Consumers used to expect their phones to be attached to the wall with a wire, the market innovated, now their expectations are different.

… which is exactly what I just said, but you’re apparently dead set on interpreting every bit of information you run into in a way that supports your worldview, which honestly is consistent with your whole argument here.

You presumably have access to the internet, you’re capable of doing 10 minutes of research for yourself to find the numerous phones released in the past 5 years that have easily serviceable batteries. I could not care less if you do so or not. I’ve had this exact conversation half a dozen times, I already know what that list will look like. If you want to know what the list looks like, you can do the work yourself, I don’t care either way.

The s21 ultra has more mAh per cubic mm of phone, which is a more explicit way to say more battery in a smaller size. Regardless of that, the fact that you’re resorting to pedantry shows me that you know that you can’t respond to my point in a meaningful way. I claimed that sealing smartphone internals allows manufacturers to fit larger batteries in smaller form factors, the fact that a phone with a 30% larger battery is 5% bigger than another phone isn’t a refutation if that.

There’s plenty of competition globally, but less so in the US. Regardless, there was a ton of competition when smartphones first started having sealed internals. Interestingly, the two manufacturers that leaned the hardest into sealing the biggest possible battery in the smallest possible footprint are the two manufacturers that currently dominate the market, which is another point against you.

5 years was an arbitrary number highlighting the fact that manufactures are trying to make phones more repairable within the same dimensional constraints, which would not be the case if they had an agenda to force people to upgrade by making phones less repairable. Again, your only response to my argument is pedantry.

And finally, thanks for yet another wildly off-base assumption. I’m a 32 year old SWE who works in mobile app development. I’ve had probably a dozen android phones over the past 15 years. I could enthrall you with anecdotes about how much more durable a modern iPhone is than any flagship android phone that’s been made, but I don’t have to. There are plenty of reasonably high quality drop tests that paint an objective picture.

Smartphones are immeasurably better than they were in the past. They’re faster, have multiple days of battery life, have incredible displays, and vastly better software.

I am certain that you don’t use smartphones in any way that’s more demanding than the way I use smartphones, so you can take that whole condescending monologue and shove it right back where it came from.