicate that the battery in terminals like the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is “firmly stuck, requiring extensive disassembly.” In other words, without the right knowledge and tools, it is possible to do a lot of damage in the process. The same goes for the Pixel 6 Pro, a phone where the charging port is soldered and the battery has strong adhesive.
These decisions correspond to the engineering of the terminal’s distribution and interior design. Some will be better or worse oriented toward repairability, but they represent what the manufacturer understands to be the most optical way to identify each component.
What do we mean by removable?. The European Union is not entirely clear. The main requirement it puts on the table is that, starting in 2027, batteries must be removable by the end user. This means that manufacturers have to provide the user with all the facilities to carry out the process, but technically, an iPhone’s battery is replaceable and removable.
A Galaxy S22’s battery, though difficult to work with, is replaceable and removable. The text suggests that manufacturers should make it easier for users to carry out the process. Without further ado, Apple sells a tool kit so anyone can repair their phone (spoiler: it costs nothing).
Change will come. While we shouldn’t expect a return of flip phones, manufacturers will be forced to gradually change the structure and design of their terminals to make them more repair-friendly. An impulse that, on paper, may benefit users, but it can be a blow to manufacturers whose design repairability was the last priority.
Figure | apple
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*An earlier version of this article was published in July 2023