There are several factors driving the smartphone industry. Cell providers are the benefactor of these, and are thus driving much of that for their own self-interest. Cell phone manufacturers themselves have reasons very similar to the providers, and while the reasons behind these decisions are usually covered or justified by new features, the result is largely the same.
The Samsung Note 8 and Apple iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X are all phones just recently announced. Each of these phones are nearly a thousand dollar or are more. Considering that a full fledged quite powerful laptop can also be bought with the same amount of money we are no longer talking about smartphones as toys or pure trendy items. These are extremely expensive devices with a built in expiration date.
Sealed batteries (non-user replaceable batteries) are the standard today. The only phones offering user-replaceable batteries are no longer part of the flagship device lineup. Old stalwarts of this feature have also given up on it. (LG V30 and G6 for example, Samsung phones after the series 6 lineup)
Why is this a problem? Considering the prohibitive cost of these new flagship phones a built in failure is just unacceptable for so many standpoints. When a battery starts to wear out people will notice. As it gets more pronounced a new phone in that series will be getting announced, and instead of just being able to replace the battery and continue to use your perfectly fine and capable phone, it is unnecessarily chucked, at great expense to the customer, and a new phone is bought with the same built in failure.
There are solutions. You can DIY it, and open your phone with a heat gun and some tender care, ensuring not to damage your phone or overheat the components. You can take it somewhere and have some else do the very same thing for you (usually with no real guarantee that they wont also damage your phone.) You can also send it sometimes to the manufacturer and have them replace the battery. All things most people don't want to do. The risk of breaking something is usually just too high. The thought of sending off what is filled with most people's personal things (pictures, conversations, files, and information), off to some random repair place is equally just as unappealing.
And so the ridiculous update cycle brought on by the manufacturers is perpetuated and money is continually thrown away. Payment plans and contracts help to conceal this fact within the states, and sadly this method ends up costing the customer more than if they just bought the phone outright.
The bottom line is that no one buys a laptop for a grand and plans to buy a new one in just a year because the battery sucks. No one accepts that. Our phones now cost more than a laptop, and we shouldn't be accepting it either.
For the record the following phones have user-replaceable batteries:
LG G5, LG V20, Moto G5, and the Samsung Galaxy Note 4. There are a few others but these are the ones that are actually worth still buying today.
-Matt-Fu
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