Power to the planners! Sorry to dredge up the 1960s, but it's just that I'm sure you feel the way I do about lugging a pair of power bricks to keep your portable electronics juiced while on the road -- it stinks.
One brick is an ad-aptor/charger for my laptop. The second charger is for my cell phone. And many personal digital assistants (PDAs) with re- chargeable batteries require either a cell- phone-charger-sized brick, or a charging stand. In fact, many people pack a second battery for a laptop, cell phone, and PDA as well.
Much of the problem is the abysmally short battery life of must-have portable electronics. When I was editor of PC LapTop in 1993, the average notebook computer's battery life was about two hours. Ten years later, notebook computers are infinitely improved, with huge color displays, faster processors, and wireless communication capability. Their battery life? About two hours.
But performance improvements are part of the problem, too. Like with a string of holiday lights, manufacturers haven't resisted hanging more bells and whistles on portable components. A 17-inch color LCD screen eats into battery time, as does a DVD/CD-ROM drive and lightning-quick gigahertz processor. And when your computer connects wirelessly to a local network or high-speed Internet connection, it's powering down as it reaches out.
Fuel cells, which can power laptops and other devices for 10 or more hours, should start appearing as alternatives to lithium-ion batteries in the next two years. Unlike a rechargeable battery, a fuel cell doesn't store a charge, but uses methanol to create power via a chemical reaction. Although NEC and Toshiba claim they'll have laptops using fuel cells by 2004, it may be awhile longer before these are approved for use. Methanol is flammable, and the computer industry, aware of early fire problems with lithium-ion batteries, needs to make sure the new technology is thoroughly tested.
More Power, Lighter Load
An array of products can help you snuff out power problems. To lessen your brick-carrying load, there's the iGo Juice ($120 at www.igo.com), a charger for your laptop with an optional cord ($20) for each peripheral device, so it's the only brick you'll need. Another solution, from Gomadic (www.gomadic.com), is a cable ($15 to $40) that connects to a laptop's USB port. The result: You're using the laptop's charger to charge your PDA or cell phone, although charging is slower than using a dedicated charger.
Finally, keep in mind that if your laptop battery is more than two years old, it's probably not able to keep a full charge. To replace a battery or get a backup -- even for computers whose makers no longer offer accessories -- a few Web sites are useful: There's www.ebatts.com, which has a fast inventory search tool. Another is www.battery mart.com, which also offers the iSun Sport Portable Solar Charger ($74.95), which can charge a cell phone, PDA, MP3 player, or digital camera on four hours of sunlight. BatteryMart also offers the PowerBase ($159), a slim but dense pack that slips under a laptop, giving four hours of power.