New Batteries Make Everything Better

@edent — Fri, 01 Oct 2021 11:34:31 +0000

It has been 4 years since I got my OnePlus 5T. For a mobile geek like me, that's unbearably long! In recent months, the phone has become temperamental and the battery barely made it through the day without a couple of charges. Using the OnePlus Diagnostic Tool, I could see that battery health had fallen below 50%.

New batteries cost around £15 on eBay - and come with the tools needed to disassemble the device. But, in recent years, I've become wary about fiddling with delicate electronics. If I broke it, that'd be an expensive trip to the upgrade store. So I found one of those local "we fix any phone" places. They offered to replace the battery for £30. Paying an extra £15 to let someone experienced do the hard work seemed like a fair deal.

I factory reset the phone⁰ and handed it over. A couple of hours later, I took it back. How did the new battery perform? Over 28 hours of battery life - and 8 hours of screen time!

It's like having a brand new phone.

One of the reasons I got out of the mobile industry was because I thought it had reached a local plateau. There's a limit to how high a resolution a screen needs. Clusters of megapixel cameras are pointless for most people. High-def stereo audio isn't going to get magically better. Biometrics are a solved problem. 5G isn't magic - just a bit faster. Flexible screens are gorgeous - but flip-phones feel a bit retro to me.

And batteries? Any advance in battery tech is quickly eaten by background apps, bright screens, and power-hungry network communications.

There's nothing a 2021 model can do that my 2017 model can't¹.

Reduce. Reuse. Repair. Recycle.

So that's where I am. After repairing this device, I don't see a pressing need to upgrade. It'll probably be another year before I get the gadget lust again.

For both security and to wipe off any lingering apps still draining the battery. ↩︎
Fight me in the comments. ↩︎

OnePlus 5T - two-and-a-half years later

@edent — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 11:02:48 +0000

Back in November 2017, I treated myself to my first new phone in ages - the OnePlus 5T. I was pretty excited!

This week, 928 days after I bought it, OnePlus pushed an upgrade to Android 10!

Back in 2011, I was moaning that Sony Ericsson didn't even support their phones for a year. How times have changed!

Android devices aren't yet at the longevity of the iPhone, and they're still a long way away from Linux's ability to run modern software on ancient systems. But this is a positive step.

The hardware is still pretty decent. It runs all the apps I need, streams videos in both directions, and the battery is holding up OK.

We've reached a local maxima on smartphones. What innovations have there been in the last few years? Slightly better cameras? In-screen cameras? They're pretty cool, but it's not like the jump from black-and-white to colour, is it?

I paid £450. So it has cost me 50p per day. Pretty reasonable for something I stare at for hours on end! How much longer can I keep using it? While we're in lockdown, it isn't like I need wireless charging and gigapixel telephoto lenses.

But, whatever I choose, it'll be something which promises multiple years of updates.

5T – Terence Eden’s Blog

New Batteries Make Everything Better

OnePlus 5T - two-and-a-half years later