Consumers’ association: battery can be replaced at 42 percent of current laptops

The percentage of laptops with a battery that can be replaced has fallen from 77 percent to 42 percent in three years. The Consumers’ Association claims this on the basis of research that looked at 612 laptops. There are many differences between the different brands.

It was clear that laptops increasingly have a built-in, non-removable battery, but the Consumers’ Association has now mapped out to what extent the change has taken place. In 2012, users were still able to replace the battery on 77 percent of laptops, this year it has fallen to only 42 percent. This does not include the 2-in-1 convertibles: if they had been counted as laptops, the percentage would have been even lower. The major turnaround took place from 2013 to 2014, according to the figures of the survey.

At Toshiba and Lenovo, most batteries can still be easily removed from the housing, according to the association. At Toshiba, only 1 of the 21 models required special tools for replacement. Lenovo scored best in the association’s test: the batteries were childishly easy to click off on 60 percent of the models.

HP and Peaq also have many laptops with removable batteries. At HP it took ‘some effort’ to change half of them. With Acer and Asus, that is already less and Apple has no models at all with a battery that can be disconnected. The Consumers’ Association notes that the contrast is great at Acer: a third of the manufacturer’s laptops have a battery that is very easy to replace, while a quarter has a battery that is completely fixed. At Asus, a quarter is not replaceable.

Manufacturers use built-in batteries because this offers possibilities for different, thinner form factors and higher efficiency, they also state. In addition, this can make the construction of laptops cheaper. The disadvantage is that in the event of problems, users cannot repair them themselves and the efficiency of batteries also decreases after a number of years: they cannot be replaced by a newer, more efficient model.