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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

Is it really technically difficult to add a supercap? I remember laptops in the 90s with hot-swappable batteries. The feature will add expense and bulk, and if people refuse to make the tradeoffs then that's worthy of complaining, but this particular feature seems totally reasonable to ask for.

Same deal with constantly wanting more RAM and CPU. Computers have been getting steadily more powerful at a nearly constant rate for maybe half a century now. Asking to keep that going is totally reasonable!

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I dunno. But i recall reading about a Chinese phone that had two batteries. One was built in, another was sitting on top and was removable.

they both charged via a single USB port.

Yes, this made it bulky compared to most things on the market right now.

And frankly i would love to see less anorexic phones. Heck, my next one may well be the recently unveiled Cat model that has integrated FLIR. This time round it seems they didn't skimp on the internals while still retaining the rugged construction.

I agree, the obsession with thinness drives me batty.

My iPhone barely makes it through the day sometimes. I usually have no problem, but occasionally I find myself around 9PM and my battery is down to 5% and I have to plug it in somewhere. This leads me to plug it in more than I strictly need to, just to ward off these moments. This would all become a non-issue if the battery were twice the size. Then my phone might be 10mm thick instead of 7mm thick, and might weigh 300 grams instead of 200 grams. Not a big deal. But instead, thinness is maximized, and everything else is built to be just adequate based on that.

And now i remind myself that these thin phones are often a right pain to hold.

If i let it sit deeply in my palm, the outer joint of my fingers protrude over the edge of the device, and get in the way of using it.

But if i shift my grip so that the fingertips are resting on the side of the device, the only contact points are those tips, and the thumb area of the palm.

And holding it like that seems to always be on the verge of slipping.

My daughter would disagree with you in re: thinness. The newer thin iPhones are easier to pocket - women's fashion being more form fitting than men's. It's a trade-off that she and presumably lots of other people are willing to make.

Time for people to stop bending to fashion and buy sensible clothing then.

Also, i could have sworn that Galaxy Note was a hit with with ladies as they put them in handbags rather than pockets...

Not that i know much about fashion, as my wardrobe is stuffed with cargo pants.

Which is why phone makers should make some variety here. Make thin phones for people who prioritize size, make thick phones for people who prioritize battery life.

I'm not saying every single phone on the planet should be the kind I want....

On the plus side, you can always stick a bulky battery case onto a thin phone.

Now if only there were more variety in phones with small screens; now that iPhones are big, what are people with small hands supposed to buy?

> On the plus side, you can always stick a bulky battery case onto a thin phone.

That depends on a third party bothering to make a case for the device at all.

And it's way bigger and less efficient than having a bigger battery built in.

This is a real problem for me, as I've got small hands. The Xperia Z Compact phones are the smallest flagship-level phone I've found. I loved my Z3C, sorta-like my Z5C. They're still a little too big, especially with a case on them, but they're at least not monstrously so.

Buy this phone with a 6050mAh battery, and it's just 8.5mm thick http://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_230567.html

Never trust battery capacity ratings on off-brand Chinese electronics.

There's official case for iPhone with additional battery.

Sure, but that adds substantial bulk, hurts efficiency, integrates poorly, and is stupid ugly. Not really the same as building a bigger battery into the phone itself.

While not quite phones, some Thinkpads have precisely the battery arrangement you describe.

Can't be that hard. With a cursory search I can find 3mm x 9mm x 10mm batteries with an order of magnitude more capacity and discharge rate than a sleeping phone would need.

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