Hacker News Reader

Comment by vineyardmike | Hacker News Reader

> I don't think replaceable batteries or USB-C requirements restrict the industries ability to move forward.

These ultra thin foldable phones probably couldn’t exist with removable batteries. The thinness required to make it comfortable to use would be hard and so would the structural integrity with a removable backplate.

It would absolutely restrict durability since it’d make waterproof and dustproofing way more challenging, if possible at all.

Removable backs would limit wireless charging hardware like apples MagSafe (which is great!).

View on HN

As long as we are sharing random opinions - my Samsung s2 and s5 were smaller thinner lighter than modern phones, with 3.5mm and replaceable battery and microsd card. And also had gps and wifi and phone. And were ip67 rated.

Modern phones are going for sexy, that's all. They are large in every dimension but Impractically thin even though everybody adds another 3mm - 6mm of case anyway because they're sleek to the point of unusable. I particularly love when we buy a sexy sleek thin phone and then put an otterbox on it :-)

I agree with you. But also, to be fair, I'm pretty sure in that time phone bodies have transitioned from mostly plastic to mostly metal? I'm sure that has something to do with the weight, and I would guess that the metal shell is probably thicker too?

Why should they be thicker? Metals are resilient and strong. That's why we use them to build all sorts of stuff. I expect metal bodies to be thinner not thicker.

I would imagine that thin plastic is more resistant to permanent deformation than thin metal. Or, in other words, when then metal bends, it tends to stay bent. Thin plastic can more easily bend, but then restore to its original shape.

But I'm not a materials engineer. This is just in my lay experience of how thin materials I've encountered perform.

> And also had gps and wifi and phone. And were ip67 rated.

Only if the flap covered the ports…

> Removable backs would limit wireless charging hardware like apples MagSafe (which is great!).

I had a phone with a removable back and wireless charging back in 2012. This isn't rocket science.

Same. Was the Samsung Galaxy S3 (which in 2012 had wireless charging and a removable back) not sufficiently thin? It's less than a millimeter thicker than the current Galaxy S23, and I'm not sure that the <1mm of difference in the S23 comes from having a non-removable back (as opposed to the 11 years of advancements in other technologies.)

I had a Palm Pre in 2010 with a removable battery and wireless charging.

Wireless charging is stupid and inefficient. If someone tried to sell you a petrol pump which works by spraying a jet of petrol into your car from 5m away would you get it?

“Your customers won’t even have to plug anything into their car. FuelSafe just safely hoses down the car with fuel! Over 45% efficient!”

I had a Nexus one with wireless charging 10 years ago.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com