Keeping the old idea and thread alive (as well as others, like L5 lifetime)…
EU’s legislation for Smartphones and Tablets - European Commission about energy efficiency for products placed on the EU market from June 20th 2025 onwards has some good requirements for phones:
- Durability: resistance to accidental drops or scratches and protection from dust and water
- Battery lifetime: sufficiently durable batteries which can withstand at least 800 charge and discharge cycles while retaining at least 80% of their initial capacity
- Right ro repair: non-discriminatory access for professional repairers to any software or firmware needed for the replacement
- Spare parts: rules on disassembly and repair, including obligations for producers to make critical spare parts available within 5-10 working days, and for 7 years after the end of sales of the product model on the EU market
- Software lifetime: availability of operating system upgrades for longer periods (at least 5 years from the date of the end of placement on the market of the last unit of a product model)
- Digital Product Passport (an expanded hw BoM): a digital identity card for products, components, and materials, which will store relevant information to support products’ sustainability, promote their circularity and strengthen legal compliance.
This should lead to some improvements all around as most products are global these days. The imaginary future L4 or L6 phone would need to be well designed as L5 would not pass all the requirements (but would already have the repairability). Energy efficiency comparisons alone would be interesting. I wonder if other new linux phones designs have those incorporated or will they need to go back to drawing-board. The relative downside is that requirements require more from even the smaller products.