I just discovered that this thing too has no user-replaceable battery. So, if you want to use the phone beyond its battery life, without having to charge it in between long uses, you can’t. On a laptop, you’d just carry an extra battery and plug that in. Same goes for even another phone with a music player in it.
So, if you’re on a long-haul flight and you’d like to use the iPhone as an iPod, you won’t be able to use it for too long without having to charge it.
I have no idea why they have this asinine concept of a non-user-replaceable battery, on a high-drain device like a cellphone, nonetheless. For this expensive phone, when the battery runs out, you send it to Apple along with a payment of $75, lose the use of the phone for a minimum 3 days, and hope that the phone is not returned with pry-marks on the covers. A simple battery door would have fixed it, without compromising much on design.
Besides, after about an average 1.5 to 2 years of use, when most Li-ion batteries will require a replacement, Apple charges $75 for the new battery, by which time the phone would have depreciated in value by drastic amounts(ever tried selling an old cellphone? No one buys them). On a Nokia, you can have a similar capacity battery for about 15 bucks.
http://www.anandtech.com/gadgets/showdoc.aspx?i=3026&p=1
The service plans will be cheaper than the batteries if you’re concerned about that, and having to replace it within months (as someone was so ridiculously suggesting... LOL).
I’ll let you know how my battery works out. Check back with me in about two year.... :-)
Regards,
Star Traveler
P.S. — On charging the battery, I’ve not charged the battery once, until this morning, having used it a lot since Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, since getting it activated. As you can imagined, I’ve been all over this thing, doing all sorts of stuff. It seems to hold up pretty well to a lot of usage. But, I’ve got the charger and I can use it in my car, too (as I’ve got an inverter in it). I’ll probably get a car charger, too, but I don’t know, maybe not. I don’t think it’s a problem...