Anyone who travels with their notebook understands the need for more battery life. You could bring extra batteries for your notebook, but what about for your BlackBerry and your iPod? If you need extra battery power for multiple devices the best option is a universal power source, such as the Duracell PowerSource Mobile 100, that provides both AC power and DC power from its own internal battery. Is the Duracell PowerSource Mobile 100 the best battery solution for road warriors? Let's find out.

Does anyone else get really bad battery life compared to OS X with Vista on their MBP? Is it just because of the resource intensive GUI compared to OS X?

Posted by Dennis Sellers

QuickerTek has debuted a new external battery that works across the range of Apple mobile products, offering iPod, iPod touch and iPhone 3G users up to three times the battery life, the company says. This new battery is available from QuickerTek and dealers for US$44.95.

centerimg title="Pixel Qi Laptop To Run For At Least 20 Hours" style="MARGIN: 0px" alt="Pixel Qi Laptop To Run For At Least 20 Hours" src="http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2008/11/pixel-qi.jpg" border="0" //centerbr / pPixel Qi has a grand ambition - to develop a laptop that has a 20 hour battery life, and might even reach an insane 40 hours if they get it right. Just how are they going to achieve that magical number without invoking a spell? Well, it all boils down to the display, really. It is touted that Pixel Qi's laptop will feature incredible efficiency in order for the laptop to run for up to 40 hours, although the innards used for computing tasks will definitely affect the overall battery life as well. We're all for longer lasting laptops, so you have all our support, Pixel Qi!/p pPermalink: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/pixel_qi_laptop_to_run_for_at_least_20_hours.html"Pixel Qi Laptop To Run For At Least 20 Hours/a from Ubergizmo (a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com"US/a, a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/fr"FR/a) | a href="http://www.uberbargain.com/"Good deals/a | Hot: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/blackberry_storm_review.html"Storm Review/a/p pmap name="google_ad_map_081130170638" area shape="rect" href="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/081130170638?pos=0" coords="1,2,367,28"/ area shape="rect" href="http://services.google.com/feedback/abg" coords="384,10,453,23"//map img usemap="#google_ad_map_081130170638" border="0" src="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/ads?format=468x30_aff_imgamp;client=ca-pub-7335032025195922amp;channel=9684588219amp;output=pngamp;cuid=081130170638amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ubergizmo.com%2F15%2Farchives%2F2008%2F11%2Fpixel_qi_laptop_to_run_for_at_least_20_hours.html"//p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/f1jbz1qBtpB1JWpW-q6eTKSFhj0/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/f1jbz1qBtpB1JWpW-q6eTKSFhj0/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=dcYvXXnb"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=UsU4N5Ln"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=UsU4N5Ln" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=lfcsR8Q8"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=bfinWWAV"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=bfinWWAV" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=eYSYNhq5"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=eYSYNhq5" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ubergizmo/~4/BI4i48Bs9_Y" height="1" width="1"/

pMicrosoft is again trying to improve laptop battery with their upcoming Windows 7 OS. Microsoft is essentially trying to make it easier for system components to go into low power mode when in idle state./p pOther key improvements include the ability to park CPU cores, slumber feature for SATA drives, powering down USB ports controllers, and putting the Wi-Fi Card to sleep if enabled but not connected to a network./p pWindows 7 will have a change in thinking about the system timer. Presently, Vista is set to 1ms but in Windows 7 it will be raised to 15ms which helps to reduce the power draw by 15%. Windows 7 laptops will also not wake up from sleep for applications that use 'wake timers'. For example: Open files from a network and CPU utilization won't stop the screen turning off, the hard drive spinning down and the system going to sleep when you haven't used the PC in a while; Windows 7 will only check for user input and applications like Media Center recording a long TV show. The screen will also dim to save power before turning off./p pDVD experience on laptops is one which tests several power-hungry components including optical drive and graphics in one go. Microsoft will introduce specific changes in Windows 7 and new Windows Media Player to cache video in a buffer so it can spin down the DVD drive and reduce CPU power consumption./p pMicrosoft is working with system manufacturers to use energy troubleshooters across the system to check settings that affect battery life. Microsoft also plans to monitor power efficiency of laptops running Windows 7 anonymously and every two weeks./p pSource: a href=http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/how-windows-7-shames-vista-on-battery-life-489109TechRadar/a/p

MBP 2.4 GHZ 4GB ram (used to be 2G)

Basically, without the power attached, the computer shuts off after around 20 minutes. I started NOTICING the problem after updating the ram, but there is a (small) chance that it started before. I tried removing the battery and holding down the power button for five seconds, and putting it back on without any results. Any advice, is this normal?

Well, yea.. You know an iPod touch's battery life doesnt last long..

I bought my 12 year old son a refurbished Blackbook a little over a month ago and we noticed at first he was getting poor battery life, just over an hour on the battery so I calibrated it and after a recent test he got to 2 hours with 9% remaining mainly playing games online (nothing intense), I'm going to calibrate it again tonight to see if that helps.

iStat Pro states that the battery health is 100% so I'm not sure what to think, shouldn't he get 3.5 - 4 hours from it?

If so, would you suggest I make an appointment to see a "genius" at the local Apple Store and what should I expect from that, or are there any tips or suggestions that I should try first.

Thanks for your help.

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/11/OLPC_Surrounded.jpg" width="494" height="320" style="display:block;" / Mary Lou Jepsenmdash;a href="http://gizmodo.com/5041765/secret-origin-of-the-olpc-genius-hubris-and-the-birth-of-the-netbook"the XO Laptop's designer/a and OLPC's CTO before a href="http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2008/01/more-great-news-for-olpc-team-their-cto.html"defecting/a and founding Pixel Qimdash;has even grander ambitions for new laptop project than hitting a href="http://gizmodo.com/343446/olpc-is-fd-defected-xo-laptop-designer-plans-new-75-laptop"a mythical $75 pricetag/a. Pixel Qi is working on a laptop will be able to run on a standard for 20 to 40 hours, no pixie dust required./p pHow? It's all about the screen. Just a href="http://gizmodo.com/5042466/olpc-origins-us-and-taiwans-hardware-lovechild"just like she reinvented the LCD screen/a for the XO, making the project possible both costwise and practically (with the flip of a switch, the color LCD can switch to one that's monochrome and highly reflective, making it easy to use outside and even more energy efficient) she's trying to do it again with Pixel Qi's latest. Their incredible efficiency is what will allow the laptops to possibly run for 20-40 hours./p pObviously, she wouldn't spell out in detail what's so magical about their screens yet. In an email to PC World, Jepsen simply says that:br/p blockquote"At Pixel Qi, we have a new series of inventions that go well beyond the OLPC screen that we are developing right now... We can enable an increase of 5-10X battery life between charges compared with a standard notebook. This means that rather than needing to recharge your batteries every few hours, you could run 20-40 hours of use on a one charge."/blockquote pHowever they work, we'll be eager to check 'em out when they debut sometime in the second half of next year. [a href="http://tech.yahoo.com/news/pcworld/20081129/tc_pcworld/jepsenworkstoraiselaptopbatterylifeto2040hours"PC World/a via a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/29/pixel-qi-conjuring-up-black-magic-technology-for-40-hour-laptops/"Engadget/a]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=camp;i=641691069e5da969fca375e50319318bamp;p=1"img style="border:0;" src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=vamp;i=641691069e5da969fca375e50319318bamp;p=1" border="0" //adiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=lpQqYuHu"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=PSuaR7sS"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=N53YGme4"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=N53YGme4" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=wAPSAUmo"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=wAPSAUmo" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/L3RxOV0ZDvQ" height="1" width="1"/

Because Intel earnings will evaporate in 2 hours if these notebooks popularity continues to rise. I love them though and I hear that over 5 million have been sold so far. I have 3 of those, one with XP, one with Linux and one with Mac (an Asus turned into a Mac). My 350 euro Asus works as well as the MacBook Air that cost me $1800. It is very small that´s true and I only use it in conferences, planes, or public places but it´s battery life beats any Mac I know. On the negative side the ethernet doesn´t work, sound only works with Bluetooth and the sleep functions that works so well in Macs doesn´t work in the Asus Hackingtosh. I also greatly enjoy the Magalhaes, the Portuguese notebook that competes with the OLPC another favorite.

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So I was looking through Cydia and found this little app.

It runs in the background and talks to a server at user-determined time intervals, telling it where the phone is.

The phone won't report your location unless you configure the settings via the service's webpage. When you log into the site and report the phone as stolen, the phone will start sending out its location.

The service also allows you to track a phone without reporting it as stolen (useful to track your kids' location or that cheating gf/bf - stalk much?).

Bummer is you have to pay $2/month for maximum accuracy (otherwise it's accurate to within 2 miles). But still... $24/yr is cheap insurance I guess.

I only just installed it, so I don't know how it'll affect battery life. We'll see after a few days.

This still seems to be at beta stage, but it looks promising.

a href="http://tech.yahoo.com/news/pcworld/20081129/tc_pcworld/jepsenworkstoraiselaptopbatterylifeto2040hours"img vspace="16" hspace="4" border="1" align="right" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/11/11-28-08-pixel_qi_logo.jpg" //aSure, you can go out and get yourself a laptop right now that'll go a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/09/toshibas-dynabook-ss-rx2-12-5-hour-battery-and-still-worlds-l/"12.5-hours strong/a, but what if your portable computer could nearly outlast your a href="http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/19/aigos-a215-touts-50-hour-battery-life/"Aigo A215/a? While L's a href="http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/20/ls-quad-core-laptop-with-24-hour-battery-will-ship-when-heck-fr/"mythical quad core lappie/a came close in theory, Mary Lou Jepsen's (the former CTO at OLPC) startup is hoping to eventually create a machine that can last between 20 and 40-hours between charges. Pixel Qi is being pretty closelipped right now (and understandably so) about what exactly it has going on, but we get the idea the secret sauce is in a highly efficient display that will require far less power than traditional LCDs. The best part? We could see one of these longevous notebooks in the pipeline as early as 2H 2009, so we'd probably start stocking up on Red Bull right about now.pFiled under: a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/displays/" rel="tag"Displays/a, a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/laptops/" rel="tag"Laptops/a/pp style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/29/pixel-qi-conjuring-up-black-magic-technology-for-40-hour-laptops/"Pixel Qi conjuring up black magic technology for 40-hour laptops/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.engadget.com"Engadget/a on Sat, 29 Nov 2008 15:40:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://tech.yahoo.com/news/pcworld/20081129/tc_pcworld/jepsenworkstoraiselaptopbatterylifeto2040hoursRead/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/29/pixel-qi-conjuring-up-black-magic-technology-for-40-hour-laptops/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/forward/1385995/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/29/pixel-qi-conjuring-up-black-magic-technology-for-40-hour-laptops/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/FNBNG7AlT7LykVBs_63X-H_XQgE/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/FNBNG7AlT7LykVBs_63X-H_XQgE/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=iv4coyWr"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=iv4coyWr" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=YjOeWIn9"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=YjOeWIn9" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~4/hM1Pw4wEPFU" height="1" width="1"/