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That's not at all what I think of when I hear the words 'replaceable battery'. Too bad.
by exoque 5y ago
That's not at all what I think of when I hear the words 'replaceable battery'. Too bad.
- ct0 5y agoAbout as replaceable as a tesla's battery. You simply cant do it yourself. Seems like a trend.
- Ductapemaster 5y agoThis is dismissive and incorrect. iFixIt, the authors of this piece, provide everything someone needs to do such a replacement: tools, parts, and in-depth user guides. I've replaced an older-generation MacBook's battery using their stuff, and it worked fine. What more do you want?
- asdff 5y agoThe vast majority of people are not comfortable opening their computer and mucking around the guts. In the old days Apple made this simple for their users: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Unibody+Model+A1278+Battery+Replacement/754 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Unibody+Model+A1278+Bat...
- thirdsun 5y ago> The vast majority of people are not comfortable opening their computer and mucking around the guts. That's why Apple offers to do it for them. Sure, completely user-replacable would be ideal but such a battery design surely comes with other trade-offs and compromises.
- smoldesu 5y agoApple used to have some of the best-engineered batteries, now they don't. Simple as.
- ct0 5y agoComing from a x220, x230 thinkpad, removing anything at all or needing to use a screwdriver at all is way above what most are capable of doing. Obviously what I am willing to do to fix my spouses iphone, and what the average person is willing to do to self - replace are very different.
- Brendinooo 5y agoI had a 2007 MacBook Pro. Replacing the battery for that laptop meant toggling two switches and popping it out, then dropping a new one in. It's not unreasonable for people to ask for that level of simplicity.
- GordonS 5y agoIt's similar for most older laptops too. I have a few older HP laptops, and on every one the battery just slides out if you pull it hard enough - no screws at all.
- lamontcg 5y agoYeah there's still a long way to go to get back to where we used to be.
- sbuk 5y agoWhat is the use case? Modern batteries hold their charge for a long time. In a review I saw today, the reviewer - a professional photographer and filmmaker no less - said that he managed to shoot edit and export a video on a single charge[0]. The need to swap out batteries with these device has all but disappeared, save for permanent replacement. [0]https://youtu.be/I10WMJV96ns?t=643 https://youtu.be/I10WMJV96ns?t=643
- Nition 5y agoJust noting an alternative use case: When I used to take my laptop (a Dell XPS M1530, later a Dell Studio XPS 13) on my walk between home and university, I'd take it without the battery in as that made it much lighter. There were power points where I was going anyway.
- lamontcg 5y agoThe use case is the ability to easily replace/upgrade the batteries, RAM and drives by the end consumer without requiring any specialized tools or procedures barring removing some screws. This is what we used to have with laptops 10+ years ago. Swapping batteries due to charge issues was never particularly important to the majority of consumers and is a red herring.
- Kluny 5y agoI don't get it - the battery isn't glued in, and you can remove it without damaging other parts. Isn't that pretty good?
- asdff 5y agoIt's still an entire procedure. You have to remove the trackpad to access all the cells. Most users aren't going to be confident doing that to their $2000 laptop, they will continue doing what they do with glued in batteries today which is hand it off to a technician and playing the flat rate apple repair fee. Pretty good was the first unibody macbook (open latch with one finger, remove door with two fingers, remove battery with two fingers, done): https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Unibody+Model+A1278+Battery+Replacement/754 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Unibody+Model+A1278+Bat...
- atoav 5y agoI can flip my notebook over, pop the battery out and put a new one in within 5 seconds. That is replacable. I also replaced a macbook battery once, with a hot air resoldering station (to soften the adhesive) and a metal bucket filled with sand nearby in case it catches fire (the battery was balooning and bending the aluminium frame out of shape). The whole thing took nearly an hour. Ultimately it was also replaceable, but this was needlessly painful.
- Rebelgecko 5y agoWhen I hear "replaceable battery", it makes me think of the days when packing a spare battery was a viable alternative to bringing a laptop charger with you (I don't think any MBPs were like this, but Powerbooks were). It's funny how the Overton window has shifted. This procedure looks doable and relatively low risk for technical people, but it's not something that my mom can do while sitting at a Starbucks
- klelatti 5y agoThe first gen MBP (which was basically a PowerBook with Intel) had this. I remember pondering whether to buy one.
- 5y ago