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They could cut costs by having a base version with a very cheap battery and allow an upgrade to a better battery. That's how strong the incentive must be to make the battery planned obsolesce. 2 way radios and drills always had hot swappable batteries because it's convenient but consumer stuff doesn't get that. It must be a really, really strong incentive to not provide this. It's still weird to me.
AFAIK the last, highest spec phone you can get with a removable battery was the LG V20. It also had a headphone jack, sdcard, IR blaster and DAC quality audio. It had 4GB of RAM but bad thermal cooling and LG boatware software. You could replace the battery with a monster 11000mah brick. All of us V20 owners are waiting for a phone that can replace that phone.
We've been waiting a few years.
The Fairphone, Pinephone and a few others have passed but they've all been lower spec. In particular, less than 4gb RAM on android is a problem and while the Pinephone doesn't run android it's about 1.5-2x more expensive spec wise than a Xiaomi or whatever.
As a reference, the Fairphone3 is 4GB RAM like the LG V20 but the V20 is 80EUR new and the Fairphone is €450!
My plan is to wait as long as I can and eventually if I have to I'll just give up, buy sealed phones and split them with dry ice to replace the batteries.
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