Laptop Battery Life

We see many many technical achievements and advances in the laptop market. We have a variety of choices of power, size, portability, cost etc. One thing remains relatively the same, and that's the number of hours you can run a typical laptop on a single battery charge.

Intel, AMD, etc make announcements about how their newest CPU designs are smaller, faster, consumes XX% less power (XX meaning it's a double digit usually in the 30-60% range), and is more power efficient with better power management. Laptop manufactures are using LED backlit for less power consumption with brighter screens, or using OLED screens. So shouldn't we expect a longer run time for the same battery on one charge?

With netbooks, the goal is portability right? That should translate to a number of things, small size, wireless connnectivity of all sorts, and one of the important things that most mobile device lacks is how long you can go on a single charge. This is where the netbook really stinks. My full size laptop can run 2-3 hour of mild usuage, web surfing, youtube, video clips, etc., but my laptop is not as portable. It's big, heavy, and everytime I move it while it's running I'm scared my harddrive will crash and burn. So netbooks sounds like a good idea, small, light, (claims to consume less power, probably does), etc, but WHY still the 2-3 hour battery life? I mean and heavier usage and I might as well be stuck to the power outlet, one of the reason I would get a netbook is so that I can STAY AWAY from that power outlet. Netbooks are suppose to consume less power, using CPUs with good power management and low power consumption and using SSD drive for less power, more speed, and no more head crashing threats on the harddrive.

WHY do they shrink the damn battery too? If I buy a net book I hoping to be able to used the net book all day long constantly without see the poweroutlet, because that's part of being mobile, away from the juicy holes in the wall.

What lowend small laptop companies should focus heavily on is runtime on single battery charge. I would find a laptop able to run 10 hr on a mild usuage on a single charge more useful, than a laptop with more features but can only run for 2-3 hours.

This is where I think the iPhone or iPod touch have a good chance of making a dent in the market. The stripped down OS X kernel is great and consumes less power than a full blow OS. Microsoft has a mobile OS too but it's not as stable, appealing, or as easy to use, though it does provide everything and more than the iphone can offer. WM phones tend to have better camera, bluetooth connectivity, etc. But smart phones are still after all phones but closer to personal computers than the traditional phone, and of course there is the issue of the screen being too small.

If this ipod touch platform was just extended to say using a 5-7 inch screen keeping witht he same design. Even with the same CPU and chipset design we'll be using a larger screen and best of all we'll have PLENTY more room just to INCREASE the battery size. wow now image a 5-7 inch ipod touch, that can run for about 50 hours of music 15 hours of movie and like 8hr + of websurfing, wouldn't that be a swt device. Sure it's still mobile, works and feels like an ipod touch, can run the same apps, essentially it will be gold. if the ipod touch can sell 300 for 16GB ipod touch on a 3.5 in screen, I can see the same device selling for 400 but with a 5-7 inch screen with a bigger battery (keep the same thickness). And that's what I hope to see this coming up Apple conference in June. It would be a big bonus if it was running on the actual OS X OS instead of the iphone OS. I would pick one up in a heartbeat. My laptop would fall back to the role of the "at home" computer.

Sigh, but one can only drool about it. I just don't understand how companies can come out with half ass designed products and expect it to sell. Most net book looks ugly cramped and unfriendly to use. Why, you might ask? Because they are trying to SHRINK the laptop, instead they should be expanding the mobile platform. You can't shrink a tiger to the size of a cat and expect it to still look scary and powerful, but you can enlarge a house cat to make it frightening.

Hmm bad analogy, I guess I need coffee.