Smart phones

The battery shouldn't make it slow down unless it gets low and/or there is a power saving mode. The main issue is the battery capacity gets lower after a few hundred charges which reduces the usable time.

Phones used to have separate batteries so people could buy spares. But the cost was high, so people bought cheap 3rd party ones. The problem was some missed safety circuitry and were dangerous. There were fires. It could harm the manufacturer image and caused problems and legal issues.

Putting chips in the batteries to make it so only official ones worked also is a problem as 3rd parties can copy this too. Same as for copying the holographic stickers.

The only way to make them safe is to stop people changing the battery. It also allows for slimmer designs and nicer more solid devices.

Stuart333 said:

The only way to make them safe is to stop people changing the battery. It also allows for slimmer designs and nicer more solid devices.

Or the government could ban 3rd party batteries and make manufacturers price cap theirs.

The drive to integrate the batteries was to accellerate the planned obsolescence and make you buy a new phone because the cost to replace component was prohibitive.

How else can the likes of Apple produce a new model each year and still sell loads when it is just a little bit better than last years offering? It is all greed driven.

Not entirely. Most users of more expensive phones used to change them before the battery was dead.

You can change the battery in your smartphone if you want to. You can change the battery on your laptop as well, although I don't know how many people actually do.

Manufacturers introduce new phones because it's a competitive landscape and they want people to upgrade. People skip iterations. Same as car manufacturers, and all other consumer goods companies.

You don't have to buy Apple. If people hadn't gone along with it they wouldn't do it 

You can't price cap batteries, it's market interference.  You can try banning batteries that don't meet safety standards but grey imports, dodgy people on the internet, eBay, guy down the market, direct sales from China etc. are impossible to stop.

You're not allowed to sell stuff that is not compliant or CE marked now, but loads of stuff that is not compliant is on sale. In fact more than half of all consumer electrical goods are in some way deficient, even if just in paperwork.

Stuart333 said:

Open systems are better value

I've also found Android quality inferior and they are more prone to allowing dodgy apps onto the apps store, but I am looking to upgrade my old iPhone XS (I have 3 - don't ask why) and the Samsung A56 which a friend recently got and seems fairly cheap and robust.

I do all my own laptop, phone and tablet repairs just to keep my hand in tech wise since retiring but the manufactures are making this more and more difficult.

There is a clear drive to make phones a non-repairable option if they can do it, just replacing the devices and generating more sales. My last job had our supplier just do a replacement of device policy if there was an issue as they found repairs uneconomic and used insurance to cushion the cost for them.

Stuart333 said:

Open systems are better value

I've also found Android quality inferior and they are more prone to allowing dodgy apps onto the apps store, but I am looking to upgrade my old iPhone XS (I have 3 - don't ask why) and the Samsung A56 which a friend recently got and seems fairly cheap and robust.

I do all my own laptop, phone and tablet repairs just to keep my hand in tech wise since retiring but the manufactures are making this more and more difficult.

There is a clear drive to make phones a non-repairable option if they can do it, just replacing the devices and generating more sales. My last job had our supplier just do a replacement of device policy if there was an issue as they found repairs uneconomic and used insurance to cushion the cost for them.