Samsung is bringing back removable batteries!

[Xist]

They announced a rugged phone with a removable battery for $500. The author makes clear that this is a mid-range phone, but that would still be better than my Samsung Galaxy S6, right? Of course it features things that I will never use, but I am sure my current phone does.

I bought a second S6 because I could not replace the battery in mine. I bought an LG with a removable battery, but it does not have a fingerprint scanner. I do not know how many of us replace phones every two years, which seems pretty common.

I do not feel that I am getting my money's worth unless I use a phone for five years.

Aww man, still no headphone jack, right? I am out!

Meanwhile, Apple is offering 20% less for trade-ins, and there will be an all-electric Hummer, but at least I did not receive an announcement that the friendly neighborhood nuclear power plant had an incident.

Sources:
Samsung’s removable-battery smartphone is coming to the US for $499
Apple Issues Expensive Shock For Millions Of iPhone Users
GM to Revive Hummer Name on New Electric Pickup Model
Canadians got an emergency alert about a nuclear power plant incident. It was sent in error, the plant says

[Vman455]

Ha, I'm still rocking an S5, going on six years now. If I can replace it with a new phone with a removable battery that might persuade me to finally upgrade.

[Xist]

Did your phone come with Peele Remote? It kind of seemed useful, but I rarely watch television. However, I started getting random popups a couple of times a day and I found a bunch of posts from people that decided that it was Peele, removed it, and the popups went away.

[RedDevil]

My Moto G5 was dirt cheap 2½ years ago, has a finger scanner and a dual sim slot (which I don't use), a jack output (idem: I use noise cancelling Sony's on Bluetooth).
It is just that 16 GB of internal storage is meager. My 64 GB SD card is mostly empty as apps all store on internal and I don't want to mess too much with the OS.

The battery went balloon a month ago; forced the back cover right off.
The replacement battery has more capacity than OEM and came to my home for less than 20€.

[Xist]

I once looked at the Moto, but I think that I determined another S6 had a faster processor than the latest Moto at the time.

Are there upgraded batteries available? When I bought the LG I bought a 6,500 mAh battery, cover, and case for $10.

When I took my old phone to the only repairman I found in the area, he asked how I removed the screen without cracking it. He said that he refused to work on them because he couldn't do that.

The battery ballooned when I heated the phone.

[Vman455]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

My Moto G5 was dirt cheap 2½ years ago, has a finger scanner and a dual sim slot (which I don't use), a jack output (idem: I use noise cancelling Sony's on Bluetooth).
It is just that 16 GB of internal storage is meager. My 64 GB SD card is mostly empty as apps all store on internal and I don't want to mess too much with the OS.

The battery went balloon a month ago; forced the back cover right off.
The replacement battery has more capacity than OEM and came to my home for less than 20€.

Same story with my S5--16 GB internal storage, and I've moved as many apps to the SD card as will let me, but it's still almost full. Of course, every time an app updates it moves itself back to internal storage, so I have to go through periodically and move them back.

This phone is reeeeeally slow now; if I remember correctly, the OS has updated twice since I bought it.

[Vman455]

Originally Posted by Xist

Did your phone come with Peele Remote? It kind of seemed useful, but I rarely watch television. However, I started getting random popups a couple of times a day and I found a bunch of posts from people that decided that it was Peele, removed it, and the popups went away.

Peel Smart Remote, yep--it's on there, and the phone won't let me uninstall it. So it's disabled.

[Xist]

It is fun when it gives you the option to uninstall an app and when it is finished it says "We rolled back the app to the original version!"

That isn't what it said it would do!

You also need to disable automatic updates.

I hear rumors of people that managed to delete undeletable apps and their phone stopped working [right].

I hear good things about unlocking phones.

[redpoint5]

I buy my wife a new (used) phone every 2 years for about $100. Not too shabby to have a 1-2 generation old flagship.

I've been getting about 3 years out of my work issued iPhones before the battery degrades to the point of becoming a hassle. They allow me to upgrade every 2 years, but I don't get excited about new phones and I want to postpone the hassle of migrating everything (and losing the stuff that doesn't migrate).

[Ecky]

Last time I bought a refurbished phone (2 year old Pixel) the battery was shot out of the box, and I returned it.

A year later, my brother bought and returned 3 of them before buying a new Moto G7, because the batteries were all shot in these phones.

Some years back I had a Galaxy S2. When the battery started to go, I bought a new one. It must have sat on the shelf for a while because it wasn't any better than the one in the phone. I figure they're all made around the same time, and I doubt anyone keeps making batteries for phones much longer than they're in production.

Moral of the story: I don't know. Perhaps it's that there's a certain amount of planned obsolescence and a certain amount of obsolescence through neglect with phones, and I haven't yet found a way to come out ahead other than to not use one. I need to use mine extensively for work however, so I have a new phone.