Samsung's Exploding Galaxy Phone

[easysurfer]

Reading about Samsung's troubles with the "ut oh, exploding phone" due to bad li-ion batteres (can anyone say "Hoverboard"?). Here's a novel idea...How about an engineer design a smartphone where the battery can easily be taken out and replaced .

Samsung's combustible Galaxy Note 7 problem just got worse.Shares of the electronics giant dropped 7% as the week started— wiping out $14.3 billion in market value and extending a slide that has taken shares down 10% this month — as reports of damage from exploding batteries in the smartphone circulated, prompting Samsung officials to urge Note 7 users to turn off their devices and return them.

Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 problems are getting worse

 

[Sunset]

Mine has a replaceable battery, I've never had one that didn't.
But only had Android and Window's phones.

I never had an iphone, but I read you cannot replace those batteries easily.

Is it really the battery or the charging circuitry ?

 

[Bamaman]

I broke the chain and cut off cell service. My wife has a Tracphone if I'm with her and someone needs us.

I feel like a bird llet out of a cage.

 

[Sunset]

I pay less than $100 /yr for my cell service, and trying to convince DW to cut the land line we barely use.

 

[Ian S]

The infatuation with an annual revision for smartphones reminds me of the old annual redesign of American cars. One year tailfins were in, the next year they were out. My couple of year old Galaxy S5 is still an excellent phone and has a removable battery, microSD card and still is water-resistant. Its OS has been upgraded several time. I see no need to upgrade any time soon and then will get a one year old model. No sense in being a guinea pig!

 

[RioIndy]

Amen for user replaceable batteries! Though of course big companies don't want to continue to provide this feature as they want people to need to continuously buy new phones every 1-2 years. I put a lot of weight on user replaceable batteries when shopping for a phone and they do still exist!

 

[mh]

Just as a data point , I get a new iPhone about every 3 or 4 years - I use my phone so much that it's worth it to get the improved camera , wifi speed , etc that a new phone will provide. I've had no reason to ever replace my battery. Is it really that common of an occurrence to want to replace the battery oneself ?


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[Jack_Pine]

After 2 or 3 years my batteries lose staying power. I want one I can replace as I choose to.

 

[Ian S]

Just as a data point , I get a new iPhone about every 3 or 4 years - I use my phone so much that it's worth it to get the improved camera , wifi speed , etc that a new phone will provide. I've had no reason to ever replace my battery. Is it really that common of an occurrence to want to replace the battery oneself ?


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

For me it's handy to have a spare battery fully charged when I'm going somewhere where I might not easily be able to recharge. It takes seconds to pop the back off my S5, and replace the battery with the fully charged one. Yes, I could carry around one of those ubiquitous Lion battery packs but they are 10 times the size and require tethering to your phone. I actually wind up changing out batteries every few weeks. It has the added benefit of reducing the wear and tear on each battery by a factor of two. The spare battery came with its own very neat and compact battery case/charger.

 

[Sunset]

I never have replaced my phone battery with a new one, but just as I was thinking about doing it, a lumina phone came on sale for $30 (no contract, that's the total price).
So I bought one for each of us, then when Win10 came out, we upgraded the OS from 8.1

So for me, the upgrade ability of the battery has been a comfort issue rather than a necessity.

 

[tulak]

I prefer having a smaller device than carrying an extra battery. Charging to 80% nowadays is pretty quick or in a jam, I can grab a battery pack to recharge. Not a big deal.

 

[Christine]

I finally had some luck! Almost got one but opted for the slightly older and therefore cheaper Nexus 6P.

No idea if the battery is user replacable. I thought they all were...

 

[NanoSour]

I was a power smartphone user before ER. When the iPhone first came out, I had a work Blackberry on one hip and my iPhone on the other. Kinda funny looking back on it.

However, since retiring, I find I barely use the functionality of my iPhone 4 purchased over 6 years ago. I only use 3 apps on the phone; Runkeeper to track my runs, Vonage app for free calls when on wifi, and the Consumer Cellular app to track minutes/data. I never have battery issues as I barely use any data (I'm on the 200 mb plan with Consumer Cellular) and the phone is always near a charger. Halfway thru this billing cycle and I've used 19 mb of data.

I do remember the days when I use to trade the market on my iPhone. That would chew my battery life up real good. I'm glad those days are over.