[Jeffhs]

I can't believe smartphones are being made these days with batteries not meant to be replaced. It doesn't make sense to me. What is this world coming to? You use a smartphone for a given length of time until the battery will no longer take a charge, then you go out and buy a new phone, even if the phone itself is still working perfectly well. I have a Safelink phone, only about one or two years old, which seems to be working well for now, but I am not looking forward to junking it when the rechargeable battery refuses to take or hold a charge. My own Safelink phone is sealed shut, with no way to get to the battery without potentially ruining the phone; Safelink wants it that way, so people will buy a new phone when the battery dies.

Good night! What are the makers of these phones thinking, anyway? Many if not most people with smartphones have important, even sensitive, information stored on those phones (phone numbers, account numbers, etc.) which cannot be left on the phone when the device gives up the ghost and is given to someone else. The obvious solution would be to transfer important information from the old phone to the new one, and completely wipe everything from the former, but some people don't like that idea; I am one of them. That is, I can and will do it if need be, but I would rather not if I can avoid it. As long as my phone still works, I will keep it and use it (Safelink's policy is you don't use your phone at least once a month, the company can and will terminate your service), but I don't want to go to the trouble of transferring everything I have on my phone to a new one, again if I can avoid it.

I admit smartphones are becoming almost dirt-cheap these days, but to have to replace the phone simply because the battery goes dead makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I admit we are living in a throwaway society (witness flat-screen televisions, which are not meant to be repaired after the warranty expires), but good grief already! To have to do the same thing with smartphones when they are damaged or otherwise fail (including dead batteries), . . . sheeeeesh.


Replacing a perfectly good, working phone just because the battery will no longer take/hold a charge is, IMHO, flat-out ridiculous. It may make money hand over fist for the makers of these phones (not to mention rechargeable phone batteries), but that still doesn't make any sense for the end user.