NON - REMOVEABLE BATTERY: WHY PHONE MAKERS LOVE THEM

The issue of non-removeable battery has now come to dominate the smartphone landscape around the world especially in third world countries. This issue was entirely created by the manufacturers of mobile smartphones. Take a look at any new high end smartphone, what you notice prominently written as part of the specs is that the battery is non-removeable. This started mostly with Sony when it pioneered the water-proof and dust-proof Xperia series of its flagship smartphones. Other major phone manufacturers caught the bug of water/dust resistant phones which invariably meant non-removeable battery.

But it seems the craze for non-removeable battery in our smartphones has now infected even the smaller OEMs as can be seen by Tecno, which operates largely in the third world, releasing its latest phone, the Camon C8, with a non-removeable battery. How did this issue creep up on us? The salient question here is, why non-removeable battery?
There must be some advantages to having a non-removeable battery in our mobile gadgets. And these pros must be entirely convincing or else the PR department of the OEMs won’t have any reason to exist. It is their jobs to convince us, the consumers and buyers of their products that a design change would make a whole lot of difference to our mobile experience. Some of the advantages of the non-removeable battery include;
1. The first reason is directly linked to issue of a water/dust-proof phone. Since a water/dust-proof phone has to be completely sealed to make it impossible for water or dust to get into the phone, it is only common sense that the battery must be soldered to the chassis of the phone to block all the little spaces and cracks.
2. Slimmer phone designs are in vogue. In fact the Slimmer the phone, the slickier it is, and one way to make slimmer gadgets is to make the battery non-removeable. It works like this, a non-removeable battery would not require too much shielding of the body for protection. This makes the battery slimmer. Which in turn means it won’t take up too much room in the phone.
3. There is no need to make contacts between phone and battery. Since the battery is directly connected to the circuitry of the phone, it makes the battery more efficient and loss of power is markedly reduced. Also all the problems of the battery making insufficient contact with the leads are eliminated totally.
4. Because the battery is permanently attached to the phone, the enhanced efficiency reduces overheating of phone and battery
5. A non-removeable battery also has the advantage of less damage to the cover and other parts of the phone since the issue of opening the back cover to remove the battery is non-existent.

Those are some of the reasons for the non-removeable battery. As far as I am concerned, most of the advantages are completely spurious. Even if they are real advantages, the difference in performance cannot be so significant that it can be noticeable. One challenge for us is how to get a spare battery if the main battery is defective. Another is that for people who are constantly online, carrying a spare battery is a way of life. With non-removeable batteries, that is now not possible. You just have to manage the power in your phone or join the lottery of buying a power bank.

The PR and marketing departments of the OEMs would never tell us the real reason for non-removeable battery is just plain old greed. They want us to always go out and buy new phones. Once your phone’s non-removeable battery is dead, you have no choice but to go out and buy a new phone. So for people like me who can use a phone for over 4 years, now is the time to dump that life style. We are being forced to buy new phones, at most, two years after buying our latest gadget because of the non-removeable battery.

That means more money for manufacturers. Plain and simple.