Everything with a battery needs to have a replacable battery by 2027.
electric cars, phones, wireless mice, headphones etc etc etc
Some need to be “user replacable”
some needs to be replacable by a professional (electric car batteries, for example)
I have a 2012 asus s46c laptop. Replacing its battery is as easy as sliding a nitendo switch joycon into/out of the console. Other laptops from around that time have similarly easy to remove batteries. There’s no lack of know-how and I doubt making it easily replaceable is “more expensive” during production. Any company that solders or glues them must do it out of pure spite against the customers.
I learned to crack open my laptop shell and replace the battery, which saved me 30 bucks when capacity was dead and I was getting a spicy pillow in the works.
My model had an easily searchable servicing guide, and I’d followed it to replace the thermal paste as well. That being said, I am looking for a future replacement as it no longer runs some indie games I have and there’s no way to upgrade its internals to newer standards. My dear laptop is future e-waste, as it pains me to say.
This industry needs to go back to focus on repairability. It would push for more sustainable part and product designs, which has become a big factor in purchase consideration lately.
Framework is doing some very cool stuff if you haven’t heard of them! Their upcoming 16 inch laptop will support modular, upgradeable graphics cards.
