Tomtom Go 720 Replacement Battery

[Darren]

There are reasons why batteries are not user replaceable, built-in obsolescence, reliability, cost and allowing design to over rule easy replacement.

The cynical may argue, why design a device that can easily be rejuvenated when you can just as easily twist their arms and get them to upgrade?

Replaceable batteries can often introduce other points of failure, you can't glue a replaceable battery in place and so this means more failures due to handling issues in transit.

To offer a replaceable battery will incur costs in design and manufacture as well, more space required in the design to make the battery user accessible, bigger connectors etc etc

And finally design, iPhones and some other devices don't have replaceable batteries because to do so would quite simply compromise the design.

I'm not defending any of these practices but it isn't always just bloody mindedness on the manufacturers part.

Of the myriad of gadgets I have owned, only two have had batteries expire before the device, a heavily used laptop and a Sony UMPC whose batteries all expired within 18mths despite little use and the same happened to a colleague - a clear design defect - especially with batteries costing £100+

None of my satnav's inc my daily use 720 workhorse have died as yet, none of my iPods, iPhones and other gadgets so for the most part, any extra expense designing and employing user replaceable batteries would have been wasted on me at least.
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Darren Griffin

[psyskiesman]

I beg to differ. I believe a simple gate frame for the battery to sit in would add less than one penny in manufacturing costs, and would prevent the battery from moving around inside the case, negating the need for glue completely. I'm certain the battery is deliberately glued in to make the units obsolete before their time. Regarding the iPod, what happens to your 10,000 plus songs when the battery eventually dies? You lose your entire music collection?

On a slightly different note; there are available external power packs suitable for most SatNavs and iPods etc. Utilising a Li-Ion cell rated at 3400mAh it will power a TomTom three times longer then the built in battery and it's as small as a cassette tape! For most people whose internal batteries have died, this could be the best solution.

[PaulB2005]

[rockin_plumber]

[mightyyid]

Yep - until you decide to rebuild a PC with all your itunes on it, copy the releavnt files acorss beleieving it will be easy to restore these and then find out how bloody awful it is to copy form an ipod to a PC. Major PITA, and I would urge anyone about to do it to look at exporting things from itunes in the Apple manner rather than anything else.... Ahhhh.....

[Darren]

[mikealder]

Its still no excuse for sticking the battery to the PCB though, I would except it glued to the inside of the rear case as thats not covered with fragile copper tracks - Poor design, even though its cheap - Mike

[Darren]

[PaulB2005]

[navver]

I'm convinced the later software since they so say fixed the stutering voices have used more power. Thats when I first got the short battery life. I went bacl to 8.010 and the battry life is much much longer.

Another thought, before you replace batteries, is to try a replacement charger. If the battery isn't chargng properly it won't give the correct life.
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Tomtom Go520, App 8.010, Map UK&ROI 810.1870

[mightyyid]

[EricWB]

I cannot think of any available camera that does not have a user replaceable battery and if there are any out there I would not purchase one. In the camera world it is almost essential for the user to be able to change the battery whilst out an about, in the same they can change the memory card, or in days of old the film.

The camera is intended to be carried around and a design requirement will be to keep it as light and small as possible ( at least for most users). The car SatNav is not intended to be a portable device for walkers, so it can be a little heavier if required or perhaps that means you have to have a better windscreen mount?

In short I cannot see any reason why a SatNav should not have a user replaceable battery, perhaps with an out of device charger, so no need for a lead up to the windscreen mount, the charger could be anywhere within the car or home and spare charged batteries could also be carried easily in the car if required.

In the longer term for green reasons we should come to expect all small electrical devices to be solar powered or at least use one of two different standard rechrgeable batteries e.g. AA or AAA. We could all have a common solar powered charger at home and built into the car it just needs us as customers to demand it.

[Darren]

[MrT]

Cameras also only use power momentarily when taking a picture, GPS devices run continously processing information.

To provide a solar powered GPS unit you would need a very large panel to produce enough current and this would probably produce more CO2 in its manufacture that it would save in its lifetime.

Also I wonder when a unit is sent back to TomTom for a replacement battery, I cannot picture them spending hours gently removing a battery from a board, they must either have a special tool or maybe they just replace the whole board and battery as components are cheaper than labour?
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Drivelux

[Darren]

I'll bet they either replace the innards as a whole or an entire replacement unit.
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Darren Griffin

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