Batteries

Rechargeable batteries, these have become such a nuisance to me as of late. With the rise of electronics, it is mainly these things that cause more electronics to become useless.
Everything from laptops, cell phones, handheld consoles, to just about any electronic device, they all have some form of a battery. Devices used to have removable batteries, yet now more companies are moving away from this and instead using nonreplacable batteries. Trying to access these batteries will of course void any warranty your product may have had because you are trying to access a part which the manufacture did not design for.

My main problem with batteries is simply they die. This in itself would not be a problem as most products are never meant to last forever. It is the fact that these things which are so integral to electronics die so quickly. It seems that more and more electronics have a battery that only lasts not even two years. To have something so expensive end up dying only a year and a half later is something unacceptable. While the batteries do not completely lose their charge, it becomes near impossible to use unless it is constantly plugged in. Probably the biggest outlier in this regard would be Apple products. I have owned numerous iPods, including the iPod Touch. It seems that every two years my Apple products' battery life decreases dramatically. It gets to the point where I cannot go one day without having to charge the device. Many people applaud Apple for having some of the best batteries in the industry, yet that is for only when the device is brand new. Of course with time a device is probably going to lose some of that battery life, yet it should not be to this extent.

There is an explanation why batteries deteriorate so quickly in consumer grade products. In order for a company to sell a product at a reasonable price, they tend to use cheaper batteries. While battery life maybe great at the beginning, it tends to lose its ability to hold a charge. One example is my iPod Touch, it is now nearing its third year since I've owned it. For over a year I have had to plug in my iPod every day; even if I do not use it, the battery depletes to less than 20% from a full charge everyday. This is definitely an inconvenience because if I happen to charge it the previous night I cannot listen to my music without worrying about it dying. A consumer should not have to worry about not being sure if their possession is going to run out of batteries even if they have not used it for sometime.  My cell phone is another example, it seems that whenever I turn it off, then on again it seems to lose one full cell of charge, forcing me to have to charge it rather often. It should be noted that this cell phone is not a smartphone, making this more annoying.

Instead of having products with 10+ hour battery life, I would personally prefer to have a product that had 5 hour battery life but would know that it would keep that life for at least 5 years. Spending so much money on a product only to have it to start decaying a short 2 years later is not consumer friendly. It is becoming more accepted because products seem to move at such a quick pace that most manufactures think that a two year old product is ancient and should be replaced, perhaps a reason why they use batteries with shorter lives. Yet consumers who spend larges sums of money on a product will tell you that two years is not old at all. Is it too much to ask for a product that is over $500 to last for more than 4 years?