Naw, that's just an Apple thing...Apple was one of the
first to use the "smart batteries" in their laptops.
Always gotta push the envelope! I was so pleased that
the Newton used regular batteries! Having played with
the other PDAs at the time, the thing that frustrated
me were those special batteries! The one that really
annoyed me was the Marco! The battery is actually a
physical part of the exterior of the device! Any
anyone ever try and get a replacement backup lithium
for their Envoy? $6.00 from Motorola plus $3.00
shipping! No one else carries it!
I remember years ago reading about a polymer battery
that could be molded to specific shapes to take up
whatever spare space is available. And how about these
new Zinc Air batteries? And these new hydrogen
catalyst batteries?
When my co-worker showed me his new iPaq, I was
impressed...but when he said he gets about 4-8 hours
of battery use out of it (depending on what he's
doing) I almost choked! Heck, with fresh Duracell "AA"
batteries, I can still get several days of use with
constant ethernet and backlight (assuming 4-8 hours
per day of use)
What's the point of this wonderful portable computing
power if we all gotta walk around with these
Batman-like utility belts to power the things?
Ed
web/gadget guru
http://newton.tek-ed.com (download Newton packages)
http://npds.tek-ed.com (my NPDS server and it's new
subdomain)
--- Chris Searles <csearles_at_netcologne.de> wrote:
>
> >No kidding... I've heard, you EE's out there may
> know better, that the
> >single largest obstacle to portable computing is
> the battery. We're still
> >being forced to use (relatively) ancient technology
> by the battery
> >companies who buy the patients for revolutionary
> (size and life)
> >innovations and shelve them so we'll keep buying
> the AA's that come off
> >their highly efficient and expensively tooled
> production lines...
>
> Yes, but what kind of battery does the iPod use? It
> must be one of those
> that didn't get "shelved".
>
> Chris Searles
=====
Just because you're a genius, doesn't make you a smart guy!
- The Powerpuff Girls -
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