That won't affect us here in Blighty...

You think phone manufacturers are going to build a UK specific model?

Of course they are. Or were the likes of Bozo Boris, Farage, Gove, Priti Vacant, etc lying when they said we'd taken back control?

This latest dictat from Brussels could well be the thing that gets us all to replace our fondleslabs with Amstrad e-mailers and Sinclair ZX-80s.

Are you telling me that Boris would lie?

That Boris? Partygate Boris? £350M on the side of a bus Boris?

Boris once said "You deserve the truth. You deserve the facts.".

He's not wrong. He never said he was going to give them to us though.

"That won't affect us here in Blighty..."

At last!!! A Brexit bonus.

I'm thrilled we can continue getting ripped off by Apple. We've shown Johnny Foreigner and those pesky Brussels bureacrats who's boss.

Or, there will be an international model modified for the UK, with a surcharge. As happens with cars, etc.

As happens with cars, etc.

Really? I've bought cars in the UK and EU, and haven't seen any significant differences in price that aren't explained by tax rates. The pre-EU days when you could order your car to be picked up from the VW factory & save on taxes are long gone.

The exception might be those cars which have to be specially modified for RHD, but even when we were in the EU no-one ever seriously suggested changing to drive on the right :-)

A number of countries drive on the left including 2 in the EU.

Oh, I don't know. My mum told me about a report that everyone was outraged about a few years ago. Fact is that prices for new cars vary wildly between countries due to things like tax breaks for go-faster (or in Belgium go-slower) stripes. L-2-R conversion isn't expensive but I think fitting the converter to be able drive miles instead of kilometres is expensive! ;-)

I think some kind of cartel (sic) was discovered where something like a Corsa got slapped with a 2 grand surcharge just for crossing the channel. In the current post-pandemic, post-brexit climate lots of companies have found lots of excuses for increasing charges and customers in the UK do have less choice than before.

There seems to be a whooshing sound round here.

>>There seems to be a whooshing sound round here.

indeed.... Can people not see the troll face? do people not get dry humour? have we been overrun by septics?.... (cont. p94)

Have a beer for noticing.

lol, you think?

You'll take what you're given.

The EU may well be guilty of fixing something that doesn't actually need fixing here. A smartphone's expected unit lifespan may not be extended very much by the customer being able to replace the battery; it might well work better if a more robust case and screen were mandated instead.

This covers more than just phones, it is anything with a battery in it. And about darn time too. I'm not too fussed about phone batteries being easy to replace cos as you say they usually last the life of the phone. Less glue in the construction would be good! Your average repair shop can swap out an iphone 6 battery in no time at all.

It is estimated that 100-150 MILLION single use vape things were sold in the UK in 2022. As each one has a 1.5-2Wh battery in it that is some 150-300(ish)MWh of lithium ion batteries used once and binned. Estimates for recycling are under 50%. The rest go in the bin. This needs to be addressed as this is enough lithium to make some major grid storage or a good number of EVs just being thrown away.

In 20 years time we will be mining landfill sites for metals.

I suspect that many resource-hungry companies already have extensive plans in place to procure landfill sites and mine for metals. The tipping point will be based on the price: Once it's profitable there will be an avalanche of landfill mining projects.

I'd hazard a guess that anyone thinking about this is awaiting some govt handouts. As we've seen from the Intel fab in Germany there is 'free' money to be had. No-one wants to be the first any more as instead of being a pioneer and profiting you will be the only one not getting the handouts.

Cynical I know.

I suspect once robots and AI are advanced enough, we'll have robots mining landfill sites underground for all sorts of valuable items. Or I've watched WALL-E once too many.

That HDD with the Bitcoin wallet isn't as valuable as it once was.

Once it's profitable there will be an avalanche of landfill mining projects.

Where's there's muck there's lithium?

Rare earth reclamation from landfill would have to be a scam. Much easier to collect and refine the ash from the furnace where most waste is now burned for heat and power.

I have an XS Max. Screen, buttons, mic, speaker, they are all as good as the day I bought it, four years ago. Battery is shite, lasting no more than 6 hours. There is nothing wrong with my phone except the battery, so being able to easily change that would be fantastic.

It is easy to change, iPhones have always been easy to do batteries and screen replacement.

Costs how much?

The last time I had phone with a replaceable battery, a replacement from the manufacturer cost around € 20 not bad to extend the phone's usable life by a couple of years.

I'm not 100% with the EU on this one as integrated batteries often make for a more compact (and toilet water proof) unit, and contacts are prone to corrosion and other issues, amplified by the amount of power going through them.

Your case is typical in that it's often only the battery that's reaching end of life, not the rest of the phone but I would venture it probably would be safer if we left repairs to repair shops who can get the required skills and who get themselves insured for when things go wrong. So, taking your problem as an example, maybe they ought to mandate maximum charges for battery replacement, with repair shops holding the required technical skills to perform the swap.

As for now, I think for you it might be worth just having the battery replaced. Depends on how much it costs, I guess.

Laptops are another issue with many having soldered on RAM and SSDs. Can't upgrade ANYTHING! And even if it isn't soldered on it can be a nightmare to get to. My OH has one of the last intel 27" macs and it is a lovely bit of kit but to change the M2 SSD you have to remove the screen and its all clipped together.

You can make a device with a removable battery waterproof... it's not all that difficult.s

In fact I'd argue that iPhone batteries are already user replaceable... though I haven't read the legislation, does it require it to be possible without tools?

Need a little bit better of an adhesive removal mechanism - or a couple of screws through some retaining clips

"You can make a device with a removable battery waterproof... it's not all that difficult."

That's right, my fairly cheap Samsung Galaxy Xcover is waterproof and has a replaceable battery. Reasonably robust too. Possibly a few mm thicker than other phones - the horror!

A good example of small electronic kit with a user-replaceable battery is https://tentaclesync.com/sync-e the manufacturer's replacement battery kit (which includes the required tools) costs less than 10% of the price of the unit.

So it's perfectly possible.

Sort of. Encouraging users to hold on to their phone a bit longer could also encourage app developers to target somewhat older devices. That's a good effect overall.

Mostly, I'm concerned about new batteries being technically available, but costing nearly as much as a new phone. I hope the legislation addresses this. Ideally, I would just mandate standard formats, like we had for old-style batteries for decades, but no, we have to chase every last fraction of a millimeter... ah, well, one can dream.

Also, it's not just phones. I have a whole lot of devices that really have no reason at all not to be exactly as good and useful ten years from now. I'm thinking flashlights, portable measurers of various things, toys and gadgets, audio devices, the list could go on and on. As things stand now, all of these are pretty much guaranteed to be useless by that date, solely because of the battery. That's insane, and it has to change.

I fervently hope that, at some point, researchers will come up with a battery design that does not degrade quickly with time. In the mean time, though, legislation will have to suffice.

Perhaps the wording is to stringent? "Batteries must be replaceable" (eg by any service tech with a soldering iron not "an authorised service engineer") rather than "batteries must be easily replaceable by customers" (with a bread knife and a mallet) would be a more sensible option in my view. Even my "waterproof" watch is no longer waterproof unless the battery is replaced by someone with half a grain of common sense ...

" and that butter knife trick"

Substitute butter knife for bayonet & using it to get a LS120 3.5" floppy to eject...

My S10e is now 4 years old and everything apart from the battery is fine.

The EU may well be guilty of fixing something that doesn't actually need fixing here

I'm inclined to agree. My last few phones have become obsolete because they no longer got updates to new software, and/or didn't have the CPU power to run new bloated software, not because they wouldn't hold enough charge. Even before that, when I did change battereis it was likely to get a bigger battery (in the pre-Li-Ion NiMH days), which this legislation won't affect.

Mandating that phone suppliers and manufacturers need to support 5 or 6 years of updates would, in my view, be more useful than mandating user-changeable batteries.

The year-on-year incremental upgrades on smartphones has now slowed significantly.

There are less reasons every year to upgrade.

So, after a few years when my phone's battery life is shot, then what? What if it's not worth upgrading feature-wise?

Replace the battery? How, if it is not user replaceable?

Same thing goes doubly-so for laptops with non-replaceable batteries.

It's laptops too! Too many ultrabook-style laptops with non-replaceable batteries now!

But, but, but, but, (butt), BUT! Being able to bring extra batteries for when you're long away from a charger (festivals etc), instead of being tied to a powerbank will be _wonderful_!

Not sure it will change much for the environment, though. I don't think the environment cares if extra batteries are in the phone or in powerbanks.

I think the idea is that, if batteries can be easily removed, then they can be easily separated at disposal (by the user, or by someone at the recycling center), and sent for recycling*. Currently, I guess that batteries for small electronics just get into landfills along with said electronics.

*I don't know if and how much small batteries get recycled, but separating them can only help. At the very least, they can get separately stored, which will make any future recycling effort a whole lot easier.

A good thing. Apple has had this insane obsession with making iPhones as thin as possible, and that has always led to rubbish daily battery life. Given the thickness of an iPhone battery, adding 2mm to the thickness of an iPhone would allow double battery life. If this new EU rule provides the push for Apple to completely rethink the battery approach, I am all for it.

If you want to add width to increase battery life, there are plenty of cases that incorporate a battery that you can use.

Lots of things get passed by the parliament but rarely come into force because they have to be agreed to by the nation states.

Probably needs a replacement battery.

Am I really arsed about dust and water? I don't shower or swim with my phone and I rarely take it to the desert. On the other hand a removable battery in my S3 was changed twice which expanded it's life by years and I put a custom OS on there to cover the software. Sure I can probably do it now but it's a ball ache. This is a good thing. One thing I would question is are they going to ensure the battery prices are realistic?

"Critics also claim that the water and dust resistance consumers have come to assume will be present in their mobiles will be hit hard – a sealed unit isn't just a deterrent for techies after all."

I can see the theory, but that's not always the reality. I've recently replaced a number of ordinary Samsung handsets (which have some water resistance and sealed-in batteries) because of water damage, New ones are the semi-ruggedised Samsung XCover models, which despite being certified against water ingress within certain limits do have removable batteries. Just need to make sure the back panel is clipped on properly so that the seal is made.

Time will tell, but not had any issues with them so far (and they will have had a soaking already in some cases).

Hermetic sealing is easy enough to on things with removable covers. Essentially, you just need to create a pressure differential as you do with a tupperware lid. Orifices such as headphone and charging sockets are a bit more of a challenge but these can be allowed to flood without affecting the integrity. And a real doddle if they're connected to an inductive charging system.

Wouldn't it make more sense for them to produce one model which has easily replaceable batteries and screens, and another which is sealed. The sealed one might be more waterproof. Then let people decide which one they prefer. And you'd have to continue to get security patches, etc (I'm looking at you Android) so that you can still use modern apps.

But the manufacturers will fight this every step of the way, because built-in obsolescence.

I think the whole point is so that they have "easily replaceable batteries" which is less damaging to the environment. Enforced because they wouldn't do it otherwise. So to give consumers the choice would be counterproductive.

Welcome to the new iBattery. It clips onto the back of the phone, connects to the USB and you can change it as often as you like. The internal battery is soldered in but, hey, we have an exchangeable battery, even if you don't like to use it.

Or they'll require that you use a genuine Apple iBattery (at 10x the price) or some features won't work as well, a bit like printer ink cartridges.

Software locks are the devil's spawn.

..... if you want to go looking for it.

Phone = Fairphone 4 - Good mid-range phone with removable battery, fully user serviceable and zero glue

Lappy = Framework - Good small laptop, again removable battery, fully user serviceable and zero glue

Can recommend both cos I have both!

Like there are AAA and AA batteries, a classification for removable batteries would be a great follow up.

It is technically challenging, but would have a global positive impact where countless tons of polluting chemicals can be recycled easier and consumers do not have to put up with unnecessary expensive proprietary designs.

And this does not only concern the batteries, suppose someone bought 10 years ago a budget battery operated drill.

It is very probable the battery doesn't work anymore, since it was a no-name brand, replacement is nowhere to be found.

With standard batteries it just would take a visit to Ebay to get it working again instead of throwing it away and buy a new drill.