Short and sweet summary as called out by Gamers Nexus:

1. Testing methodology sux and results are not sanity checked, thereby misleading consumers.
2. If errors are caught, they are corrected poorly and acknowledged with asterisks or in description, which does not put enough of a spotlight on it.
3. Trashing on a small company (billet labs) that makes dope coolers for performing poorly due to improper testing and not retesting because “I don’t wanna spend 500 bucks”
4. Not returning the prototype which was sent to them by billet labs for testing and AUCTIONING IT OFF (allegedly to a potential competitor) at LTX.

Wholeheartedly agree. Wverything else I can understand and maybe even excuse. But auctioning off a prototype that isn’t even yours is so far beyond the line. They have turned into another soulless corporation just like Google, Apple, Microsoft etc. And corporations should never be trusted.

Certainly. But I hope the EU regulators do the same trick as they did with the USB C port rregulation. It is against the rules to make it a walled garden.

The hell are you talking about? Every phone with a user replaceable battery that I have had is still alive and well today. And some of them are over 10 years old. Their batteries are obviously no longer in top shape, but they are still usable. And because they are user replaceable, if it dies, I will just put in a new one.

Even if you are right. Just vote with your wallet. A battery that degenerates too quickly will just kill the sales of the phone it is in.

Also cameras have replaceable batteries. Most live for longer than a modern phone.

And lastly, for fun, let’s say your battery died too quickly because the manufacturer is a dipstick. Just buy a different brand of battery!

Imagine how much easier repairs will be and how much lower the amount of e-waste will be when you can just replace your battery without any tools or knowledge of how to disassemble a smartphone.

Repairability is always something to strive towards. Remember when laptop manufacturers said that a user repairable laptop would be too cumbersome and thick and look bad etc. Then Framework came along and made a wonderful laptop that is user repairable and has tons of cool features. And once you want to upgrade to a more modern CPU, you can upgrade the motherboard and upcycle the older one into a media center, a mini pc or whatever else people have already thought up.

Also it will be fun to watch giant phone companies throw a fit about how this will stifle innovation (ahem Apple). Phones right now require tons of tools to open safely and successfully, because they are glued shut. The excuse they provide is that it is required for water resistance. And yet there were phones with a user replaceable battery and water resistance. And nowadays even phones without water resistance are glued shut.

And the manufacturers call this innovation apparently. That is sad. And it is sad that you believe them.

Wouldn’t you like to know, fedboi.

I apologize for any offense I caused. I shall refrain from using it in future.

I hate the current state of Apple with a burning passion. At some point I had tried using their devices. They treat me like I am severely mentally impaired and need saving from myself. But if you like their interface, the interconnectivity and the workflow, more power to you. I myself have bought windows keys from shady websites for like 10% of the price (I am a gamer and linux wasn’t ready for gaming at the time). I have stripped the OS of all the tracking bullshit, used third party tools to disable everything I don’t like, uninstalled Edge (painful), installed tools to disable licensing checks in programs (sketchy), etc. I have never bought an iPhone. When I switch phones, I root the old one for shits and giggles. I use only open-source software and everything I publish (files for 3d printing) are openly accessible too and never paywalled. But not everyone can live like me. I have, at one point in my life, spent 18 hours at my PC screwing around with the registry in windows, to disable some slimy POS tracker. I do not have a problem with anyone choosing convenience over cheapness or open-sourceness. But I hope more people make the leap. Because your coworker is right. The problem is absolutely the same. I hope open-source gets more convenient to use. For example gaming on Linux is finally possible. You can’t change the whole world, you can only change yourself. And you won’t do it overnight, you have to wake up in the morning and make a conscious effort of making a change in your routine. I convinced my SO to at least try an Android phone after she was done with her iPhone. Now she can never go back. Now she has a Laptop with Windows on it. A custom PC, which she wouldn’t trade for a top of the line MacBook. In any case, OP: if you want to make a change, do it one step at a time. Don’t overload yourself. I was introduced to linux by my dad, where he helped me follow a tutorial on how to make a bootable usb drive for Ubuntu. It was fun and not complicated at all. Once you have that USB, try booting off of it, play around in Linux. Have some fun. It is closer to MacOS than Windows. It just doesn’t stop you from being dumb and doing dumb things :). And after that, if you like it, do some more research, try some more things. Be the change you want to see in the world.

Edit: removed and replaced the R-Slur. Apologies.