Phone battery replaceability

I bought myself a new phone two months ago. I looked at several manufacturers, including but not limited to Samsung, HTC, Sony/Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and LG. There were several factors that influenced my decision on what model to ultimately purchase: price, call quality, build quality (how prone the phone was to damage was important), ease of use, age of model (if buying a new phone, you might as well get a recent model!), quality of the camera, and even manufacturer. However, the factor that became the most frequent dealbreaker for me was battery replaceability.

There were several superb phone models that were in my price range, but the lack of being able to change the battery in each of them put me off, and the more expensive the phone, the more I wanted the option of swapping a failing battery with a new one. I don't particularly want to have to spend £300+ on a new phone to then have to spend additional money on having to send it somewhere to have its battery replaced when I can quite easily do the task myself. Besides batteries losing their ability to hold their charge they can also leak, and if that happens the device itself can be damaged. It's important to be able to occasionally check the battery to see if it is in good condition still; a fully-integrated battery inside the unit doesn't give you this flexibility.

The battery in my former phone could be accessed by removing its back panel; if the battery had ever become faulty it would have been easy to replace, and I wanted its successor to have that ability. At the end of the day I did buy a new phone that adequately filled all my criteria: a quality device with battery replaceability at a reasonable price. I am satisfied with that purchase. Now, a few more phones have come onto the market since I bought mine, and several of them have the same major issue. My brother is looking to getting a new phone soon, as is Dad; both of them have similar standards to me in deciding what handset they want.

Two of the reasons I've heard for battery replaceability not being universal among phones is that the feature increases the price of the handset or that some people "don't want the hassle" of replacing a phone battery. For the first reason, I've seen cheap and expensive phones alike where the batteries can't be changed; with the second, changing a battery seems as though it's a simpler task than having to contact a manufacturer for repairs.

Regardless, I will almost always choose a battery replaceable phone over one with an integrated battery. There are so many choices out there that you will almost always get what you want.