Samsung’s Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ were rumored to lack microSD card slots and removable batteries, with some Samsung faithful offended at the idea even before the announcement. Now, however, both of Samsung’s cutting-edge smartphones are here, and the response from microSD card slot and removable battery advocates is what you’d expect. By announcing two smartphones that ditch the ever-coveted microSD card slot and the battery that can take your phone “from 0 to 100 in seconds,” as Samsung always marketed it, the Korean manufacturer has offended some of Samsung’s most devout customer base.
While Samsung faithful shake their head and wonder, “what is Samsung up to?”, Samsung has its reasons. The company’s new fast wireless charging takes traditional wireless charging one step further: whereas the old wireless charging took about 3-4 hours, Samsung’s new fast wireless charging will charge your smartphone from 0-100 in 120 minutes, or 2 hours max (a 30% increase in wireless charging speed as compared to the company’s Galaxy S6 and S6 edge wireless charging introduced at Mobile World Congress earlier this year).
Samsung’s fast wireless charging shows the company’s goal: to give us more and more remote charging so that we don’t have to stop whatever it is we’re doing to charge our smartphones. The Korean manufacturer wants to take us to a world where we don’t have to concern ourselves with burned-out batteries (when the phone is on a wall charger) or concern ourselves with electric shock when connecting a smartphone to a USB port on a PC.
Removable battery advocates have said that taking out a dead battery and putting a new one in is more convenient than charging a device with wireless charging, but there is both good and bad to this statement: yes, replacing the battery quickly makes charging convenient, but you can only go from 0-100 in seconds if you have charged your replaceable batteries. If you’re out at the airport, ready to catch your plane, only to realize that you have not charged either removable battery, then you have no more convenience (even with removable batteries) than if you didn’t have them. If you didn’t have them, you’d still need to charge your phone – and if you do have them but they’re not charged, you’ll still be a “wall hugger,” to use the title of one of Samsung’s most favorite anti-iPhone commercials.
Secondly, the removable battery is nothing more than a convenient workaround to a nudging problem. If your battery burns out or dies, you can replace your Galaxy Note 4 battery. But the question remains: why should you have to replace it? Why can’t the battery that comes with your smartphone remain past the time that your agreement is done with a carrier? Removable batteries have been a convenience for many, but they never solve the problem of battery durability and longevity.
Samsung said in its Galaxy Unpacked 2015 announcement that the company seeks to make batteries longer-lasting and far more durable than they are currently, which will make removable batteries obsolete in the future: “When we develop better cameras, higher-resolution screens, better batteries that charge faster and last longer, it not only lifts Samsung; it propels the industry,” said Samsung Electronics President and CEO J.K. Shin (38:08, Galaxy Unpacked 2015). The problem is battery longevity vs. ephemerality, not replaceability vs irreplaceability. If batteries were perfect in their current state, we wouldn’t have to replace them with new ones in the first place.
It’s the case of the student who, when asked why his homework is not available, says, “Five dogs ate my homework.” The issue is not the five dogs, although the teacher knows it’s pure exaggeration; rather, the issue is why he would resort to blaming a dog for his homework’s absence in the first place. Claiming five dogs instead of one ate his homework only exacerbates the problem but does not eliminate it. Similarly, living on removable batteries screams to the ineffectiveness of batteries in their current state (since a perfect situation would consist of just one battery).
Ultimately, a remote-charging era is upon us, one in which we’ll move further and further away from the wall charger when “juicing up” our smartphones. And, for all the short-term inconveniences wireless charging may cause, isn’t a remote charging world better than a removable battery world? It’s simple math: keeping one device charged (the smartphone, by way of a charging mat) is much more simple and convenient than having to charge a smartphone and two removable batteries, for example. Mobile phones weren’t always as mobile as they are today, but consumers twenty years ago tolerated those small inconveniences for the sake of progress. Our generation can do the same.
