Your guide to buying a mobile phone with a removable battery

At one point, pretty much every single mobile phone had a removable battery. That was back in the days when Snake was a cutting edge game, and we all got by with text entry on number pads, however.

The emergence and explosive growth of smartphones changed all of that. Apple was the most obvious and early proponent of sealed batteries in phones, with every single Apple iPhone having the battery sealed within.

Makers of Android phones were slower to adopt the trend of sealing in their batteries. If you were a fan of Samsung's Galaxy phones for example, up until the Galaxy S5 all you had to do was pop off the rear cover and you could change out the battery at will.

Newer Galaxy models, and indeed most other Android phones have now switched over to sealed batteries. In some cases that's to enable features such as water resistance, but for the most part, it's simply a matter of making them cheaper to build and less prone to wear and tear from consumers taking the battery in or out.

Why do phone makers produce phones with sealed batteries?

The most prominent reason why manufacturers make sealed battery phones is that it allows them more room to specifically style the phone. When you're making a device that's meant to live comfortably in a pocket or purse, every millimetre counts.

Adding the ability to remove a battery means you've got to have the compartment for it to easily slide in and out, as well as contacts that can handle the friction of thousands of removal cycles. A sealed battery can have contacts fused in place with little fuss and much less overall needed space.

There's also a safety consideration at play here. If you can swap out a battery, you might do so with a third party battery of dubious provenance. That could lead to electrical faults within the phone that could damage it, or in certain cases you. Neither is a desirable situation to be faced with.

I still want a removable battery phone. Do I have any options?

You do have some options if you're dead set keen on having a phone that allows you to swap the battery in and out at will, but it's absolutely at the simplest end of the market. Entry level phones such as the Nokia 8810 4G do still come with a removable and replaceable battery. It's not uncommon in the "feature" phone market to still see removable batteries, but you'd be hard pressed to find a smartphone with one, even if it has a removable and replaceable back plate.

Can I put just any battery in my smartphone?

Aside from the obvious questions of a suitable fit, it's well worthwhile ensuring that if your phone does support a removable battery that your replacement properly matches your exact phone model. This is true whether you're using it to extend daily battery life or as a full scale replacement for an older battery that just won't hold a charge any more.

Ideally you should opt for a genuine replacement battery rather than a third party model. While third party batteries will be cheaper, as a consumer you have no real facility to assess the quality of a third party battery, and may encounter significant issues with warranty repair or replacement, especially if a battery mishap causes actual damage to your phone.

My phone doesn't have a removable battery. What power options do I have?

If you're using a phone that doesn't have a removable battery and you're finding it hard to get through the day without your phone battery conking out, you do have some options open to you.

The simplest and cheapest (where practical) approach is to ensure that you've got a charger with you at all times and can leave your phone on charge when you're not using it.

You could even get fancy if your phone supports wireless charging and leave a wireless charger on your desk or bedside, so that you don't even have to plug it in.

• Read more about alternative charging solutions

  Both of those solutions rely on having an actual power point nearby, however.

  What you can do if you're looking for a more mobile solution is invest in an external battery pack and charging cable. There's plenty of choice in the market, including models with multiple USB sockets, inbuilt wireless charging and of course different capacities.

  The key trick here is to buy a battery pack that will meet your need. Check the battery capacity of your phone, and buy a pack that will at least offer two or more charges to it.

  As an example, an iPhone XS Max comes with a 3,179mAh battery. To charge that fully twice, you'd need at least a 6,358mAh battery pack. You won't find one in that precise capacity, but a 10,000mAh battery pack would handle that task with nearly another full charge again to spare.

  You will need to ensure that you recharge your battery pack on a periodic basis. A battery pack with no power is just a brick you're lugging around in your bag, after all. Likewise, you'll need charging cables suitable for your phone in order to get the precious electrons from your battery pack to your phone.

What if I think my phone battery is faulty?

If your phone simply won't hold a charge like it used to, it's well worth contacting your phone's manufacturer to see if they offer a battery replacement service.

Within a reasonable timeframe this should be a free service under Australian consumer law. There's no specified timeframe for that kind of thing, because goods have to be "fit for purpose" and battery failure should count against that. For any phone older than 12 months you may find that they request payment from you for this kind of service.

• Read more about battery replacements & prices

  As a guideline, Apple provides a one year warranty on the battery component of an iPhone. You can extend this with AppleCare, and if you're still in warranty then the cost of a replacement is nothing at all.

  Outside of warranty or AppleCare coverage, at the time of writing, Apple Australia charges $105 for a battery replacement on a iPhone X, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max or iPhone XR, and $75 for iPhone SE, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and all other eligible models.

  You don't have to opt for official battery replacements from Apple (or other phone manufacturers) if you have battery life concerns. There are numerous outlets offering battery replacement services for popular phone models, often at price points well below the official first party battery services.

  However, there's a risk here in terms of other warranty repairs, as having a third party battery placed in your phone may make it more difficult to get other repairs, in or out of warranty performed on your phone if something else goes wrong.

  It's also worth making a full backup of your phone prior to handing it over to anyone for battery repair.

  That ensures that you have copies of all your photos and other precious documents if something does go wrong with your phone's memory while it's being repaired. It also means that your private documents stay private, because once you've got your careful copies you can wipe the phone before handing it in for battery repair. That way, nobody can go snooping on your phone without you knowing.

  In Apple's case, it's not entirely unknown for it to offer a different refurbished model in some cases instead of a battery replacement, so backing up your iPhone is especially wise.

Check out our review of the nostalgia-laden Nokia 8810 4G - complete with removable battery!

Alex Kidman

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Alex Kidman is the tech and telco editor at Finder. He's been a technology writer with experience spanning more than 20 years, writing and editing at Gizmodo, CNET, PC Magazine, Kotaku and many more. Alex has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of New England and a serious passion for retro gaming.