Laptops, especially in the wake of the pandemic, have grown a lot in popularity. They take up little space, they are becoming more powerful and you can transport them without major problems. Although, making it lighter and more compact has meant increasing the obsolescence of laptops hiding the battery within the same chassis.
Without realizing it, laptop manufacturers have integrated batteries into the chassis itself. 5-6 years ago the normal thing is that the battery could be removed, being located in the back of the laptop. This made it easy to change it, there being many spare parts on the net. Integrating it inside makes it more difficult to replace, in most cases.
This is how they look for you to change your laptop and not repair it
As I was saying, 5-6 years ago laptops had the battery in the bottom rear and he withdrew easily. Now, it has been modified and hides inside the laptop’s own chassis. The reduction in the size of laptops is used as a reason, but the reality is different.
It is well known that leave connected a laptop (or any battery-powered device) to charger is bad for batteries. While measures have been built in to protect batteries when this happens, it is a problem. What happens is that the cells of the battery are degrading and, consequently, autonomy is lost.
The old laptop system allowed us to remove the battery if we were going to use it connected. Now, you have to be aware of when the laptop is charged, remove the charger. Once the battery is very low, you reconnect the charger. It really is an obsolescence strategy that look for “damage” the laptop and that every 2-3 years you change italthough it continues to perform excellently.
It’s not the only reason why batteries are no longer removable. The other reason is minimize the repairability of laptops. If the battery is removable, you don’t need computer skills to find a new one and change it. Although it is simple, if it is hidden in the chassis, fewer users will “dare” to carry out this repair.
On the other hand, taking your laptop battery to be changed can quickly cost you €100 between battery and labor. Also, you must take into account that you can spend up to 3-4 days without a laptop to work, which not everyone can afford. This makes many choose to buy a new laptop.
Above all, an environmental problem
This practice creates two problems. The first, artificially degrade a battery made up of lithium, which are difficult to treat. In addition, lithium is a highly polluting and toxic material, so this practice is very negative. The other negative part is the increase in electronic waste artificially, since the laptop could still have several years of use.
These would be the reasons why the European Union seeks a battery regulation. It is possible that it is mandatory in most cases, that these are removable or, at least, easily replaceable. And it is that currently, some internal batteries are difficult to replace due to their design and integration into the system.
