arstechnica.com — Positive statements from laptop manufacturers like NEC, IBM, and Toshiba routinely suggest that fuel cell tech will be available within 12 months, but such predictions have generally been (to put it politely) optimistic. The dream of a ten hour laptop has been a dream deferred. Until Now...
May 31, 2006 View in Crawl 4
lainJun 1, 2006
kind of irrelevant and off topic, but to those who are looking to find an immediant solution to laptop battery life, there is always the dell 9 cells, I just bought a 640m inspiron less than a month ago, its battery life is 9 hrs and 30 minutes when im taking notes/doing buisiness work. it has about 7 hours if i'm watching movies, definately worth $60 extra for the battery upgrade!just a heads up, i know its off topic. just trying to lend a hand...
superkendallJun 1, 2006
10 hours and then what?I can't imagine being happy filling up a laptop every ten hours, no matter how easy it is, with something I have to pay for. You might say "well you have to pay for electricity" - but not really. At home the laptop would only consume the smallest portion of a bill I am already paying anyway. Out and about, when have you ever been charged for a plug (kind of funny, that!).Sure you could use it everywhere plugged in and only go "On Cell" when you were using the laptop without a plug. But that really sucks, I know because at times I've had laptops with a bad battery that I had to use plugged in. Just about everywhere I use a laptop does indeed have a plug but who wants to constantly be packing and unpacking and plugging in a plug? Fuel cells make sense for cars but for any personal electronic they are just a total non-starter.
richpavJun 1, 2006
Bic is going to make a killing. Fuel cells are basically disposible lighters filled with a different fluid.
kallahanJun 1, 2006
Actually it was more than 14+ hours last time i hooked a laptop to a car battery (Battery to a 300watt power inverter, then used the home charger for the laptop). The problem is the 30-40lbs battery in your backpack.
compwizJun 1, 2006
i got 6-8 hours out of a dell inspiron 600m with two batterys (1 in the optical bay)
nerysJun 1, 2006
First Hydrogen is not dangerous. Did you ever see the hindenberg. if you look at it with a KNOWLEGEABLE EYE you will see there was not that much flame and boom considering how much hydrogen was there. Hydrogen is fast Vrwoooof pop done. you could be in a mix of hydrogen when it goes uo and you would VERY likely survive and probably only with minor burns. Hardly ANYONE on hindenburg died from the hydrogen in fact the opposite they died from the LACK of hydrogen ie they fell when it stopped holding them in the air. Now a large tank of heavily compressed hydrogen IS more dangerous but no more than a tank of propane and FAR FAR safer than gasoline.Gasoline STICKS to everything being a liquid and BURNS SLOWLY. Ie it hangs around and really ruins your day good :-)Fuel Cells on the other hand I have ZERO interest in. the reason can be summed up into 2 words"Ink Jet"Nuff said ?In case those 2 words were not clear enough for you stop buy your local store and check up on the prices of inkjet cartridges and consider that replacing the carts in your printer usually costs more than the printer itself.something as dangerous as FUEL will be even more restricted and regulated making it harder to get "knowkc off" supplies of it like some can with ink.no thanksmy PDA battery (first it COMES with a battery) is $40 and it lasts about 4 years charing EVERY day (I get 6-10 hours on a charge) that means figure 6 hours to be conservative that I get at least 4800 hours for my $40 (and again don't forget it COMES with one so figure 4800 hours for FREE) thats 8/10th's of a cent per hour. (and that is not factoring in the INCLUDED battery)I have no idea how much these fuel cell refills are going to cost but I would wadger a weeks pay its not going to be $5 and that it likely going to be $10 (if we are LUCKY) a fill. lets be NICE and say I get 2 fills out of that and TWICE the run time. (again I am being nice I figure EACH will be ONE fill)I am not even going to bother doing the math since after 4 bottles I am already over $40 and I only got 96 hours of usage from it.Do I really need to say more ?Chris Taylor<a class="user" href="http://www.nerys.com/">http://www.nerys.com/</a>
jgfossJun 1, 2006
Cymbet corporation in Minneapolis MN, has the new thin film battery. three times the life of the best lithium battery with no memory loss in 100,000 charge cycles. Manufacturing has begun. See it in 2009. That will give 9 hours.
unitedstatiansSep 5, 2006
i hate replying to useless comment because, I hate when people make a useless comment to point out that someone made a useless comment, and that they hate everyone, because of it and i also want to kill myself.
unitedstatiansSep 5, 2006
uuummmmm...................... the military!
unitedstatiansSep 5, 2006
Why Methanol fuel cells?The appeal of methanol fuel cells for soldier power sources is from the high energy density of methanol vs. batteries: a pound of methanol translates into 7-8X the converted energy of a pound of LiIon or lithium primary batteries. Even after accounting for the added weight of fuel cell system components, methanol fuel cells offer several times more energy per pound than do the best available batteries.
greenapple123Sep 14, 2006
I bought a replacement battery for my Gateway laptop about a month ago from <a class="user" href="http://www.laptopsforless.com/laptopbattery/gateway-battery">http://www.laptopsforless.com/laptopbattery/gateway-battery</a> and it works great. Is there any reason to think that a replacement Gateway laptop battery would be any less reliable than the manufacturers? My concern is the laptop battery fire risk; would this be a risk with a replacement battery?
Closed AccountJan 17, 2009
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