6 New Android Phones That Still Have Removable Batteries
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Though it was once somewhat common, smartphones with user-removable batteries are largely a thing of the past. Gone are the days when it was a selling point of LG's flagship G series and V series phones, with the latter positioning it as a power user feature alongside improved cameras, high-resolution audio hardware, and a small second screen for notifications.
Water resistance is a big reason for this, as sealed batteries play a lot better with higher grades of waterproofing than something more porous. Making a battery user replaceable also requires the battery to be physically bigger, as it needs more protective layers, plus it needs to be a fairly conventional shape, usually a rectangle of some kind. Not allowing the user to replace the battery also prevents consumers from buying off-spec, higher capacity batteries with special casings — to handle the bigger battery — that could damage the handset.
There are still a few phones on the market that have user-replacement batteries, though, all of which run Android. Some of them are even from big-name manufacturers that still make well-regarded flagship handsets, while others are from specialty brands. Let's take a look at what's available and what each phone brings to the table relative to its very few competitors.
Fairphone
If you keep up with day-to-day tech news, then the Fairphone 5 is probably the first thing that came to mind when you clicked on this article. Fairphone's mission is for its handsets to be as user-repairable as possible while also limiting the harm done in the manufacturing process. To accomplish that, Fairphone uses as much in the way of recycled or fair-focused materials as possible, with just 30% of what's in the Fairphone 5 not fitting that bill.
However, the Fairphone 5 does not have a version with broad support for American carriers just yet. Even if it did, you'd still need to import the phone, regardless. That said, there is an American version of the prior Fairphone 4, which can be ordered directly from Murena, the American licensee, for $579.90 for 128GB of storage or $649.90 for 256 GB storage. It features many of the same benefits as its successor, with the main difference besides U.S. band compatibility being that it runs Murena's flavor of Android, with five years of both kinds of updates being promised.
As for the Fairphone 5 in the United States? Murena says that there's no official roadmap for an official American release just yet.
Samsung Galaxy XCover 6 Pro
If you want a new phone with a removable battery from a top-tier brand, then there's exactly one option available as of this writing: Samsung's Galaxy XCover 6 Pro, which retails for $599.99 on Amazon and was released in July 2022. If you're wondering how you haven't heard of a $600 Samsung phone that came out in between the Galaxy S22 and Galaxy S23 lines, that's because it's something of a niche device, a ruggedized phone intended for outdoorsy types. How rugged is it? Even with a replaceable battery, it has IP68-rated water and dust resistance, the same rating as the Galaxy S22 and S23 that its release was sandwiched between.
If nothing else, you know that with this phone, you are not making a tradeoff when it comes to water resistance. IP68-rated products are constructed to operate for at least a short time if dropped in water and should survive for up to 30 minutes in one meter-deep water. The Fairphone 4, by comparison, is rated just IP54, meaning that it can resist dust and surface-level moisture well, but should never be submerged.
The XCover 6 Pro boasts a 4050 mAh battery, but its charging speeds aren't great, as it only supports 15W chargers. Reviews are pretty clear that the battery life, while more than acceptable, is not great, so heavy users may want to invest in extra batteries. Throw in Samsung's generous update policy and a well-received 1080p display with a 120Hz refresh rate, and it looks like a solid choice for anyone reading this article intending to make a purchase.
Kyocera Duraforce PRO 3
You may not hear flip phone-era standby Kyocera's name much in a smartphone-centric world, but the company does make smartphones, one of which is the ruggedized Duraforce PRO 3. Not only does it have a removable battery, but, as the term ruggedized suggests, it also features the same IP68 dust and water resistance rating as the Samsung Galaxy XCover 6 Pro and various popular flagship handsets. If the $899.99 phone has an obvious surface weakness, it's that it's exclusive and locked to Verizon, but there's a flipside to that coin — that means that it's available directly from Verizon, payment plans and all.
Unlike its Samsung counterpart, the Duraforce PRO 3 includes 27W fast charging, which can charge its 4,270 mAh battery in about three hours. Some reviewers weren't crazy about its camera, but in general most have reported a positive impression about the phone. The handset is also backed by a two-year warranty from Kyocera. As for Android updates, Kyocera does not appear to have an official policy, but based on past history, a single major Android update and quarterly security patches should be expected.
If you're looking for a phone with a removable battery that you can pay off across 36 monthly Verizon billing statements, the Kyocera Duraforce PRO 3 is a decent choice.
Sonim XP10
There's one more ruggedized option with a removable battery currently on the market, the Sonim XP10, which comes from a brand that you've probably never heard of. Both AT&T and Verizon have this one available directly, for $569.99 and $549.99, respectively, with both offering payment plans and Verizon having a promotion to get it for $0.99 with a two-year contract. This is designed mainly to be a work phone for those doing manual labor or work in the public sector, where budget restrictions make protecting the IT investment critical. It's powered by a removable 5,000 mAh battery, and like the other rugged phones mentioned above, it carries an IP68 rating.
Reviewers praise the durability, display, and cameras while taking issue with its performance, particularly when it comes to mobile data connectivity In addition, the phone's Wi-Fi is also a bit dated at Wi-Fi 5 instead of Wi-Fi 6 or the newer Wi-Fi 6E. Overall, it seems as though the XP10 is the most durable of the phones listed here, but behind the Samsung and Kyocera offerings in terms of performance.
TCL ION X
If you're looking for a budget-priced Android phone with a removable battery, then one option that comes to mind is the TCL ION X, which is available for $119 from Metro by T-Mobile but is free for new customers. Of course, at that price, you're understandably not getting the latest and greatest. Besides the 3,000 mAh removable battery, the cameras aren't great, it seems to be stuck on Android 12, the display is just 720p, the onboard storage is capped at 32GB, and it has just 3GB of RAM. All of this is backed by MediaTek's entry-level Helio G25 system-on-a-chip.
It does, however, include some other features missing from flagships besides the removable battery in the form of a headphone jack and MicroSD card slot, although it doesn't support cards bigger than 512GB. Unfortunately, there's not much to be found in the way of professional reviews for the TCL ION X. As phones at this price point go, it looks fine, but you need to know what you're getting into and not expect any kind of spectacular performance from it. This isn't the only budget phone available right now with a removable, battery, though.
Nokia C21 (Plus)
TCL is joined by a legendary name in the mobile phone world in offering a budget phone with a removable battery, as Nokia presents a challenge to it with its C21 handset and the C21 Plus variant. With a price difference of just $10 Amazon, it's not entirely clear what the point of the vanilla C21 is, as the Plus adds a better camera and a much bigger battery — 5,050 mAh instead of 3,000 mAh — all while weighing 17 grams less than the plain C21.
Big battery aside, these budget 2022 releases don't offer much on paper. They do offer a headphone jack and MicroSD card slot, but it's hurt by having a micro USB port at USB 2.0 speeds and coming with a 10W charger with no option for fast charging. The C21s have a lot more professional reviews than the TCL ION X did, and they largely describe what you'd expect, a functional budget phone with slow charging. Although the phone comes with Android 11, reviewers note that Nokia promised two years of Android updates through 2024, though it's not broken down into major updates versus security patches.
The biggest issue here, though, is going by the Amazon listings for both phones — which are explicitly for phones shipped and sold by Amazon, so this is not information provided by a third-party seller — the carrier support isn't great. Both listings say that the phones — which are listed as dual SIM — aren't compatible with Verizon or AT&T, meaning that they only work with T-Mobile in the United States. It's unclear why Amazon has imported a largely unremarkable budget phone mainly intended for the Indian market, but someone there must have seen value in selling the C21s.