Or it demonstrates a lack of competition in the market which allows a handful of big manufacturers, who have similar incentives to cut costs, to make the same decision to cut costs - lots of small reductions lead to a relatively big total increase in margins. In terms of wh.at actually gets marketed to most consumers choice is quite limited
I do have a phone that is about two years old that has a headphone jack.
Replaceable batteries and lack of SD card slots is essential deliberately shortening the life of phones to get people to upgrade sooner.
Batteries are replaceable, just not by you. Do some people replace their phone when the battery sucks? Sure, maybe. But then that phone probably gets refurbished for someone else to buy.
The main use of user replaceable batteries for me was always when my phone only lasted a few hours so I had to swap another one. My Samsung Blackjack with 3G would die in like an hour if I was actively using the 3g connection lol. G1 and HTC Evo also didn't last a whole shift at work.
The market didn’t change instantly, and if we’re to believe there is significant demand one of the many models which did not switch first would have sold better.
> Replaceable batteries and lack of SD card slots is essential deliberately shortening the life of phones to get people to upgrade sooner.
Phone batteries are replaceable, but most people do not want to do it themselves so they go to the mall and pay someone else $50 - it’s still much cheaper than a new phone. The flip side, of course, is that sealed phones are far more durable so instead of the over-simplified narrative about planned obsolescence we have a more nuanced trade off where something adds desirable traits (smaller, cheaper, waterproof, more durable) at the expense of a feature few buyers used. I wouldn’t fault you for being on the other side of that decision but I just don’t think there are that many people who look for that when phone shopping. An iPhone easily lasts 5 years and is probably getting replaced for something like a broken screen, not a battery.
SD cards are similar: yes, the extra storage is nice if you don’t use cloud storage but most people do, and those people avoid the data loss which many SD card users have been hit by and have smaller, more durable phones in exchange. Again, I think both preferences are reasonable but one of them is a niche.
I do have a phone that is about two years old that has a headphone jack.
Replaceable batteries and lack of SD card slots is essential deliberately shortening the life of phones to get people to upgrade sooner.