Why don't E-readers have a Replaceable Battery

[Junket]

It's more expensive to manufacture a replaceable battery. It has to have a hard shell then, a more expensive connector and it's shape and location become more constricted. It makes a product less competitive or profitable. Market history shows that people will pay for thinner device but not so much for less obvious advantages like replaceable batteries especially when that makes their iphone a millimeter or two thicker and 5 grams heavier. And it's easy to argue that it wouldn't be in the manufacturer's economic interest either.

If that iphone had a replaceable battery or memory card slot for that matter it would extend the product's lifespan. Apple makes more money if you buy a new phone though when you run low on memory or your battery begins to fail.

Apple, which has a very successful business model by most standards is infamous for strongly discouraging customers from repairing an iphone or macbook when they could buy a new one instead. Even to the point of grossly inflating the repair costs and lying about whether a repair is possible. You might want to watch a Louis Rossmann video on the subject sometime.

A replaceable battery would cannibalize a certain amount of new sales - one less reason to buy a new phone. And that phone would be fractionally thicker, heavier and less profitable. And epithets like thin and profit take on a religious fervor in Cupertino. And Amazon isn't adverse to making profits either and there is little push back from consumers.

When devices that do not have replaceable batteries, like Kindles or iphones have commanding market share we consumers are telling Jeff and Tim that replaceable batteries are a non-starter.

[leebase]

Junket - you are certainly putting forth common "Apple does this for evil" type reasoning. They just don't hold water when examined closely.

And they certainly don't explain why everybody else has followed suit even when having a user replaceable battery would be an easy competitive advantage.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The alternative is to lengthen the phone and add a "chin" to hold a battery.
It would even be a ergonomic and provide a surface for off-screen buttons.
With vertically folding phones coming back we may see something like that since the folded phones will be thicker.

For ereaders the choice is to add a thick spine to hold the battery.
Similar but thicker than the Kindle Oasis.
Quite doable and as a bonus, more grippable.

It's doable but not fashionable.
Any not enough people care.

That thick spine and a round-shaped battery makes me realize how easy it was to hold my old RCA 1100 (LCD screen) ebook reader.

[Junket]

Originally Posted by leebase

you are certainly putting forth common "Apple does this for evil" type reasoning.

Evil is a subjective perspective. I only pointed out the obvious - that Apple is largely motivated by profit.

You won't find many business analysts that disagree with that observation.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by Junket

Evil is a subjective perspective. I only pointed out the obvious - that Apple is largely motivated by profit.

You won't find many business analysts that disagree with that observation.

Every company is motivated by profit. But few other companies look at User Satisfaction as their number one metric they talk about in their financial calls.

Apple doesn't make it's products wanting them to break down....you wouldn't create a sustained business that way. iPhones stay on the market longer than any other phones...owned longer by first owner and then by subsequent owners. iPhones get brand new OS upgrades for 5 years and sometimes more.

Apple does make decisions that it thinks "it's best for users" that some users don't like. Removing/obsoleting ports and connectors being a frequent one.

The point is....there are trade offs in all the design choices. Reasonable...design choices.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Lithium polymer batteries tend to have odd shapes to fit around the bulkier components and maintain thinness. Some gadgets actually split their batteries into two parts. Non standard all the way.

That's a poor excuse. Those designs were made that way because the battery is not easily replaceable and they didn't have to be designed to have an easily replaceable battery. The designs could have been made to make the batteries easy to replace. When you get into some of the devices, you see that the battery is very easy to replace. It's getting into it that's the hard part.

We are throwing away a lot of electronics that would still be in use if they had a user replaceable battery. The thing is, even if we no longer use these older device, we might be able to give them to someone else to use. But with the battery needing replaced and no way to replace it, it just gets thrown away.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by leebase

Yep. The first iPhone was a miracle. It was truly a leap into "Macintosh in your pocket".

It pales in comparison to today's state of the art....but no phone prior had to do the computing that the iPhone was accomplishing.

But COULD Apple have designed a replaceable battery? Of course. The phone would have needed to be thicker. The batter would need it's own case/shell that a non-user serviceable batter does not need. It would take more space in the phone for the battery, in addition to the battery now being larger. Then there's building in the door/hinge that enables you to get access to the battery.

And all of the iPhone class phones have followed suit....because they had the same engineering challenges that led Apple to making the choice in the first place.

So the iPhone might have been thicker. But yes, Apple could have designed it to have a user replaceable battery. And given that today (IMHO), the iPhones are too thin, having them be thicker to support a user replaceable battery would be a good thing. I really dislike my iPhone 6s when it's not in it's case. And I know I would dislike any newer iPhone that's even thinner when not in a case to make it thicker.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

Some of us have happily been using the same devices for many years. My husband and mom are using 2nd gen Paperwhites from 2013. They each still get about 20 hours of battery life. The Kindle 2 I recently traded in still worked for a day's with of reading, and I bought it 10 years ago this month.

We have an iPhone 6 from 2014, and a 7+ From 2016. Neither of them have serious battery issues, they easily last all day, a couple of days if not being used.

We have an iPhone 4s from 2011 that still has a battery life of 6 hours or so...depending on the game app being used.

With that kind of battery life, I personally don't see the need for user replaceable batteries.

My iPhone 6s did need a new battery. I bought the iPhone 6s when it came out at the end of September 2015. Also, if you iPhone 7+ is running iOS 13, you will not be getting a full day's use before it needs to be charged. I cannot see how your iPhone 6 can last all day. What is it you do with it?

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

We are throwing away a lot of electronics that would still be in use if they had a user replaceable battery. The thing is, even if we no longer use these older device, we might be able to give them to someone else to use. But with the battery needing replaced and no way to replace it, it just gets thrown away.

Would it really change things, though?

Our old flip phones all had user replaceable batteries. We've never replaced the batteries on any of them since it was harder and more expensive to get a replacement battery than it was to replace the entire phone.

I've never bothered with battery replacement on our older iPhones and Androids since they were already too slow by the time the battery died. Still very happy with my iPhone 7 though and it'll be useful as a travel phone so I'll get battery on that one replaced by Apple ($50?).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Junket

It's more expensive to manufacture a replaceable battery. It has to have a hard shell then, a more expensive connector and it's shape and location become more constricted. It makes a product less competitive or profitable. Market history shows that people will pay for thinner device but not so much for less obvious advantages like replaceable batteries especially when that makes their iphone a millimeter or two thicker and 5 grams heavier. And it's easy to argue that it wouldn't be in the manufacturer's economic interest either.

If that iphone had a replaceable battery or memory card slot for that matter it would extend the product's lifespan. Apple makes more money if you buy a new phone though when you run low on memory or your battery begins to fail.

Apple, which has a very successful business model by most standards is infamous for strongly discouraging customers from repairing an iphone or macbook when they could buy a new one instead. Even to the point of grossly inflating the repair costs and lying about whether a repair is possible. You might want to watch a Louis Rossmann video on the subject sometime.

A replaceable battery would cannibalize a certain amount of new sales - one less reason to buy a new phone. And that phone would be fractionally thicker, heavier and less profitable. And epithets like thin and profit take on a religious fervor in Cupertino. And Amazon isn't adverse to making profits either and there is little push back from consumers.

When devices that do not have replaceable batteries, like Kindles or iphones have commanding market share we consumers are telling Jeff and Tim that replaceable batteries are a non-starter.

The problem is we don't have a choice. Right now, there's no current Reader that has a user replaceable battery and no smartphone that has a user replaceable battery. So we either buy or do without. So you'd have no cell phone, no tablet, no Reader, no music player, or any other device that doesn't have a user replaceable battery. There are a lot of devices out there that we'd be doing without.

[barryem]

It's true that there are good reasons for not putting replaceable batteries in phones but there are also good reasons for doing it. It can be done. Not doing it was a choice manufacturers made. We bought the phones anyway so it's hard to see it as a bad choice from their perspective. It's definitely a bad choice from my perspective.

As for the idea that we have to upgrade every year or two, our economy is kind of based on that. I don't like it much but I do it. I'd prefer to have tech devices that lasted decades but that isn't going to happen and if it did a lot of us might starve.

Barry

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I mean RIGHT NOW, why don't e-readers have replaceable batteries in the same sense that cell phones have them?

Not all cell phones have replaceable batteries. So the real question is why not? Planned obsolescence? I think it's silly to accept that phones that cost in the range of $600 to $1200 will have to be replaced in a couple years because a battery wears down.

There was one Sony that had a user replaceable battery, the PRS-900.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by tourneur

Probably because there's no significant demand for it. Charges last very long compared to other electronic devices, USB charging is ubiquitous and most users probably won't even wear out their battery (before having bought a new ereader).

I've replaced the battery in my Blackberry Q10 a couple times now. The problem with this theory (no battery replacement necessary) is that batteries begin losing power long before they completely wear out. So a phone (or eReader) without a replaceable battery has reduced functionality long before it has no functionality. You end up living with a compromised device and having to constantly charge it during the day and in the car.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by cromag

Mine does! I still do most of my reading on a JetBook Lite. Runs on four AA batteries. You can still find one every now and then at Goodwill.

I got one of those from Shop Goodwill, as well.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

...We have an iPhone 4s from 2011 that still has a battery life of 6 hours or so...depending on the game app being used.

With that kind of battery life, I personally don't see the need for user replaceable batteries.

On the other hand, my wife is constantly charging her iPhone 7 Plus. And it's only a couple years old.