Friday, September 19, 2008

All Netbooks Should Have A Battery Life Requirement

Netbooks are a different breed.  I think most folks realize that.  It’s meant to be use for a subset of most tasks we perform on a typical notebook.  Because of the size that is favorable for mobility, I think the initial design for any netbook is the ability to sustain a level of work over a longer period of time than a regular notebook.

I’m talking about battery life.  When I participated in the One Laptop Per Child’s G1G1 program, I was drawn into the notion that the laptop would have a sustaining battery life of 10-12 hours, albeit down from the 24 hour boast from the non-profit’s executives.   And even that did not work out.  It’s really about 4 hours.

It’s good enough for a morning’s work and it charges up pretty fast.  I’m not really complaining but it is something I want to point out.

Having said that, the EEE PC’s battery life when it first came out was about 2-3 hours, worse than most full-size laptops.

This is all I’m looking for in my first netbook.  Long battery life.  I do a lot of writing, e-mailing, and surfing the web.  I’m not looking to watch video or even listening to music on the netbook.  I’ve got all that on my iPhone.  So, the inner workings of the netbook does not have to be the fastest CPU.  I’ll settle for a steady low powered CPU.  I’m not looking to replace the Linux install with Vista or even OS X.

Just let me get through a day’s work on the netbook’s battery and I’ll be happy.  

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