Removable batteries were once a regular feature in smartphones. Swap a dead cell out for a fresh one and you’re 100% again in seconds. Today, that convenience lives on in just a few niche devices, and it’s not hard to see why. The four best phones you can still take the back off of show that the feature isn’t quite dead — but they also demonstrate why most people shouldn’t buy one.
Before you romanticize the battery swap, the compromises of a removable design are very real. Mixed performance to limited availability and a rugged-first hardware mentality mean most buyers will get a better phone — and better battery life — from a modern sealed device with quick charging.
Still curious? Here are the contenders and the practicality of each.
The shortlist: four phones you can still buy
Samsung Galaxy XCover 7: A scarce situation of a mainstream brand with a removable battery. It’s a durable, no nonsense model with an IP68 rating and MIL-STD-810H testing, a 6.6-inch Full HD display, a single 50MP camera, and a midrange MediaTek chip. The upside is durability and hot-swappable power for field work. Downsides include the price — it’s significantly more expensive than similarly specced sealed phones and distribution can vary widely depending on your region.
Fairphone 6: The repairability champion. Apart from the removable battery, there are modular components like the USB-C port, cameras and screen that can be swapped out with simple tools, and the company is promising long-term support when it comes to software. You also get a crisp 120Hz OLED, decent midrange specs and some cool sustainability credentials. Caveats? Outside of Europe, its availability might be limited, it lacks wireless charging, and its camera isn’t as good as the great midrange options at the same price levels.
Kyocera DuraForce Pro 3: Designed for job sites and first responders. It’s a gorilla-glass-encased brick of a phone with glove- and wet-touch modes, very loud speakers, and push-to-talk capabilities, and it has IP68 and MIL-STD-810H certification. Performance is okay for business apps and the battery is replaceable. The trade-offs are obvious: It’s heavy, has a small screen by today’s standards and is frequently locked to just one phone company, which reduces flexibility and resale. Pricey for what you get.
Nokia C12: The budget throwback. If all you need is a simple, inexpensive case with a back cover that you can slide on and off, this fits the bill. You are sacrificing just about everything else, however: low-end performance, a loose camera and a small battery taking a fast drain by today’s scale. Think glovebox backup or a kid’s starter phone, not a daily driver for power users.
Why you likely don’t need one
They’re almost always worse value. The industry’s top cost-to-performance ratios, analysts at Counterpoint Research and IDC recently wrote, are found only in sealed phones. When you insist on a removable battery, you’re paying for more performance, better camera quality, and nicer display tech on a per-unit basis, thanks to the fact you’re in the market for a small, lean-toward-rugged niche with fewer economies of scale.
Availability and support are limited. Most of these models are regional or carrier exclusives. That can translate to fewer bands of 5G support when you travel, fewer accessories and a slower supply chain for replacement parts down the line. Even the swap batteries idea is not quite as appealing when there are official spares that are hard to find or expensive.
The half-life of software is a mixed bag. Even if Fairphone is a notable exception promising such long updates, the vast majority of phones with replaceable batteries never approach the multiyear OS and security support now provided by leading sealed devices. Long-term security is more important than ever, and it’s an area where mainstream phones have been making huge gains.
Design trade-offs are real. Latches and seams come in with removable backs. A few models continue to boast water and dust resistance worthy of the name, but the engineering trade-offs generally restrict how much battery space in volume, wireless charging coils and sexy materials you can pack in. You frequently end up with a heftier device that still gets fewer hours of playing time between charges than a modern sealed-up competitor.
New fast charging and smarter power management were game changers. A sealed phone will more often than not hit you with a day’s worth of endurance and snappy top-ups; half an hour on a decent charger adds hours of use. Thanks to adaptive charging, battery health functions and efficient chipsets, for most people, the convenience gap between swapping a spare and plugging in has largely been eliminated. Better to carry a small power bank or magnetically mount a battery pack than manage carriage of charged spares and rotation.
And real world durability is about more than just the back cover. Ruggedized phones are great at withstanding drops and dust, but camera glass, screens and ports still remain vulnerable. If toughness is your top concern, a sealed flagship in a proven rugged case will typically offer better imaging, performance and update support than a niche rugged phone, with equalled or better practical toughness.
A right to repair plot twist is on the way
Policy winds are shifting. The EU’s Battery Regulation calls for easier battery replacement in the years to come, and right-to-repair advocates like iFixit have worked to push manufacturers toward greater serviceability. If history is any guide, global brands may opt to standardize designs rather than construct separate models for each market.
So until that day comes, the best strategy for your battery is pragmatic: Opt for a phone with long software support, power-efficient chips and fast wired or wireless charging. That also often results in better real-world battery life than a swappable cell could provide, with features such as optimized charging that pauses overnight, improved thermal management and smarter background policies.
Bottom line
If you really, absolutely need a removable battery — think field work, remote expeditions, or some extremely specialized work flow you can’t accomplish in any other way — then your best best is probably the XCover 7, Fairphone 6, DuraForce Pro 3, or Nokia C12. Just go in with your eyes open regarding price, performance and support.
For everyone else, it is a better buy to get a recent sealed phone that receives strong update commitments and can fast charge. You’ll have better cameras, better performance, an easier time finding cases and accessories, and fewer compromises — all without having the thing run out of juice by dinnertime.
