Phone that uses bare cylindrical li-ion cells.

[EnthalpiousKitten]

So my idea of a perfect smartphone battery solution would be making thicker phones (I know phone thickness is a trigger for some, sorry about that haha) that can accept bare cylindrical li-ion cells. There's plenty of other stuff (flashlights, specialist electronics, e-cigs, etc...) that takes these as if they are any other battery, so I was thinking why not make a phone that takes these? I think the only issue would be the CPSC likely not being happy about something like this and claiming it's "too dangerous", but I doubt anyone who is a big enough power user to want this type of a phone is probably like me aware of the simple concept of battery safety (I've never had issue and I have tons of devices that use bare cells since I got sick of glued-in non removable li-po batteries wearing down in some heavily used equipment after only a few months). If you keep battery safety in check, you can have a small plastic safety case of 18650s (or whatever cell ends up being viable for phones since 18650s are huge) with you and just be able to get an instantly full battery when the previous one runs down. Another advantage would be that the phone can remain usable for virtually as long as the hardware inside lasts, as you don't have to worry about proprietary batteries that go out of production after a while.

Thoughts?

I dream of the day when I can just stick in a spare fully charged Samsung INR18650-30Q into a phone and have another charging, no need to wait for non-removable batteries to charge or spending a gazillion dollars on overpriced proprietary spares.

 

[mustang7757]

Hi, welcome to AC !

That stuff I leave up to manufacture to decide what's safe , they have Engineering team and resources for that .

 

[mustang7757]

Ahh , I remember you now... milleniumdroid , welcome back !

 

[belodion]

I too like the idea of somewhat thicker phones, but it would have two serious disadvantages. It would make it possible to fit a larger battery, with improved battery life; and the greater depth would allow a longer focal-length camera lens and larger sensor, improving image quality.
Somehow, since it’s not done, these MUST be disadvantages, but the manufacturers do not tell us how.

 

[Jeremy8000]

I too like the idea of somewhat thicker phones, but it would have two serious disadvantages. It would make it possible to fit a larger battery, with improved battery life; and the greater depth would allow a longer focal-length camera lens and larger sensor, improving image quality.
Somehow, since it’s not done, these MUST be disadvantages, but the manufacturers do not tell us how.

An 18650 cylindrical battery peaks out at about 3600mAH if I recall correctly, which would be on the low side for any flagship - or even midrange - phone these days, and the '18' stands for 18mm. So you'd be looking at a phone over twice as thick as those to which we're accustomed, with lesser capacity, and the only benefit being that it's easier to swap out.

Just doesn't seem to make sense. I'd much rather have them return to the 'old days' where you could swap out the (proprietary) rectangular slab battery, as that allows for higher capacity while retaining a slimmer profile. In either case, you're getting into the issue of having difficulty retaining water resistance.

 

[BergerKing]

Weird, I recently bought a NOS Samsung battery for my Note 9 for under $7, and a new glass back with preapplied adhesive for a whopping $12. Wasn't all that hard to replace, really.

The issue with drop - in batteries is making them smart, to work with the phone's charging system and battery management software. Ever notice it's hard to make a phone work without a battery in it, even on the charger? There's a reason for that.