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Soldered-on RTC batteries (with type covered as a bonus)
(i.imgur.com)
This is a community for designs specifically crafted to make the experience worse for the user. This can be due to greed, apathy, laziness or just downright scumbaggery.
If you know this much then replacing the battery with a battery holder should be simple.
I was just going there... Couple solders to the existing connections and you're in business. Total cost? 4 dollars for equipment and a bit of time.
Its not about knowing everything. You can know a lot but don't have the skills. Cisco doesn't make cheap products and screwing it up, it not good. Especially it can be easily done at the factory. Its not like it would cost them much more. I can get a holder for like 0.50 to 1€ per piece. There you must subtract 19% VAT and think in bigger quantities. On a per device basis, its not adding much.
They do this, because it adds up and they can save a lot of money. They make more money when a customer pays for a replacement or when a customer screw things up and needs to buy a new device. Its not something companies should be allowed to do. Also it would be even better if we don't need to tell companies what they should do and they do it themselves. In fact a lot do this, because it doesn't add much to the total cost of one device, but it makes the product better.