Why can’t you change the battery in your phone?

TOPICS:

You might be thinking, as we get closer to the holidays, that it’s time for a new phone. There are a lot of excellent options. If you’re an iOS user, the iPhone 12 is being held up as the best design in years. Its clean sharp edges house a modern phone with tons of raw power, 5G speed, and great battery life.

All that’s great, of course, until that great battery life turns to “meh” battery life and then to “poor” battery life. It’s then that you realize that changing the battery on a modern phone is a true challenge.

It “can” be done

It’s not fair to say that you can’t… but they don’t make it easy. Most smartphone manufacturers either glue their batteries in or hide them under layers of electronics. See the large black rectangle in the picture? That’s the battery in an iPhone. It can be changed out, if you have the hands of a surgeon and a really clean environment.

This would seem like a step back from the days when you could simply pop out a battery and pop another one in with no trouble. The thing is, people today don’t really want to replace a battery, they want a new phone. This makes all of us seem like spoiled brats, but phones really do get better every year and it seems like having an older one just isn’t worth it especially with the deals you can get from most carriers.

Why is it so hard?

By sealing batteries into the phone, the manufacturers eliminate layers of plastic and contact clips that would just add unnecessary weight to the phone. Sure, you used to be able to pop the battery out, but most phones were either terminally “dumb” by today’s standards or incredibly huge and heavy (or both.) Today people want phones that are thin and light. We are at the point that a ten-gram difference in the new iPhones looks like at as a major problem. It doesn’t seem to matter that the new phones have massive improvements.

Today’s batteries don’t have outer casings or connection clips, they’re just plastic bags of goo with incredibly thin wires attached. They are ridiculously delicate and would never stand up to the rigors of average people trying to change them.

And we’re ok with that

People today do tend to hold onto phones for a little longer than they did seven or so years ago. Carriers rarely give away really good phones and the phone you want is generally going to cost you between $600 and $1,000. So, if you’re the sort who wants a new phone, you’ll often pass yours to a friend or family member where it can live on. There are places out there which do battery replacements, so no one has to live with an old battery. It’s still more difficult than it used to be, but it seems like we can all live with it.

When you’re ready to upgrade to the latest and greatest phone, why go out? Call the experts at Signal Connect and we can help you upgrade easily and quickly, right at home! The number is 888-233-7563.

About the Author

Stuart Sweet
Stuart Sweet is the editor-in-chief of The Solid Signal Blog and a "master plumber" at Signal Group, LLC. He is the author of over 10,000 articles and longform tutorials including many posted here. Reach him by clicking on "Contact the Editor" at the bottom of this page.