Hardware Non-removable battery? WTF

[Qtis]

While I do like the idea of having an easily exchangeable battery, it's not really that hard to change the PSVita battery. Just look at the iFixit help. Voiding warranty on the thing is not really the issue for most since modern batteries should last a bit longer than the older ones and thus the lifetime of your warranty (1-3 years for most devices, probably 1 year). If it does break during the warranty period, you would just send it to the manufacturer, regardless of user friendly battery removable solutions. At least I would.

As some of you seem to be very keen to condemn Sony on the matter, do note that the battery is very easily taken off of the devices back plate. If it was meant to be impossible to remove, in other words only in Sony's own repair, they'd have gone the Apple route and glue the fucker into the base.

TL;DR: Removing the battery is inconvenient, but not impossible. You shouldn't change the battery anyways during your warranty period. It's not the end of the world.

 

[codezer0]

While I do like the idea of having an easily exchangeable battery, it's not really that hard to change the PSVita battery. Just look at the iFixit help. Voiding warranty on the thing is not really the issue for most since modern batteries should last a bit longer than the older ones and thus the lifetime of your warranty (1-3 years for most devices, probably 1 year). If it does break during the warranty period, you would just send it to the manufacturer, regardless of user friendly battery removable solutions. At least I would.

As some of you seem to be very keen to condemn Sony on the matter, do note that the battery is very easily taken off of the devices back plate. If it was meant to be impossible to remove, in other words only in Sony's own repair, they'd have gone the Apple route and glue the fucker into the base.

TL;DR: Removing the battery is inconvenient, but not impossible. You shouldn't change the battery anyways during your warranty period. It's not the end of the world.

Well, that is a relief to hear, because I certainly did not wish to even touch a Vita given the lack of a true extended battery solution instead of one that clips onto and just burns up the internal battery faster. And knowing me, I wouldn't want to ship my system to Sony because the entire reason I'd buy one would be if/when it's fully hacked; which, of course, if you have to send it in to Sony, it will get flashed/updated out of being able to run such hacks.

 

[Foxi4]

People seem to forget that Sony had two very good reasons to keep the battery internal - their last console was exploited using the battery chip (Pandora), plus the PSVita has a touchpad on the majority of its rear side, making it difficult to add an openable battery compartment even if you really wanted to do so.

Thankfuly the battery is easily removable so it's really a matter of undoing a few screws - no soldering or ungluing required.

 

[Qtis]

Just for a reference to the discussion, my MacBook Pro 15" (mid-2010 model) is still running at 85% capacity after ~33 months and lasts easily about 4 hours of active internet browsing and such. While the number may seem low ("IT LOST AROUND 1/5 CAPACITY"), it's gone through >700 load cycles. That's roughly 2 full charges (0% -> 100%) every 3 days. Quite a bit more than most people play their consoles in this sense. I'll be replacing the battery at around 1000 cycles, but that's still a few years to the future unless AppleCare deems it necessary to change it when I take the computer to get a part changed. Considering the PSVita will probably have newer battery tech (the 2010 MBP has the same battery as the 2009 model IIRC), I could see it lasting longer than this.

But as always, rechargeable batteries won't last forever. That's something that is bound to happen and affect all devices.

 

[Devin]

By the time the Vita's battery dies the warranty will be gone, and you might as well open it up anyway.

 

[driverdis]

why do people keep bringing up "Pandora" batteries as a possible reason Sony went for a internal battery. Sony remedied the problem years before the Vita with the TA-088v3 Motherboard for PSP2000 and onwards. also, the battery of the Vita seems shockingly easy to access,remove,and replace for being a anti-pandora battery fix.

Not to mention Sony removed the ability to write to the battery eeprom in any psp with a TA-085 V2 or newer motherboard. the first psp2000 motherboard (TA-085) and PSP1000's are the only models capable of even making a Pandora battery without physical modification to the battery.

also, it seems Sony made newer batteries that prevented flashing its eeprom and required hardmodding to pandorize them (not 100% on this tho)

so why would the Vita battery be susceptible to such mods then?
the answer is that it would not be. thus, another reason against the idea that a internal
battery was decided on as a Anti-Pandora countermeasure.

It makes way more sense if it was to accommodate the real touch panel if anything. considering the dimensions of the PS Vita battery, having it user accessible would require a battery cover solution similar to the 3DS, where the whole bottom is the cover. the problem here is that unlike the 3ds, the vita has the touch panel on the back, meaning for the battery to be user accessible, the touch panel would of needed to be built-in to the battery cover or to not have one at all . doing the first would be a real problem as people would lose all back touch functionality if they lost the back battery cover.

at least Sony made the battery fairly easy to remove despite needing to open the console up. it could be worse, at least the battery is not soldered to the motherboard.

 

[CrimsonNight33]

I understand the reasoning, but personally I still got it regardless, cause like everyone says here, I never actually bothered removing the batteries from any handhled that uses a rechargable lithium battery.
I do like however like having someehting like a removable battery, in case I want to have a spare one for plane travels.

Though nowadays there are the portable battery chargers, which solves that issue.

 

[BORTZ]

A non removable battery is not a good reason not to buy something.

 

[DJPlace]

how much would it cost to sent it in to sony? to replace the battery?