Technology

However, there is an exemption for high-performing and durable batteries until 2027. This means devices with high quality batteries that retain over 80% of their capacity after 1000 charge cycles do not need to comply with the removable battery requirement until 2027.

So premium phones like the iPhone would be exempt.

Good, no reason why my Pixel 6 shouldn't last until I accidentally drop it instead of the slow death of worsening battery.

Yurop did it again.

Has anyone else always had a spare phone battery in the pocket to swap on the go?

Imagine you could just do that.

Tbh, I don't miss this.

Phone batteries generally last 3-4 years (sometimes longer depending on the size), and by that point it's usually time to upgrade to a new phone anyway for the latest security updates and such.

Only EU though

They would just "underdevelop" other areas to make their phone "breakable" or "prone to accidents". I am not that hyped because of that.

I have mixed feelings on this. I think there were a few good reasons to move to sealed batteries. In an ideal world you could give consumers choices between the various trade-offs and offer multiple models or variants.

But of course that will never happen because non-replaceable batteries present a far better business case. If they were forced to offer options, the manufacturers would deliberately make the user-replaceable models far shittier and then complain to the regulators that they were unpopular.

*In the EU.