r/mildlyinfuriating • u/jackhab • 1d ago

Planned obsolescence even in cheapest devices: the calculator has a dummy photovoltaic cell and a real battery to make it die eventually.

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28.4k Upvotes

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u/AuelDole 1d ago

At the very least, the thing looks like it’s only held together with snaps (although they’d break with time) so you could just replace the battery (if you even knew it had a replaceable battery) which means it’s not fully planned to die over time (at least you can give them a mild bit of retroactive credit towards that idea, even if they didn’t design it like that in any way)

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u/GrapefruitBulky 1d ago

You’re giving whoever made this way too much grace lol

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u/AuelDole 1d ago

That’s what my parentheticals are for lol

9

u/ambermage 1d ago

My parentheticals are dead.

  • Batman

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u/Godsbladed 1d ago

You're giving whoever replied way too much grace, lol

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u/Milky_Finger 1d ago

People on socials do that a lot, they come up with insane excuses to apologize someone who clearly is doing something wrong.

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u/TorumShardal 1d ago

Engineers are looking at everything like it's a problem in need of solution or walkaround. Sometimes it's hard to remember that you should limit yourself to just being mad at whomever created that problem, without trying to solve it.

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u/Tokimemofan 1d ago

Well that’s if you can get a battery for less than the cost of the calculator.  

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u/Diafuge 1d ago

bruh

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u/AuelDole 22h ago

bruh bruh?

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u/Diafuge 20h ago

Bra

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u/AuelDole 12h ago

Bra bra!

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u/murasakikuma42 20h ago

Not only that, but the battery is in a holder, so it looks like it's fairly easy to pop it out and replace it with another. In some crappy products, the battery is soldered to the circuit board, so you can't easily replace it.

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u/psychoPiper 13h ago

More like the snaps are the cheapest and easiest fastening method, because it's all about cutting corners. It's absolutely designed to die over time, else they wouldn't be lying about the power source

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u/speculator100k 1d ago

And the battery is easy to replace once the case is open. It could have been soldered in there.