It's removable, but is it drop-in replaceable? We see that they are already using proprietary connections for it which is to be expected of 2013-2017 Apple, but keep in mind that the more recent Mac Studios had firmware locks to prevent people from simply swapping out their SSDs as they would on any other machine. I would love to get one of these Minis, but it would suck if Apple threw a fake bone to the right to repair community.
Unfortunately, it looks like that model only supports one type of battery; the HT03XL which has small variations from 40Wh-to 41.9Wh and share 3cells among the various third party manufacturers. Chassis' like this are generally designed with one size in mind, whereas older ones with user-replaceable batteries (that pop off the back) can be extended a bit.
One can also use a pre-flashed SD card, or maybe even usb-to-nvme adapters, and load the operating system that way. Please review this documentation: https://github.com/hexdump0815/linux-mainline-on-arm-chromebooks https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv8...-chromebook-r13 I'm currently using this Chromebook with Debian and ChromeOS dualbooted. Note, the SD card should be a high-endurance one like A2, which is made for applications and often utilization.
