Why don't E-readers have a Replaceable Battery

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by John F

And what do the same manufacturers claim for a lifespan time? For example, one of my lion devices is about 3 years old, and it appears its life is decreasing dramatically, and it probably goes through about one charge cycle a week.

I have never seen any figure given by manufacturers for lifetime due to age (ignoring charge cycles) but I would expect very much longer than 3 years if not abused by over discharge, or by random or manufacturing fault.

I have never had a Lithium Ion battery fail for anything other than what I assumed were charge cycles (e.g. in earlier phones when their batteries were smaller and so was easy to average a full charge cycle per day, so could expect less than 2 years expected life as not being unusual). The oldest lithium ion battery (EDIT: in fact, "batteries") I have around here still in use would be more than 10 years old.

Looking at another supposedly very touchy old battery type for which much (mainly rubbish) information appears on the internet, I have just discarded 6 NiCd rechargeable batteries from two torches the batteries for which I bought around or just before the year 2000 so around 20 years old. They were only charged when I thought of it, ignoring the widely promulgated claims of memory effect but never letting the batteries fully discharge, about 3 times a year so were well under their charge cycle lifetime.

NiCd and NiMH batteries (and most other chemistrys too) from my own experience and what I have seen are easily killed by being left discharged or close to it. My understanding is that Li-ion is even more easily damaged if fully discharged, so they are protected against being so but if left, as I mentioned, they may self discharge into full chemical discharge in which case I suspect their life will be severely impacted upon.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by Frenzie

But don't worry, you're still well within its usable life! The thing still turns on, doesn't it?

Yes, it is a bit like cam belts in cars, not done the manufacturer's 75,000km but it still turns the shafts so no worries despite it being 15 years old .

[PurpleStar]

Why? Because they want you to buy a new e-reader instead of a new battery.

[Pulpmeister]

I bought my first Kindle, keyboard and page turn button variety in 2011, and it's still going strong. No battery problems yet. I also have a later paperwhite touch screen model which is about six years old, no problems there either. Not likely to buy another, until one of them turns up its lithium-ion toes.

[mdp]

Originally Posted by jago25_98

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

Yes, I had checked it. And relatively not very far away in time - as I watching the non-progresses of the market I got scared about having backups for mine. (Incidentally, for me the LG V20 was not an option as I require the palm device as a mobile reading device, so I want OLED to optimize the light emission (and battery!) - of course I read light on black ("off"), on such devices, for that purpose).

Which brings to the "10 years" tentative figure that occurred a few times in the last posts. During the horrible past decade, it appeared that that figure may in some period be a realistic span to wait to find an interesting product good enough to replace your own.

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

Even if one goes mad and says that an E Ink ereader gets the equivalent of 1 full charge per week

This can reinforce the above idea of long delays forced to non-casual users in the development of the Industry.
I use an Onyx Boox Max 2. Almost excellent, and I shall remain with it... if only for lack of alternatives: at some point Onyx decided to go button-less, which is what Zod called "the One Thing [you feel you're missing]" in the Light Phone thread - those (insane, I add) implementation details that make a product go outside your requirements. The hardware buttons, very many of them, are pretty much required - let us wait till they come back.

Now: I used the device with Office Automation software, sometimes as a monitor (still to do Word Processing), and now mostly for reading using software applications of mine, which do more than rendering pages upon request and so can be assumed to use more battery charge. To read uncommitted I swap pages but to study, since the dawn of monitors, I process text; furthermore, even other uses, for efficiency, of your material emerge. Those activities - which do not exhaust the uses of the tablet - are more demanding than basic "ereader" function. I unfortunately do not have the stats, but extensive and/or "different" use can easily pass the "1 full charge per week" value.

Originally Posted by Frenzie

Wasteful, I know. :-/

And this suggests another factor: I have seen the EU promulgate perplexing to insane to doomsday-provoking directives. Some of them, "apparently" related to pollution. It remains to be seen whether legitimate drives - oriented or not by mental sanity, the rarity of this Age - will impact these matters of industrial obsolescence. I suppose there could already exist something, I am currently not aware.

[mdp]

Originally Posted by Frenzie

I bought a Sailfish license. Can I play?

If it is this,
https://sailfishos.org/
, oh joy, oh the need to spread the news, a feast may begin, maybe not everything is lost, maybe Pinker is due some credit!

I have no idea, really just met, but ohohohohoh with a trembling voice!

[mdp]

Very relevant is also, the laptop.
It took YEARS for me to identify and purchase the one I now have. I had to pass through hurdles to discard the other options before the last one, the good one, was found - bribing vendors offering them money to obtain their products, to no avail: they would not be convinced to sell what by catalogue was said to exist. Money in the order of four digits but the decimals, just refused. The hassle, the bureaucracy, the time spent, the distraction, the embarrassment of needing to ask for money: is it worth it to sell?

Until I finally came to that piece of perfection. The battery can last 17 HOURS, real ones. It has a very nice high-resolution display, it is so light it could float, not a noise if not requested (fanless), Linux works amazingly well with it (special functions etc.) and it is quite fast for its duties. It costs 400 (yes, count three digits) of your best western currencies, and - last though not least - they can effectively be exchanged for an available, "on-the-shelf" item (the sellers did not see the exchange as a problem, they even seemed to find it normal to take the money and reciprocate with letting me leave with the desired item).

Now, with such piece of equipment, that the battery remains in good health is very important: it is part of its "function", of its mission.

And if one day you need to replace it? Well, then Intel or competitors must have come up with something better than the Pentium Silver N5000, or you would need to purchase the same or similar...

So: that a battery of a sealed device can be replaced is duly - we all hope that in case of need it a battery can be replaced. There are many elements, this included, that make you wish that that "in case of need", supposedly a "low risk" in a Cost-Risk-Benefit, is matched by an easiness of operation, a "low impact" in the same C-R-B. When I will need it, replacing those batteries will better be hassle-free. It is not granted that such need will not happen.

[Richwood]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

Yes, it is a bit like cam belts in cars, not done the manufacturer's 75,000km but it still turns the shafts so no worries despite it being 15 years old .

Depends on engine design. Some engine designs such as the Fiat DOHC engine self destructs if the cam belt breaks as pistons and valves hit. The old Ford Pinto SOHC design, no problem other than the engine stops.

[Frenzie]

Originally Posted by mdp

If it is this,
https://sailfishos.org/
, oh joy, oh the need to spread the news, a feast may begin, maybe not everything is lost, maybe Pinker is due some credit!

It runs very well on a Sony Xperia XA2. As to whether it runs better than Android, I suppose ymmv. Depends on if you like how it works. I do.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Richwood

Depends on engine design. Some engine designs such as the Fiat DOHC engine self destructs if the cam belt breaks as pistons and valves hit. The old Ford Pinto SOHC design, no problem other than the engine stops.

That is why I prefer V6 and V8 engines. They have timing chains not belts.
Apache

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Apache

That is why I prefer V6 and V8 engines. They have timing chains not belts.
Apache

A very debatable claim. My early 90's Camry was a V6 but had a timing belt. An 2000 Audi A8L V8 had a timing belt for the short period it was owned. Just not worth owning IMHO.

Moving on to Honda Accords, from 1997 to 2002, they had timing belts. From 2003 to 2017, 4 cylinders engines had a timing chain, 6 cylinder engines had a timing belt. From 2018 on, all Accords (4 cyl and V6) have timing belts.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Richwood

Depends on engine design. Some engine designs such as the Fiat DOHC engine self destructs if the cam belt breaks as pistons and valves hit. The old Ford Pinto SOHC design, no problem other than the engine stops.

The joys of owning a vehicle with an interference engine (an interference engine is where any or all of the valves can extend into the area where the piston travels. Basically, as it was once explained to me, if the timing belt breaks on an interference engine, in most cases, you are going to save money and get a replacement vehicle.

[Fat Abe]

I've only had three ereaders fail me out of more than a dozen. The original Nook died a silent death and could not be recharged. The Irex DR800 battery died (could not hold a charge). A seller on ebay sold me a close fit battery replacement, and that's still working to this day. A Kindle DXG died recently, and I ordered a replacement battery on ebay from a seller in NJ. I was a little lax on keeping every device charged. That can be a sure death for some readers, but the Sony's seem to be the least sensitive to a full discharge. Hope my two Kobos survive the Coronavirus and its aftermath. When we all wind up in caves, I'll need them for the last book I'll ever read. So many books, so little time.

[theducks]

I just replaced the battery in my K4nt using a kit from newpower99.
It had everything needed (T5 and a pry tool) except contortionist training
Their directions were perfect. The back removal was the easier of the specialized tasks.
Amazon glued the entire battery into its pocket (the kit had a 1" square of 2 sided tape for the new one). I was worried, so I took the K4 outside, onto concrete because the old battery became distorted from me prying. In the end, I won, no fire and a perfectly functional Kindle
This (the K4 one) is not a task for who do not know hazards to avoid. I have replaced other non-user replaceable batteries (same company ) without straining skill levels

[HLS]

I have not seen a cell phone with a removable battery in 10 years. Most people upgrade long before a battery goes bad and its a motivator to buy more devices. They want you to spend money