The Gadget Blog » battery troubles

4 Ways to Prolong Battery Life

Rico Mossesgeld — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:00:40 +0000

Finally, some sensible advice on prolonging batteries! I know that batteries will lose their ability to hold a charge no matter what, but that doesn’t mean you can take steps to make it last for a few extra charge cycles.

Slate’s Farhad Manjoo recently interviewed Isidor Buchmann, the CEO of battery-testing equipment manufacturer Cadex Electronics, about characteristics of contemporary gadget batteries and how to use them to your advantage. Note that the tips below only apply to Lithium-Ion batteries, the most popular type used in gadget today:

Keep Your Batteries Away From Heat. Heat lessens a battery’s lifespan, and unfortunately many gadgets today (especially laptops) can get very hot. The solution, aside from keeping the unit as cool as possible, is to always charge the battery when the gadget is off. When using laptops that are plugged in, remove the battery once it’s fully-charged.

Maintain an Optimum Charge Level. As Buchmann says, “you should try to keep your battery charged from 20 to 80 percent”. This means you should actually minimize letting a battery drain, and of course be mindful of overcharging it. Once the battery is full, unplug!

Charge Before Storing. Storing a battery drained of all power definitely lowers its lifespan. So if you plan to stow away that power pack for a long time, make sure to charge it to around 40 percent. Aside from prolonging the battery’s life, you’ve also got power for those emergencies.

Reset Your Battery Meter. This is tricky: some gadgets reset their power meter once you let the battery completely drain before charging it up back to full strength—a clear violation of maintaining an optimum charge level. But, if not done frequently (i.e., only when you think your gadget’s remaining power estimates are off), the damage to lifespan should be minimal.

Do you have your own proven tips on prolonging your gadget’s battery life? Remember, the longer our batteries last, the more efficient we become!

Source

Post from: The Gadget Blog

Battery Life Estimates are Bunk—Here’s Why

Rico Mossesgeld — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:30:28 +0000

Savvy laptop owners learned a long time ago that manufacture claims on laptop battery lives were essentially best-case scenarios. An XPS M1330 for instance never reaches the promised 3 hours—even with all connectivity off and the screen dimmed to minimum.

Courtesy jyrik

But why, you ask? Here’s Daniel Lyons’s theory

These battery-life numbers are based on a benchmark test called MobileMark 2007 (MM07). The test was created by a consortium called BAPCo (Business Application Performance Corp.), whose members are—you guessed it—computer makers and other tech companies.

Consortium member AMD recently turned tattletale, with marketing VP Patrick Moorhead citing three possible results of this apparently newfound awareness: “Either the industry regulates itself, or the FTC steps in and regulates us, or we get hit with a class-action lawsuit. I suggest the industry go with the first option.”

That third option sounds more appealing honestly: nothing like a windfall settlement to provide money for replacement batteries.

Seriously though, the real reason why battery estimates are usually off is due to good-old wear-and-tear. Disabling WiFi and lessening display brightness actually make those company-based battery life promises reachable (but still not attainable). Except of course for the reality that a battery loses capacity the more it’s used. Not only for laptops, but practically any gadget relying on rechargeable batteries.

That first marathon unplugged laptop session—usually employed after the battery has seen some use—drives this point home.

Post from: The Gadget Blog

The iPod Nano Failures Prove that Apple is Human After All

Rico Mossesgeld — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:08:44 +0000

Thanks to a “can do no wrong” image cultivated by its effective marketing machine, people make the mistake of assuming that Apple’s the best out there—bar none (may we invite you to revisit the myth of the Apple iPhone’s overwhelming superiority?). So you can imagine the amount of press coverage the flaming iPod nano (which has something to do with its battery) has received:

Wha? The Apple iPod nano actually failing is news? When did we anoint Apple and Steve Jobs as god-incarnate, incapable of any gadget-related error whatsoever? Apple may have a lot of undeserved attention from the online and offline media, but this also means its really under the magnifying glass; the smallest slip-up generates news stories from here to Timbuktu.

Post from: The Gadget Blog