The downside to this is that user-replaceable batteries often mean bigger device size and weight because the components that make the batteries replaceable add to the device size.

I prefer cell phones to have replaceable batteries. But, the notion that it's appropriate for government to tell businesses how parts can be installed in the products they make is absolutely ridiculous. This kind of ruling raises prices to consumers, reduces choice, and is just antithetical to modern ideals of free markets.

Pro-consumer stuff like this that makes life easier was the kind of "over-regulation of the free market" that the British escaped the EU from 😂

Choice for businesses is not the same as choice for consumers. Game theory makes it so that many free market situations actually lead to less choice and less freedom for individual people.
What choice did people have if all the companies switched to non-replaceable batteries anyway?

After this there will be more choices for more people.

Glad to see the EU doing something actually useful and helpful for the common folk.

I was always happy with the performance of my Sony Xperia Z5 compact from December 2015 - September 2021, then the battery has swollen and killed the inside of the phone. Otherwise I'll probably still use it.

Loved the small form factor, but I got used to those huge phone sizes of today surprisingly fast.

1000 cycles doesn't seem much tbh. I've had my phone (Samsung Note 8) for almost 6 years. The first three were great then the last three the phone needs to be charge 3 to 5 times a day. Last two years I get the battery degradation warnings but just ignore them lol

When you use them for work a lot they drain quick. Even laptops are annoying with the way they lock now. IN the old days the battery would pop out. They can't tell us that the new design of one cover that is hard to take off some models is a much better solution.

Glad they also insisted on the "not using propriety tools and methods" part because it's kind of obvious the Apple way of things would have made them sell you some kind special screwdriver at the modicum price of 199$ to just to replace.

Though I did not understand if there were legislatures in place for the use of propriety batteries to their own brand cuz I can see them selling them a crazy price too to dether most of the thoughts of ever changing their crappy batteries

1000 cycles when fully charging once per day is almost 3 years. Considering how weak your battery got after that point, it's pretty clear it was already below 80% at that time already and got weaker quickly after that point.

I think the biggest problems to the law however is not the batteries shelf life, but

1. Older phones still getting updates, especially cheaper ones. What good is a 5 year old phone with good, replaceable battery if the OS is EOL, not getting critical updates anymore and security has more holes than swiss cheese?
2. Phone provider plans with "free" phone upgrades every 1-2 years. Since most of the general population doesn't know all that much about smartphones (as a rather extreme example, an elderly client at our company needed a cellphone just for calls and SMS, and they sold her an iPhone 13 Pro for 1€ plus a fat subscription she'll never need and 2-year repayment plan for the phone itself) and are happy to get the newest phones for "free", not many phones will actually get older than 2 years anyway.

In other words, it's great for people who want to keep their hardware longer, but it will not move the needle all that much in terms of battery e-waste. It should result in all batteries lasting longer before they become useless however and it will certainly benefit all right-to-repair movements, so there's at least that already.

I've only had battery problems with replaceable batteries... PSP, Wii mote / 360 battery packs, laptop batteries, camera batteries, and all the rechargeable AA batteries. (Big mess that turned into over the years, no clue which ones are still good, mix and match) Everything with a build in battery still works.

However this does make it a lot easier to dispose of them correctly. No more having to break open bad controllers to get the battery out before throwing them in the trash. And maybe Nintendo will be forced to stop using triangle screws? Or is that a standard in Japan?