It’s happened to many a traveler: You’re onboard a flight from, say, New York to Los Angeles, with plans to finish a stack of work along the way. After all, an airplane is often a great place to be productive, thanks to the absence of nagging colleagues, email and ringing phones. Except you’re barely over Minnesota and your computer warns you it’s about to “hibernate” as your battery power is hovering somewhere around just five percent. Now how exactly do you plan to finish that sales report before you land?
Tag Archive: battery
How to Extend Your Laptop Battery Life
Phiaton Has Headphones for Every Ear
Phiaton, a branch off of Seoul’s Cresyn Co., is relatively new to the high-end headphones market, but the company showed it meant business when it released the PS 300 Noise Cancelling headphones this past March. These headphones cost about $300 and provide up to 18 hours of listening time on its rechargeable lithium-polymer battery. Phiaton also ships the headphones with an extra battery (a $50 value) as well as a battery charger that works in conjunction with a USB cable so users can charge the battery with a PC or laptop.
Lenovo Offers Replacement for Malfunctioning Notebook Batteries
Computer maker Lenovo is offering replacements for batteries in six of its Thinkpad notebook computer models that claim they cannot be charged or are “irreparably damaged.” The impacted models include the ThinkPad R60, R61, T60, T61, X60, and X61, and the batteries span a range of part numbers; Lenovo has posted a battery diagnostic tool to help users determine if their battery is affected. Lenovo is offering replacement batteries for free.
GeForce Hybrid Notebooks Stretch Battery
Power and efficiency always come at the expense of one another. Add a powerful graphics accelerator to your notebook and it makes games fly, but gobbles down battery. Use integrated graphics and you can stretch your battery for hours but games crawl. Nvidia, however, now claims it can offer the best of both worlds with “hybrid” graphics accelerators for notebooks which can turn off when not needed to extend battery life using integrated graphics.
HP Claims Notebook Can Run 24 Hours
It’s the bane of all notebook computers: just when you think you’ve liberated yourself from the tyranny of the desktop…the battery dies. The result is that instead of being free and liberated and able to take your computer with you anywhere, your life devolves into a mess of power adapters, cables, extra batteries, and constant paranoid glances at your battery indicators.
Although battery technology has yet to experience the sort of leapfrogging advances enjoyed by say microprocessors, HP does want notebook users to know it feels their pain…and that, correctly configured, it has shown that its EliteBook 6930p can run up to 24 hours on a single charge.
Kensington Keeps iPods, iPhones Juiced
Accessory and peripheral maker Kensington has taken the wraps off two new battery pack/chargers for iPod and iPhone users, enabling users to charge (and keep using) their favorite Apple portable devices even when they’re away from computers, wall outlets, and adapters. The battery packs are designed to serve as a portable recharge for iPod and iPhone users on the go; when users need to recharge their devices on the go, they can pop on the battery pack and pick up extra juice. When connected to a power source, the devices can both charge and power an iPod or iPhone at the same time.
LG Laptop Battery Melts Down
For the second time this year, a laptop battery by LG Chem malfunctioned on Thursday, melting down and destroying itself in an LG laptop. While no one suffered injuries, LG has voluntarily stopped selling the laptop model in question.
The malfunction happened to a graduate student in South Korea. The laptop model, which LG has not identified, was sold only in South Korea and is no longer produced. Jik Soo Kim, a spokeman for LG Electronics, told the Associated Press the company was investigating the occurrence.
Silicon Nanowires Could Extend Battery Life
If Stanford University researchers are on the right track, the holy grail of portable energy may be right around the corner in the form of modified lithium-ion batteries. Assistant Professor Yi Cui believes that integrating silicon nanowires into existing li-ion designs could extend the battery life of packs by a factor of 10.
While the basic mechanics of what the battery does would remain the same, substituting a forest-like sponge of silicon nanowires instead of graphite as the battery’s anode material could result in a massive increase in storage capacity. According to Cnet, silicon nanowires can hold many more lithium ions (and therefore many more times the charge) than graphite.
Sony Unveils Extended-Life PSP Batteries
Sony PSP owners craving extended gaming sessions now have a way to get their fix: a new extended-life battery pack from Sony. Officially announced on the PlayStation blog on Tuesday, the new battery pack will supposedly double the battery life of the new model PSP.
While Sony’s standard battery back is rated for 1800 milliamp-hours (mAh, a unit used to show battery capacity, not power), the new pack is rated for 2200 mAh. As a result, the new batteries are thicker than the originals, and Sony will also include two new plastic battery covers to accommodate for them, in both black and white.
Apple Takes Heat for iPhone Battery Life
While plenty of Apple diehards are still swooning over their iPhones, one Chicago man was so unimpressed with one feature of the device that he’s suing Apple over it, and New York State officials have voiced complaints as well. Jose Trujillo, of Chicago, filed a lawsuit against Apple last week alleging that the phone’s limited battery life was never revealed until after it was on sale. Meanwhile, New York’s Consumer Protection Board contacted Apple on Monday with concern for the battery life, urging them to make it easier for consumers to replace themselves.
