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Portables (Apple) Businesses Apple Hardware

10-Hour PowerBook Battery 46

Posted by pudge from the if-only-i-ever-left-my-house-this-might-be-useful dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "Valence has apparently caved to pressure from Mac fans and finally released iBook/TiBook compatible cabling for their N-Charge Power System. The N-Charge is a $300, 10-Hour Lithion-Ion battery that powers laptops and cell phones/pdas at the same time. The next step? How about adapters to power my miniDV camcorder?" There's also a lighter version that has about half the power, for half the price.
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10-Hour PowerBook Battery More

10-Hour PowerBook Battery

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  • Is this really "caving in"? I think most would call it "good business".


    Besides that, isn't Apple slated to release a new laptop battery earlier next year? Wouldn't it be better to wait on the OEM battery?



    Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that batteries are heading in that direction.

  • Mmmmmm..... (Score:2, Funny)

    by theloki42 ( 601913 )
    Too bad "AA" and "AAA" batteries don't last that long (proportionally)

    I want one.
  • Why not just buy an extra battery?

    • Re:Extra battery (Score:3, Insightful)

      by earthy ( 11491 )
      Because an extra battery on a 14.1" iBook gives you merely 55 Wh extra power, whereas this gives you 130Wh extra, while also enabling you to not switch batteries. So, the difference is between 110 Wh in total with a batteryswap (and hence a hibernate or shutdown) in the middle or 185 Wh without the need to swap batteries. I know what I would choose.

      (*drool* 185 Wh... that amounts to about 18 hours of computing off the grid!)

      • Re:Extra battery (Score:3, Insightful)

        by BinxBolling ( 121740 )

        So why not buy 2 extra batteries? The total price would still be only $260, considerably less than the $300 they want for the Valence monster. And more significantly to me, the standard PB batteries are much more conveniently sized. The Valence thing is 12" x 9". I'd have a much easier time finding space for 2 extra PowerBook or iBook batteries in my laptop bag.

        Also note: The new PowerBooks come with 61 Wh batteries, not 55. The Apple store doesn't seem to be selling the 55 wH batteries seperately, yet, but I'm sure they will, and I'm guessing that we'll see improved iBook batteries, too.

      • An example:

        If you are recording in the field, you really don't have the luxury
        of putting your laptop to sleep (OS 9) or turning it off (OS X)
        to swap your batteries.

        In these situation, it would be perfectly reasonable to use an
        external battery like this one.
    • In my case, I'd buy one because the cost of an extra 59.2Wh battery for my Sony Vaio [sonystyle.com] is US$249.99. For an extra $50, I can get this behemoth 120Wh battery pack that I can simply leave in my rollerbag and just yank out a cable when I feel I need to start leeching some amps off of it.
  • Well, I know I might sound a bit pessimistic, but sue me...

    Anyway, you never have too much batterylife ofcourse, but I still would personally choose to buy extra batteries for my TiBook. This unit they talk about here is an external battery with a cable, seems very clumsy to me. And with TiBook's (& iBook's) feature that you can change the battery while the laptop is sleeping, I really don't see the use for this kind of product. But that's just me

    OK, I would like one to use with a PC laptop as I haven't seen one with the above mentioned feature. And yes, I do use both - just to mention before you lit the flamer.
    • > And with TiBook's (& iBook's) feature that you can change the
      > battery while the laptop is sleeping,

      Do you know if this works in OSX? My PB (April 01) dies each and every time
      I try this while running OSX (even jaguar) but works perfectly in OS9.

      Do you know if this has been fixed in the later revisions?
      • How much memory do you have?

        The fine print says that the PowerBook won't continue to run during a battery change if you have over 512mb RAM.

        I wonder if the PowerBook is more active during sleep with MacOS X than 9. For instance, if there was a cron job that triggers during sleep, does the system wake up enough to execute it?

        D
        • When its asleep, its asleep. Cron jobs don't run.

          I have successfully swapped batteries during sleep on my PB with 1G RAM in it, so I'm not convinced about your fine print.

          The only issue I have with the two batteries is that I don't have an external charger. So in order to keep the spare fully charged, I have to swap batteries often. Usually I just let the spare sit for a while, then swap it the night before I go on a trip when I might need it.
        • I have a 667 with 1 Gig of RAM and I often put mine to sleep (by closing the lid) and then pull out the battery and put the new one in. Then I open it up and it works.

          I don't know where you saw this fine print but cron does not run when it's asleap, nothing does.
          -Chris
      • Works for me. PB 550, 512MB RAM, OS X (Jaguar now). It worked with 10.1 and 256 MB RAM too. I close the lid to put it to sleep, change the battery, and open it up to resume work.

        Do you still have support?

        -Alex

      • Re:Great idea, kind of... (Score:2, Informative)

        by Tug3 ( 567419 )
        Do you know if this works in OSX? My PB (April 01) dies each and every time I try this while running OSX (even jaguar) but works perfectly in OS9.
        Works perfectly with OS X. The sleep is a hardware feature, so it doesn't matter even if you'd be running Linux... I've tried it personally with PB G3/400 & TiBooks 500, 550 & 667, and a mate of mine with PB G3/500 & iBook 600. All with OS 9 & X - no worries!

        My guess is that the problem could be with your PB's internal capasitors. They are the ones keeping the PB asleep while changing batteries. I'd contact Apple about this problem...

  • Less power, half price (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EnVisiCrypt ( 178985 ) <[groovetheorist] [at] [hotmail.com]> on Thursday November 07, 2002 @10:01AM (#4616077)
    "There's also a lighter version that has about half the power, for half the price."

    Half the power. That would be five hours, right? Um. There's this battery that gets five hours and it comes free with the ibook.

    I'm not sure I'd be too keen on buying one of these devices, as I can't think of many cases where a fully charged spare battery wouldn't do the trick. I guess a flight to japan would require 15 hours of battery time or so, but I can't think of something I would want to do for 15 hours straight on a plane.
    • There's this battery that gets five hours and it comes free with the ibook.

      But not with the TiBook, whose owners I guess would be the primary market for a $300 battery.

    • 129 bucks [apple.com] buys an extra TiBook battery which lasts five hours [apple.com] (yep, just like the iBook does). And yes, you can hot-swap batteries on your TiBook.

      Having a portable power source is cool for a lot of reasons (think peripherals), but it doesn't fill a PowerBook or iBook shortfall; when it comes to portables, PCs can't touch the Mac.

  • External (Score:4, Informative)

    by dhovis ( 303725 ) on Thursday November 07, 2002 @10:02AM (#4616084)
    This is an external battery pack with 130 W*h capacity. For comparison, the 12" iBook has a 47 W*h battery. So you could extend the iBook's battery life from 4-5 hours to 15-18 hours. It supplements the internal battery.

    The downside? It weighs ~3 pounds, about 60% as heavy as the iBook.

    Still, I can see the appeal for people who have frequent long flights.

    • For long flights couldn't you just use an airplane power adapter? I've never tried one of these but you can check 'em out at any online store. Just search for Airplane Power Adapter.

      Personally, I'm never really anywhere that I can't just plug in. The airplane you could use what I mention above, the car you could use an auto adapter, etc. I mean... I'm sure there's some times when you just can't get some good ole' "from the grid" electricity but... who wants to lug around _more_ equipment right?
      • I've personally never seen an airplane power port in coach class yet. They are certainly not ubiquitous.
        • I've personally never seen an airplane power port in coach class yet.

          US Air has them on their A333's, British Midlands's does not. So like you say definitely not ubiquitous, but they ain't non-exsistant. I'm thinkin' of this battery because the BMI flights are cheaper and much faster...but I know a paper back and an iPod is a cheaper solution (since I already own the iPod).

  • Probably too ugly for most Mac users (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Nipsy356 ( 586073 ) on Thursday November 07, 2002 @10:13AM (#4616132)
    I bet they won't be encased in Titanium or White plastic, and that will turn off some users. Additionally, the size & weight issue, vs. carrying a spare battery (or even two) makes this somewaht redundant. Unless you need uninterrupted computing, you're better off carrying two spare batteries...

  • Innovative (Score:3, Informative)

    by jonjohnson ( 568941 ) on Thursday November 07, 2002 @10:16AM (#4616148) Homepage
    I consider this battery system to be a very innovative and useful product. Why? Sure, it does provide power to your laptop of choice, but, it also provides adapters for cell phones and other devies (possibly even more in the future). However, I do think that the smaller battery is a waste since a new Apple iBook battery cost me 130 when I bought it, and I'm sure there are places to get it cheaper.
    • But you can provide power to those devices already via USB or Firewire.

      Hell, if you wanna be innovative you can do it with a 9V battery:
      http://www.clickandbuild.com/cnb/shop/cashncarrion ?listPos=&op=catalogue-products-null&prodCategoryI D=17

  • Electrovaya (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07, 2002 @11:27AM (#4616658)
    I've been using the Electrovaya with my PBG4 for about a month. And the difference between using a high power external battery and carrying extra PB batteries is night & day. I traveled one day from Oakland to upstate New York. Watched two DVD movies, did a ton of work, had juice for my layover in Kennedy, and when I arrived in ALbany 13 hours later, I still had power. And I never had to shut down or sleep to swap batteries and keep my fingers crossed when swapping them. I wonder how this puppy compares in weight & endurance. The Electrovaya is all smooth surfaces; no hump in the middle. But I really love the phone/PDA port. And oh, the Valence is more than $100 cheaper.

  • Using for Laptop Recording (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mhbtr ( 612436 ) on Thursday November 07, 2002 @11:33AM (#4616716) Homepage
    There are more and more people who are using laptops to record music in the field. Often they are recording at 24/48 or 24/96. This wide bandwidth consumes huge amounts of power because of the continuous disk access (I have found that recording at 24/48 takes 1.5 times the battery power of 16/44.1). When you are recording live music in the field, you do not have the luxury of putting your laptop to sleep - you never know how long they will be playing for. In addition, you may be powering an external USB or FireWire based A/D converter/Microphone preamp - for example, the Digidesign M-Box. For all of these situations, this sounds like an ideal supplement to the internal battery. The #1 reason I have not upgraded from my FireWire PBG3 is because it has 2 battery bays and one you can swap batteries without powering down/sleeping. Lastly, a unit like this has much more of a life than your laptop. Because of the modularity of a battery and a power cable, you don't have to concern yourself with laptop upgrades - I'm psyched I have 3 batteries for my PowerBook G3, but when I do upgrade, all those batteries will be useless. With something like this, all I would need would be a new cable. Again, this is great News!!! Eytan
  • Considering how large that battery is. Your laptop isn't really that portable.

    Why not just plug in to a wall.... ...Or if there is no power carry an extra iBook battery or two.

    That thing looks huge.
  • With Batteries like this there is no need to limit the RPMs of a harddrive in laptops. Im sure Limiting the rpm has to do more with size, but couldnt we develop a 7200rpm harddrive for our laptops? With this kind of battery we dont need to worry about it straining our batteries. I currently dont have a Laptop because the speed of a laptop is not onpar with Desktop computers. With Batteries like this, we could pack anything into a laptop and wouldnt have to worry about Battery life.

    What is the fastest RPM drive that is 2.5"?
    • At this point, the fastest ones are 5400 RPM. IBM is one of the suppliers. I have a 60MB 5400 RPM in my PB G3. It was an upgrade from a 4200 RPM 30 GB. There are fewer 9.5 mm 5400 RPM drives than 11-12 mm drives. Eytan
  • Is this ten hours of powering up the machine and letting it sit idle, or ten hours of actual use. If this thing is going to last through ten straght hours of quake sign me up now!

    • Word!

      Quake III on my iBook is a strictly "connect to the power supply" affair since it chews through my battery.

      Starcraft is the same, but only because you can only play it with the CD in, so it has it spinning the whole time.
      • 10 hours of Word?

        Reminds me of the test c't (German computer magazine) once did on the Mobile P3 (article in German. Doing some slow typing in word actually uses more power than playing MPEG2 videos (image) [heise.de].

  • Batteries for your Vid Camera. (Score:3, Informative)

    by jhubbard ( 4916 ) on Thursday November 07, 2002 @02:58PM (#4618495) Homepage

    If you need a battery system for your video camera, you should check out Anton Bauer [antonbauer.com]. They are primarily concerned with the professional, but the sales rep that I talked to mentioned that they were getting into prosumer products. Supposedly CNN and a bunch of other organizations use these things. I was told the CNN reporters covering Afghanistan were using them along with some Sony DV equipment.

    It's all hearsay though.

    --James

    • Sony's monster infoLithium batteries will fit both their professional DV-CAM and consumer DV units.

      The pro ones are enormous (they weigh about a pound each, which is heavy for a lithium ion battery), plus they have a 3 block caddy to fit them in, which then bolts on the back.

      In this way, you can fit three huge batteries to your DV-CAM, or 2, or just the one, or a mixture of small and big ones. It's a fantastic system, and it allows you to swap batteries while the camera is still on and recording.

      Much better than using PAG-90 batteries to power Betacam SP cameras and recorders, although Pag have told us they're considering a lithium ion version of the 90 style battery. That will be the day!

      For info, the largest sony infoLithium is the same size as a regular one in footprint, but is about an inch or so deep, possibly a bit more. Each one will run a large DV-CAM in record mode for well over an hour.

      We bolted one to the back of our Sony P100 (the DV-CAM version of the consumer all in one palmcorder) and it went for 6 hours before we needed to change it.
  • So say I run down my internal battery, and then plug in this nifty toy. It will then charge my internal battery while powering the machine. Doubtful it would charge it all the way, but certainly would charge it - so then you have a partially charged battery and a quickly draining 3lb battery. What a pain in the ass.

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