The Sealed Battery – This is the Future?

You may have heard that Apple’s iPad battery replacement policy is actually a unit replacement. Being that the iPad has a sealed battery you cannot replace yourself, what this means is that if you buy an iPad and the battery no longer holds a charge within the warranty period, you bring the unit to an Apple store, they transfer all your data/apps/etc. from your dead-battery iPad to a refurbished one, and off you go.

The first question that raises an eyebrow for most people when they hear of this is, “Wait a second.. a refurb?” Yes, refurb. The replacement unit you get most likely won’t be a new one. Remember that Apple is certainly not the only company that does this, even for traditional units with a removable battery.

(Incidentally, this is why I urge people not to bother buying new in the first place when it comes to electronic gadgets like this. If the refurb has the same warranty period as new, looks like new, works like new, and you’re going to be receiving a replacement refurb under warranty if it busts anyway, what’s the point of buying new? This is a disposable electronic gadget and not a collector’s item, after all. But I digress.)

I’m personally not against sealed-battery gadgets. But once the unit’s battery is dead and out of the warranty period, you’re forced to tether it, cough up a sizable amount of cash to repair it, or throw it out.

Tethering it: With a dead battery you’re required to power it from somewhere, be it your car’s cigarette lighter, USB or “wall wart” power adapter from in the home.

Coughing up cash to fix it: With the iPad there’s no repair policy. It’s replace-only, so this isn’t even an option.

Throw it out: I said before that the iPad is the most expensive disposable electronic gadget there is. The iPad a $500 throwaway device.

Are sealed battery units nothing but a bunch of money pits in the making?

This greatly depends on what type of device it is.

Smartphones that have sealed batteries are actually OK given the fact most people who use them get a new phone every two to three years. During this entire span of time your phone is under warranty and can be replaced free of charge if it busts, so no harm, no foul. In addition, you get a fat discount for a new phone each time you re-up your wireless plan, and in many instances the new phone is free.

Almost all PNDs (personal navigation devices), i.e. GPSes, have sealed batteries. If the battery dies in one of those, you’re fine because you can still tether it to the cigarette lighter for power and the unit is still usable.

As for Apple’s iPad.. is it a money pit? More on that in a moment.

What about the Kindle?

Amazon’s 1st-gen Kindle can have its battery replaced – by you. You replace it similar to how you would in a cell phone. The battery is a small thin block with a wired port. Very simple and easy to pop in and out.

Is the iPad a money pit?

I’ll say this very bluntly – yes it is.

Why?

It can be summed up by answering a simple question: What convenience does a sealed battery in an iPad give you?

Answer: None at all.

If you buy an iPad and after a period of time when the warranty runs out and the battery dies, what then? Are you going to deal with the inconvenience of having it tethered to a power source? Before you say, “Yes! I would!”, bear in mind the power connector is at the bottom of the unit, meaning you’d have a power port poking out and sticking your stomach or leg every time you sit down with it.

Your only choice is to buy another iPad just to have a battery that works.. that is until that one dies and you’ll have to buy another. And another. And another. That’s more or less the definition of a money pit.

Does this mean all sealed-battery units are bad?

No, because it’s all about how they’re applied. In smartphones, they’re fine. In PNDs, also fine. In an iPod Touch – yes, it’s fine.

But in an iPad? It’s just plain wrong – for now. When the iPad drops in price from $500 to $200, that’s an acceptable (albeit barely) price to pay for a throwaway electronic gadget.

Do you agree or disagree? Let us know by posting a comment or two.

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archer9234
Don’t agree. I don’t want a sealed battery on any device.
David M
Apple seems to get most everything else right. Why can’t they get the battery design right in their portable devices? The only thing I can figure is they can make more money at our inconvenience. Its certainly not a convenience thing, not for the consumer.
We can only hope that someone makes a kit so we can pop it open and replace the battery for ourselves. Why can’t Apple make it this simple for us?
David Kennedy
Despise the sealed battery. IMHO, all batteries should be user replaceable and available via general retailers (i.e., you shouldn’t have to order a replacement battery from the manufacturer).
Sad as it is to say, though, I think Apple IS assuming the iPad is disposable, in that, in 2-3 years, they’ll have a newer device out. They assume everyone who has an iPad will just pay another $500 (or whatever) to have the latest/greatest on or before their battery runs out.
David M
Europe has law that reqires all cell phone chargers to be universal.
Could our legislators write law that requires all consumer devices with batteries to be able to be changed out by the consumer?
If companies like Apple think their devices battery compartments to be waterproof, then I will be the first to call BS. I have seen plenty of battery compartments that are water tight that use gaskets to seal out the water and a simple Phillips head screw to remove the cover.
john
So much for Apple thinking of the environment! They have a big page about their Environmental responsibilities…yah right!
Kidd
David M- I remember hearing about a non-government agency that was pushing for standardized cell phone chargers here in the next couple years. I don’t remember where I heard this, but we can hope. (maybe it was a news article in the PCMECH weekly newsletter)
As for the replaceable battery issue- I condition all of my devices as much as possible. I charge them all the way as soon as the box is opened. I drain them all the way before charging them again. And from there on out, I try to maintain that pattern of full-charge-full-discharge (again, as much as possible), and batteries last A LOT longer than the average consumer believes.
Is $200 or $500 too much for a throwaway gadget? It depends on relevance – is the iPad still going to be the latest and greatest in 2-3 years? It also depends on how long that battery lasts. If it’s like the battery on my fiance’s Acer notebook that only held a 2 hour charge new and quickly went down to 20 minutes per charge, then $75 is too much. If it’s like my iPod Nano, that I’ve had for 2 years, still holds a great charge, and will probably last 2-3 more, then who cares?
More on David K’s point- If you are that guy who will buy a gadget BRAND NEW and pay double what it would cost in a year on Amazon, then you shouldn’t care if you have to replace it in 5 years. By then, it will have been outdated so long that you’ve (probably) already purchased an Ipod-pad-pizzle-video-camcorder-9th-generation MP6 player.
Personally, I prefer non-removable battery cells, because I’ve had good experiences with my Game Boy Advance, several iPods, and multiple GPS units. Replacing coppertops in toys gets expensive quick, and rechargeables have to be swapped out quite often. What we really need is a better battery. Comparatively, the technology in batteries hasn’t advanced much in the last 50 years.
http://www.bloglines.com/blog/700r4transmission 700R4 Transmission
I wanna find more info about this, anybody could?