Why on earth did you quit making phones with removable batteries I loved the old note when it had a removable battery and all phones should have an SD card slot plus a phone jack lol ..... call me old school but all of those are very handy !! Lol
Well I would give up waterproofing for those options I have rice ....but in all reality once you take it to get something repaired it's not waterproof anymore anyway or you drop it and the back cracks ect... if you want waterproof your best bet is a real good phone case or a waterproof bag or keep ur phone away lol
You wouldn't have to give up waterproofing. There are literally 1000'S upon thousands of electronics that are waterproof, and the battery can still be removed. The reason they don't allow you to remove the battery is so they can track you. Using a special, very low power mode.
Aside from it being very difficult to get an ip68 water resistance rating with a removable cover (most devices with a removable back have an ip67 rating), a few years ago everyone decided phones should be premium, so we got fancy glass and metal sandwich phones which can't have easily removed backs.
