Apple charges $79 to replace a battery. Seems cheap to me. And, btw I have been running my SE for a couple of years and the battery is only reduced by 8%. Seems pretty good to me. I think peoples expectations are just absurd.
- my iPhone 6S, barely one year in: down to 87%, 282 cycles.
- a friend's 6S+, one and a half year in: down to 74%, 398 cycles
- another friend's 6S+, two and a half years in: down to 54%, slightly less than 600 cycles
Those LiPo are supposed to last 800-1000 cycles before dipping below the 80% mark and it's a far cry from that.
Even before I checked the values for mine I noticed a cliff effect when charge goes below 40%, at which point it takes only a dozen of minutes of light use to drain.
This is not OK. I can readily accept a non-replaceable battery on a 800-1000€ phone but it has to keep giving good performance (WRT both battery life and throttling) for three years (it was so for my iPhone 3G and 4). Changing the battery on my dime each year is not an acceptable solution.
This is poor engineering that minmaxes thinness vs battery, and I see the same trend on the MacBook line, which currently makes me very unlikely to upgrade my 2013 rMBP.
The lower cycle number for iOS devices is presumably due to them being exposed to higher temperatures (in pockets e.g.) and not having any active cooling to counter this.
The last couple of revisions of phones aren't that much better than previous generations. This seems mainly due to Moore's law slowing down. Heck, Intel hasn't released a process shrink in 4 years. Apple and other vendors are going to have to start pulling even more of these planned obsolescence tricks if technology doesn't pick up soon.
Support a small business and have someone else install it for you if you need a new battery. It won’t cost that much. If Samsung had stores they would charge you something near Apples price without question.
(I've mentioned iFixit lately; I'm just a happy repeat customer.)
I'll be more than willing to take my chances with a lot of parts on computers/phones/electronics/etc
But the power supply systems are one area I will not buy anything other than OEM or "top of the line" for.
I've fallen asleep with my phone in bed, I have it on a nightstand a foot away from my head most nights, it sits in my pocket for most of the day. That's not something I want to have even a 1% chance of failing when the failure mode is "burst into flames".
I always wonder how people use those vaping devices (especially cheap ones from ebay) without fear of them blowing up, energy density is crazy there.
Every month or so I hear of another person who's phone caught fire on their bed, or the whole galaxy note fiasco. While I agree with you that for the most part it's not a worry in devices from reputable manufacturers (like OEMs), but it is and will continue to be a problem for cheaper manufacturers, and suppliers who aren't afraid to lie about what's inside the package.
Why wouldn't your first thought be "Hey, maybe Apple doesn't make the best battery for the iphone"? You already know they make a flawed one, maybe someone else makes one that isn't flawed?
Plus $79 for a new battery PLUS expert, warrantied installation is a good value. You're paying for a lot more than just a battery.
(FWIW, I've replaced the batteries in my iPhone 4 and 5 in the last year. It was much easier than I thought it would be. I still have an original launch-day iPhone. Maybe I'll see if I can still find a replacement battery for it.)
From the perspective of environmentalism, I think all phones should have mandatory replaceable batteries. Is that really so absurd? Why are companies allowed to design devices with such disregard for the environment.
But Apple sets the bravery bar extremely high. The process of replacing a battery in e.g. my SE is insane: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+SE+Battery+Replacement/6... describes the teardown, and https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+Battery+Adhesive+Strips+... the process of applying adhesive to the replacement battery - yes, that second task is complex and difficult enough to require an entire separate guide of its own.
I get that the goal of this design is to ensure that the battery does not move once it's fixed into the case. And I understand why that's necessary. What I don't understand is why it can't practicably be achieved by a combination of closer dimensional tolerances and the application of some thin elastomer to the parts of the case that contact the battery. Given the complexity of the assembly process, I can't imagine that such a design would be more difficult to assemble than the one that shipped, and it would provide a considerably more approachable battery replacement process - I'm not shy about performing my own device repairs, and I'm good enough at it that I haven't ruined anything yet, but this is one where I'd rather pay the $79 to have it done in an Apple store, and the adhesive is about 95% of why.
It's easy to only think about one side of this issue. To put it another way, think about the additional layer of plastic needed under the battery compartment to protect the device internals while the battery compartment is open. There are additional component changes and efficiencies lost to make this move.
Then there's the battery itself -- the replaceable ones are much more robust in design and shielding -- additional plastic. They also have to have bigger contact points to ensure a good connection.
It might still be a net positive, but it's not a no-brainer call.
Batteries should be replaceable without the need for special tools (a simple standard screwdriver (Torx or Phillips) is OK, pentalobe screwdrivers are not) OR they should last the life of the device without significant degradation.
As for the battery only being reduced by 8%, I think that's a huge positive point for the SE and its internals. This phone just lasts so long that you charge it less than the other phones Apple sells.
IMO, the problem is Apple either tricks you into upgrading your OS or constantly nags you if you don't. When you find out that the new iOS has slowed down your phone, you're forced to keep using it instead of being able to revert your phone back to the factory state - something every user expects out of a consumer device.
The battery still has 95.7% of the capacity, with 400 cycles, yet my device is throttling the cpu between 30% and 50%. It was how slow it was running that made me upgrade this year instead of the next which was my original plan.
If I had known that replacing the battery fixed the speed problems I would have saved the money.
They really need to communicate this reduced power state to the user.
11.2.1 and they still haven't fixed all of the major bugs. Including this one that is driving me insane as a developer: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=176896
Apple profit on the transaction is smaller than my loss. It takes me 15sec to replace battery compared to driving to/from the store & involving 5 people in the process (sales, technicians, accounting). It's a clear win- lose with a negative total transaction.
Also, Apple‘s service is atrocious. Mail it in, and you‘ll be without a phone for up to two weeks (!). I tried bringing mine to an authorised service provider in Austria, and they told me it would take 24h to get a quote, and the actual repair would take up to two weeks.
I went to a 3rd party shop, it took them about 15minutes to do the swap, and it cost a fraction.
Oh, and 50% after two years is a pretty good rough estimate on phones that are charged often.
Or maybe it's only degraded by 8% because it's only a year and a half (a year and 9 months tops since the first ones were sold) old?
Cheap!