Walmart and Rakuten Announce New Strategic Alliance

[sjfan]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

My phone also has a user replaceable battery. You've got to wonder why if some phones have it, they all don't. Obviously it's not an insurmountable manufacturing obstacle.

It's a lot tougher to have a user-replaceable battery on waterproof devices, which are gaining popularity. They're also starting to have to cram batteries into odd shapes to extend or maintain battery life while making phones thinner and adding other features; the iPhone X has a weird L-shaped 2-cell. That's tougher to engineer removable bays for.

None of that excuses hard-wiring the batteries to the phone so that even someone savvy enough to open the case can't replace it without a soldering iron. And there's certainly an element of lock-in at play, to make it more likely that people just opt to buy a new phone or at least send their money the vendor's way.

(Headphone jacks and SD expansion slots are likewise being eliminated partially out of legitimate concerns for things like water/dust proofing, but also serve to sell more vendor-specific headsets and force data onto the vendor clouds).

[HLS]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

The press release said the Kobo apps will be co-branded with Walmart, but I haven't seen anything about the ereaders. I certainly hope not -- I wouldn't buy one that said Walmart on it either.

It will be dreadful if they made it in the awful blue color of walmart LOL

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

By the way, as I read it, it has little to do with batteries. This seems more important:

The bill does forbid making it "difficult or impossible" to replace the battery. But I think that, in context, this means difficult for someone who is experienced in repair of small electronic devices. In my own opinion, if there's a YouTube showing successful battery replacement, it isn't all that difficult. And there's nothing I can see that would make them manufacture the devices in a way that the waterproofing survives battery replacement. So I'm thinking that the manufacturers could argue that their batteries are already replaceable.

Ever seen Bill Detwiler's Cracking Open video for a Microsoft Surface tablet? I'd rather try do-it-yourself brain surgery dentistry -- there are several sources for DIY dentistry kits. Who woulda thunk!

As for the waterproofing, with HZO's coating technology, the device doesn't need to be totally sealed. You might have fun cleaning the battery connector and resealing it.

[JSWolf]

I would rather have a heavier thicker Reader that I can replace the battery or get it replaced than a thinner lighter Reader where the battery cannot be replaced. Amazon make the Oasis 2 to be thrown away when the battery is shot. But, if the battery has to be made replaceable, then Amazon cannot pull such an underhanded trick. Same thing with Microsoft and the Surfacebook.

If this bill does come to be law, I can easily see companies having to redesign even if they've already designed and have even gone so far as to already made it just not yet for sale. I think that would teach these companies a lesson.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If this bill does come to be law, I can easily see companies having to redesign even if they've already designed and have even gone so far as to already made it just not yet for sale. I think that would teach these companies a lesson.

I doubt they would consider it a lesson. To them, It will be just another factor they have to consider when making their business decisions. They might consider it inconvenient, but that is about all.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by sjfan

It's a lot tougher to have a user-replaceable battery on waterproof devices, which are gaining popularity. They're also starting to have to cram batteries into odd shapes to extend or maintain battery life while making phones thinner and adding other features; the iPhone X has a weird L-shaped 2-cell. That's tougher to engineer removable bays for.

None of that excuses hard-wiring the batteries to the phone so that even someone savvy enough to open the case can't replace it without a soldering iron. And there's certainly an element of lock-in at play, to make it more likely that people just opt to buy a new phone or at least send their money the vendor's way.

(Headphone jacks and SD expansion slots are likewise being eliminated partially out of legitimate concerns for things like water/dust proofing, but also serve to sell more vendor-specific headsets and force data onto the vendor clouds).

I couldn't care less about my phones being waterproof, I'm very careful with my phones/electronics which means when I'm on the move, my phone/tablet is tucked away securely so that I don't have to worry about dropping it in a puddle or on the ground. And if by some chance I dropped it on the ground, it is nice and secure in a leather case so it comes through the drop just fine.

The reason for non-replaceable batteries is as someone said, planned obsolescence.

My Note 2 is stuck with whatever Android system it was sold with, so no more updates to that. However, I can update all of my apps on it just fine, as well as replace the battery, and a SD card holds all of my music for me to listen to. The phone has 16gb so it can easily hold all of my 1619 books with ease. So unless it decides to up and die, there is no reason for me to replace it.

If it did die, I would just go on Amazon or Ebay and get the last Note that Samsung made that had a replaceable battery.

[PeterT]

I think there is another reason for making batteries non removable; shipping restrictions.

I believe that devices with non user replaceable batteries are subject to far less restrictive shipping rules than ones with user replaceable ones.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[Richwood]

Both the Kindle 1 and the Sony PRS-900 have tool less battery replacement from what I see and can read in the user's manuals. To me it has always seemed ridiculous that modern consumer electronics costing hundreds of dollars is made with non consumer serviceable and replaceable batteries seeing as how it is rare for the actual electronics to fail once it is past the infant mortality period unless there is an accident.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by Richwood

Both the Kindle 1 and the Sony PRS-900 have tool less battery replacement from what I see and can read in the user's manuals.

So did the Jinke/Hanlin V3 of fond memory and many a name; I owned its 'BeBook One' incarnation. It even used a generic-ish battery, a Nokia BL4 you could (and still can) buy from lots of places.

[Atunah]

My last phone had a replaceable battery. When I bought it I thought, oh how nice, I can just buy one and put it in if I need a new one. At the time the maker sold them on their website. A little over 2 years later it wasn't holding a charge so great anymore. I thought I can just go to their website and buy a new one, oh how nice.

I found out they had discontinued selling the battery. For the life of me I could not find a proper one on amazon, ebay, etc. The reviews on the handful were horrendous and the batteries ended up smaller than the original ones. So I couldn't buy one. There went the replaceable option.

Then I bought a new phone with non replaceable battery I really love. It cost less then the other one and I don't care anymore about replacing the battery. Whats the point if I can't find one when I need one.

[JSWolf]

But if this is an iPhone, unless Apple has bought all the batteries, I would think plenty of third parties will have batteries.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by Atunah

I found out they had discontinued selling the battery. For the life of me I could not find a proper one on amazon, ebay, etc. The reviews on the handful were horrendous and the batteries ended up smaller than the original ones. So I couldn't buy one. There went the replaceable option.

That's always possible but it's unusual. I have devices I bought years ago with replaceable batteries and batteries are still available for most of them.

Barry

[Richwood]

I suspect it is highly dependent on the popularity of the device when originally sold. Easy to find batteries for all the Sony and Kindle ebook readers I have checked on and most of those are NOT considered to have user replaceable batteries.

[Atunah]

It was an Asus Zenfone, one of its models, there were a few. Maybe not the biggest maker or the most popular phone, but pretty well known I would think.

I found posts all over though from folks going through the same thing trying to find the batteries. And this was after all a phone with a replaceable battery. Outright, not just that it can be. Asus used to have them right there on their site, then when I needed one, poof.

I am not going to take a chance on some listing from China with a blurry pic and the specs not matching up what it is suppose to be. Found a couple of those, looking closer the size of the battery was smaller than what it needed to be. Not willing to play russian roulette with my health.

Its ok, it was the only device, other than my Kindle1 that I have that had a replaceable battery. I have gotten used to not having it. I am not one of those folks that will break out the tools and blow torches to change out batteries were they aren't designed to be changeable.
I don't know if they still make them for the K1 after all this time. I think I got one of those back in 2011. Then they had them everywhere.

[Ricky D'Angelo]

Originally Posted by barryem

If I recall correctly Walmart stopped selling Kindles not because they didn't sell well but because people would buy the Kindle and then get the books from Amazon and since Walmart is one of the largest book sellers they were competing with themselves. At least that's what I remember from their announcement when they stopped selling Kindles.

This time around they seem to have arranged to get a piece of the book sales as well and that's probably what'd different this time.

Barry

Sorry I haven't read ahead to see if this has been answered but when I saw this thread the following came to mind. For walmart to sell kindles it's like shooting themselves in the foot. Why? A walmart customer who buys a kindle will most likely (if not inevitably) create an amazon account to purchase books. Maybe, while browsing for books this customer will purchase stuff from Amazon he/she would normally buy at walmart. Each Kobo Walmart sells is one less potential customer for Amazon. At least for me, I didn't really think about buying stuff from Amazon until I got my kindle. Now, I get stuff from amazon all the time.