One extended battery to rule them all

I’m a big fan of high capacity batteries. Sure, they add a little size and weight to your mobile device, but for me it’s worth it if you gain the ability to run all day on a single charge. I’ve been picking up batteries for PDAs that are nearly as large as the mobile devices themselves for years. And if I have a choice between a 3 or 6 cell battery for a netbook, I’m always goign to choose the 6 cell option.

But what if you have a number of different laptops and don’t want to spring for the high capacity batteries for all of them? The Universal External Laptop Battery from LaptopBatteryExpress is a single battery with many adapters. The 66.6WHr, 6600mAh battery comes with power tips that let you use it with laptops from Acer, Asus, Compaq, Dell, Fujitsu, Gateway, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, and Toshiba.

Of course, some of those companies have more than one power adapter size, so I can’t say for certain whether it will work with netbooks from each of those companies. But at $149.90, the universal battery should supply up to 4 hours of extra run time for a standard laptop, and if your netbook is supported, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it provide 6 hours or more. On the down side, since the adapter doesn’t actually fit into the back of your laptop, it’s one more thing you’ll need to lug around with you.

via SlashGear

Posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009, 9:24 am by Brad Linder

DougC3

This should be a must-have for netbooks with batteries that are not removable, assuming the tips fit; and, looking at the photo, they seem pretty much like the standard array.

Following the link, I notice it also provides a USB port for cell phones, iPods, etc.

Dumb question for smart hardware geek: could anything beneficial happen if you plug external USB power into a USB port on your netbook?
BoloMKXXVIII

Nothing good would happen if you back-feed power. Can't tell you if anything bad would happen. Depends on the current and how the circuit is designed inside the netbook.
oryoki

Here's an alternative that's $20 cheaper, and has similar specs.
You can daisy-chain two external batteries for twice as much power.
http://www.bixnet.com/exnobapo80.html
JimM

You'd have to get a custom USB cable to even connect the systems the way you suggest – USB is hierarchical, PC->peripheral.

Best case scenario is that nothing happens because the USB protocol won't be able to identify anything on the other end. OTOH, external USB power might not be smart enough to actually speak the protocol, and may just blindly provide power – which means this scenario is unlikely.

If you _do_ get it to work, the most likely case is you'll burn out either something in your laptop or your external USB power.

The worst case is that various pieces will overheat and catch fire.

If you try it, please take video so we can watch it here: http://tinyurl.com/6kcx6s
JimM

An external battery that masquerades as a power supply implies that the laptop will run with power settings as though it's plugged in – which are usually optimized for speed (e.g. CPU cycling disabled). Maximum (external) battery life will only come from changing the netbook power management settings to be the same for both battery and plugged in.
JimM

Ooh, they have one with 153WH of power… insane!
http://www.bixnet.com/bp170cpq24.html
JimM

You'd have to get a custom USB cable to even connect the systems the way you suggest – USB is hierarchical, PC->peripheral.

Best case scenario is that nothing happens because the USB protocol won't be able to identify anything on the other end. OTOH, external USB power might not be smart enough to actually speak the protocol, and may just blindly provide power – which means this scenario is unlikely.

If you _do_ get it to work, the most likely case is you'll burn out either something in your laptop or your external USB power.

The worst case is that various pieces will overheat and catch fire.

If you try it, please take video so we can watch it here: http://tinyurl.com/6kcx6s
JimM

An external battery that masquerades as a power supply implies that the laptop will run with power settings as though it's plugged in – which are usually optimized for speed (e.g. CPU cycling disabled). Maximum (external) battery life will only come from changing the netbook power management settings to be the same for both battery and plugged in.
JimM

Ooh, they have one with 153WH of power… insane!
http://www.bixnet.com/bp170cpq24.html
http://www.laptopbatteriesinc.co.uk/acer-travelmate-4200-laptop-battery-p-7474.html china laptop batteries

Do you want to make your laptop use a long time, I can help you, I worked in a laptop battery company. There are many high quality but cheap laptop batteries, hope you like it.
http://www.laptopbatteriesinc.com/ mylaptopbattery

I like the battery you describe,It is convenience for us

One extended battery to rule them all

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