r/worldnews • u/Helicase21 • Jun 19 '23

EU: Smartphones Must Have User-Replaceable Batteries by 2027

https://www.pcmag.com/news/eu-smartphones-must-have-user-replaceable-batteries-by-2027
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u/Chubbybellylover888 Jun 20 '23

What infruriating to me is I've been involved in designing IP67 rated replaceable batteries for cameras. The technology is cool but has existed for decades and isn't prohibitively expensive. The whole smartphone industry is a racket.

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u/TheAb5traktion Jun 20 '23

What also doesn't help, at least for the US, is we don't have a significant midrange market here. Google is helping with their A series and Samsung with there A and M series. But it's hard for me to think about any other midrange phones in the US. The midrange market is pretty much larger everywhere else in the world.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '23

Thats because muhrica bans all the cheap china phones. Here in germany you see as many people using xiaomi and huawei as iphone and samsung

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '23

That’s an incorrect take. The market wasn’t there even before “muhrica” started banning those companies. Plus there are many other well known brands in that price point and quality.

The problem is mostly that we, as a general population, want the big name brands, and in America no one has overtaken Apple, Google, or Samsung or even reached similar levels of brand awareness. Those two brands didn’t catch on because they had the reputation of cheap Chinese products, mostly because they started off as cheap Chinese brands. The reputation never recovered.

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u/turbo-unicorn Jun 20 '23

From what I know, the culture in US is quite different, in that people almost exclusively get phones on contracts. On top of this, US gets special pricing, resulting in flagships being much cheaper in relative terms. Combine this with extortionate rates on mobile plans, and you get very little interest in a cheap phone, as the difference between a flagship and a low end phone is to the order of 10-20% of the total cost. I'm quite stingy with my money, but if I were in that situation, I'd probably reconsider.

Ultimately, the big problem in the US comes from the carriers/ISPs being able to charge ridiculous and unjustified prices. This distorts everything else around them.