The Problem with these Smartphone Batteries

MKBHD explains why Apple, Samsung, and Google are skipping silicon-carbon batteries despite massive energy-density gains.

• Silicon can expand to 3x its original volume during charging, causing long-term cracking and swelling risk.
• Failure rate under 1-in-250,000 sounds safe, but at Apple/Samsung scale that still means dozens of potential Note 7-style incidents.
• Some devices already use a literal steel cage around the battery to contain swelling.
• OnePlus jumped from 5,400 mAh to 7,300 mAh in under a year by adopting silicon-carbon.
• Xiaomi, Honor, Oppo, Realme, and Huawei all ship silicon-carbon at volume; Google ships far fewer Pixels yet still skips it.
• US market is software/ecosystem-locked (blue bubbles), so Apple has no competitive pressure to take the hardware risk yet.
• Real-world longevity data is still thin — first silicon-carbon phones shipped ~3 years ago, mass adoption only in the past year.

2026-02-06 · Watch on YouTube