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Comment by gbeardish | Hacker News Reader

They should extend the principle to laptops, obviously.

I think most (all?) would already comply. What laptop do you see as not having a user replacable battery? Even MacBook can be swapped out pretty easily [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgTon2jqI-A

I won't name brands, but there are lots of low cost "tablet with keyboard" laptops with glued battery. Just a couple of months ago I had to ditch one.

Anyway, if most comply, why not make it mandatory? Or are these kind of directives only aimed at picking fights with manufacturers?

Note that I am not suggesting that all laptops should have USB-C chargers, that's a separate directive. I mean user replaceable batteries available for at least 5 years, without requiring major surgery to replace.

MacBooks are not easy at all. I did it twice and it's an annoying, dangerous mess (danger of tearing the battery open). Apple won't even bother with it. If you want an "official job", they will just replace the whole top shell including the keyboard, because they can't be bothered to remove the glue. And of course it's expensive because of that.

8 minutes to complete, using only a screw driver and credit card, once every three or four years, is definitely "annoying". But, I'd still say it's also "pretty easy" (I never said "easy"). My reference frame may be different than yours.

Have you actually done it? Mine were 15" MacBooks, not 13" like in the video – maybe that makes a difference. It took me about 20 minutes. In the video the outer two battery packs just pop up without much resistance – that is not how it was in my case. It needed lots of acetone and patience and it was a messy process. I also had to apply quite a lot of force and was worried I might tear a battery pack open in the process (they were already swollen and looked like they might explode any moment).

The noname replacement batteries also have nowhere near the same capacity that the Apple batteries had originally.

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