subject: Laptops – how Portable are They? [print this page] Laptops how Portable are They? Laptops how Portable are They?
Much is touted about the portability of laptops, however can a device that has a limited battery life rally be considered portable? Well with the advent of low power consumption netbooks, it is finally possible for laptops to run for several hours away from their laptop power adapters.
The increased portability of laptops is thanks to advances in technology, as well as a conceptional sea-change in what it portable computing is meant to deliver. On the one hand with many devices now using lithium batteries, the potential battery life for devices has grown considerably.
Also, people are using their laptops in different ways than what they used to, and rather than, for example, running a host of applications on their portable devices, netbooks as their name suggests are often used just for surfing the net, and therefore do not need to be high-performance.
In fact, the more expensive the laptop generally the less battery life it will be able to enjoy for example, high performing gaming laptops are still going to spend most of their time hooked up to laptop power supplies.
Also, alongside advances in battery technology, the very anatomy of portable computers is changing to be offer better battery life, and, for example, using an SSD drive rather than a hard drive will considerably improve battery life, as in SSD's there are no spinning components, which can be considerably power hungry.
Unfortunately, even the most power savvy device will still need to be recharged once in a while and with this in mind, if you own a netbook for example, then it might be a good idea to opt for travel laptop power adapters as well as traditional laptop power supplies that can be easily taken with you on long days in London etc where you may get the chance to recharge your device on the train, for example.
