Feature: Tips for Working Without Electricity
The recent blackout on the East Coast should have reminded everyone of a few key survival tactics:
- Keep a flashlight at your desk.
- When traveling to New York, be prepared to sleep on the sidewalk.
- Ditch your desktop PC immediately and use a notebook from now on.
Desktop machines connected to an uninterruptible power supply with a battery backup may continue to work for, say, 15 minutes after the lights go off. But a notebook is designed to run on an internal battery. So when the power goes off, you've got all your files, e-mail messages, and other stuff on a computer that can still run for a few hours.
While blackouts like the big one in August won't happen every month (let's hope), less dramatic power outages happen fairly often, thanks to ice storms in the winter, lightning in the summer, and so on. With a little planning, you can keep your notebook's juices flowing even when the wall socket runs dry. Here's how.
Keep Two Batteries Charged
Some notebooks, such as many Dell Inspiron models, offer interchangeable drive bays that can accept batteries or other devices, such as CD-R/RW and other optical drives. These notebooks let you install an extra battery in one bay and an optical drive in the other.
The ideal power backup scenario would be to keep a battery installed and fully charged in each bay at all times. Unfortunately, that means you'd have to hassle with swapping a battery with the optical drive every time you needed a CD or DVD. And external rechargers aren't often an option for notebook batteries.
Solution: When you're not traveling, attach an external optical drive to your notebook. That way, you can easily access CDs and keep both batteries fully charged. External CD-R/CD-RW drives have dropped dramatically in price, with some models, such as Hewlett-Packard's CD-Writer Plus, costing only about $50.
To shop for external CD-R/CD-RW drives, go to the PCWorld.com Product Finder.
Investigate Battery Options Before You Buy
If you're in the market for a new notebook, consider a model that can run off two batteries without requiring you to swap one out for an optical drive. Keep in mind, though, that notebooks with a fixed optical drive and two bays that can hold batteries tend to be heavy. For example, the Dell Inspiron 8500 ($2166) weighs nearly 9 pounds.
Also, check to see if the manufacturer offers optional high-capacity batteries for the notebook you're considering. For example, the Sharp Actius UM32W ($1899) ships with a battery that lasted about 2 hours in our tests. But Sharp sells a long-life battery that the company says will last up to 9 hours. It costs $349, though, while a standard replacement battery for the UM series notebooks is $179.
You can check our Product Finder for the latest prices on the Actius UM32W.
Do a Reality Check
In terms of battery life, what some computer makers claim and what a given notebook actually delivers are often two different things. So if you're shopping for a notebook, read impartial reviews first, paying close attention to the real-world battery results.
For instance, the notebooks we evaluate at the PC World Test Center have all been tested for battery life. For a quick look at test results, check our monthly Top 15 Notebook PCs. You can always find the latest chart linked to our Reviews page. At the Top 15 Notebook PCs page, click the Test Report link that accompanies each notebook and scroll down toward the bottom of the page to find the battery test results. The results are given a rating (such as "outstanding" or "very good"); the duration (such as 3:49) is listed as well.
Look for Longevity
Notebook battery longevity can vary widely, from about 90 minutes to more than 6 hours.
The latest generation of notebooks, particularly those based on the Intel Centrino chip set architecture, offer some of the longest battery lives yet. Some recent examples:
- The Toshiba Tecra S1 ($2879) lasts an amazing 6 hours, 38 minutes on one battery charge--a record.
- The IBM ThinkPad T40 keeps going for nearly as long, at 6 hours, 23 minutes. The high-end configuration we tested was $3249; you can find the latest prices at our Product Finder.
- By contrast, the HP Pavilion Ze5300 (which is not based on the Intel Centrino architecture) had the shortest battery life in a recent Top 15, lasting only 1 hour, 40 minutes.
And Then There's the PowerPad
Some third-party companies sell extended-life notebook batteries. The Electrovaya PowerPad 160 ($449), for instance, delivers up to 16 hours of juice (depending on use), the company says. Electrovaya offers lower-cost models with shorter battery life, too.
Resources
- For more tips on extending notebook battery power, check out two earlier newsletters: "No More Dead Batteries" and "Make Notebook Batteries Last."
- Batteries.com is a good resource for purchasing all types of batteries. Plus, the site has a helpful glossary of battery terms.
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