Cut the Cord- Use That Laptop Without Plugging In
This guy worked like this for an hour so he could be plugged in. He was barely able to walk from working hunched over. His battery was full when he arrived, and he had no further appointments for the day.
Laptops are useful things. You can throw them in a bag and pull them out almost anywhere when you need to get work done. You see people using them almost everywhere these days, from coffee shops to restaurants. They are mobile computers after all, and the key word in that phrase for me is mobile. One of the main features of laptops that makes them so mobile is the ability to use them unplugged. They have batteries, and while all day battery life is still largely a pipe dream most notebooks will run for a good portion of the day. That’s why I regularly get amused when I see laptops in use, they are almost always plugged into an outlet. I have to wonder what the point is to always use a tethered laptop?
Now before you sound off that I get to play with lots of notebooks, and that I am overlooking the fact that battery life deteriorates over time, listen to what I have to say. I don’t work mobile as much as I use to, but my observation of how mobile workers always want to plug in was garnered over years. In my past life I would work all over the place; it was not unusual to see me working in four or five different locations on a given day.
I never plugged in my laptop, even with that mobile lifestyle, while outside of my own office. I always carried a spare battery in my gear bag but no power adapter. Truth is I seldom had to swap the second battery into the notebook. I found with aggressive power management I could get a solid 4+ hours of constant use on any notebook I was carrying. Today’s notebooks can usually get 5 or 6 hours of solid use on a charge, and almost no one is using the computer for that long on a given day. Not outside the office, anyway.
I have observed mobile workers for years and it is uncommon to see one working on a laptop in a mobile venue without plugging into the nearest available outlet. I have asked hundreds of these workers why they don’t use the laptop unplugged and almost always get the same answer. They are afraid they might be in a situation where there are no power outlets and they want to make sure the battery is full. That makes sense but it means that most of these folks never, ever use the laptop unplugged. They are too busy always topping off the battery.
The reality is most of us are rarely very far from power outlets. They have them in coffee shops and just about every venue a laptop is commonly used. I have attended countless meetings where four or five laptops were in use, and every single one of them was plugged into an outlet. It often made for amusing cable clutter, and I’ve seen people trip over them. Most of these meetings lasted less than two hours so I have little doubt that all of these laptops could have lasted the duration on battery power handily.
My conversations with laptop users makes me think that most have the unreasonable (to me) fear of running the battery dry. They fear the rare situation when they have to work unplugged but the well is dry. It’s a real fear but to me it’s not a good reason to plug my laptop in, 99.99% of the time. Just in case. How about you? Do you always plug in, or do you always work untethered?
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When working from home, I never plug my Dell. It usually a good indication if I run out of juice that I am working too much – or at least too much via the laptop and not the desktop.
When working out – which is usually just on trips, I tend to be much more battery aware.
At home with entertainment activities, we use the Acer 9″ partially without cables, since this is the best way to run around the kids with Skype on with the parents on the other side of the ocean.
Tal
Ouch! You got me! (he says as he unplugs his HP Tablet from wall socket).
Wow, smart article. COMPLETELY agree, it follows the same logic as those people running out right now to buy groceries & top off their fridge out of fear that the world is getting ready to come to an end.
This is about as reasonable as making fun of people who continue breathing just because there’s always going to be more air around.
EVERY time I try to use one of my stupid laptops (HP, Dell and 2 Macs) I’ll just be getting on a roll when BLAMMO! No more juice. Every time. I look up and wow, if I think about it, I guess I was sitting here for 3 hours (time sure went fast). So I guess it takes about 3 hours of ramping-up time for the creative juices to start flowing.
I use my computers for all the cool stuff they can do now: PhotoShop, music recording, film editing, iPhone programming, regular-old programming, writing, site design, surfing, learning, chatting, etc.
In my opinion, the only thing that laptop batteries are good for is UPS functionality – at least when the power goes, I won’t lose my work. Unless I’m not plugged in.
I couldn’t agree more, it blows my mind. Not to mention the fact that if you never use your battery it won’t be there for you when you need it, because you know these same people never ever condition the battery.
There is one exception though and that is the airport. For whatever reason I never get lucky enough to have a power port on the plane so I like to make sure I have enough power to last me through the flight.
In most cases I use the battery unless I am charging it. I move around a lot throughout the house. I am constantly going up to the 3rd floor(where my bedroom is, and back) durring the school semester, for the most part, I don’t even take my power supply with me to school. my battery will last throughout the day. I have two batteries for my tablet. the regular and extended. I try to always have both charged when I leave someplace. in most cases I won’t have to switch to the second battery, but it happens enough that I always keep it charged.
I believe that is a remanescent fear build on the short battery life of the first laptop models, and the lack of experience of the users, this thinking of how many laptop/notebook users buy a spare battery during their ownership, mostly they stick to the aging original battery, even though it lasts 15 minutes!
Not all of us want to cripple our machines just to proove a point. If a power point is available then I can use my machine at full brightness and with everything on then I’ll plug in, but only if I’m going to be there a while. I have 5+ hours of battery life, but when possible I’d prefer to have full power available.
Gordon
When I’m running from place to place I never bring the cord with me. Being on the road morning till evening will just mean I bring that 2nd battery along. No big deal.
All day use sitting at meetings though, I will certainly plug in. I have yet to walk into a conference room that DIDN’T have power available, and ignoring the opportunity is like passing by the free gas offer at the corner pump. As Gordon above said, plugged in means I can work at full speed and full brightness – when you’re sitting at a desk 9-5, that’s the way to go!
I must admit I have terrible battery life with my non-aggressive MacBook Pro power management skills. But part of the reason I plug in is out of fear that the next place I work — whether it be in a different conference panel, a car, another cafe — won’t have power. By plugging in I have maximum flexibility and minimum worthless dead laptop.
same here – though I must admit I am less careful about plugging in with my new MacBook Pro (which has greater capacity)
Then again, I put gas in my car when it gets to 1/4 tank, but my wife can tell me how long the low gas light will stay on before you really need to get gas.
I think that particular preference is dependen on what you use the notebook for. In my case, as a technical consultant, my machine is constantly operating at full capacity for code development, demos and other activities. That being the case, even though my Z90s with extended battery can last for about 6-7 hours on moderate use, with cpu at close to 100% most of the time, that 6-7 hours will easily get reduced to possibly 3 or so… and the last thing I want is to have my system run out of juice at a moment where there is no let… so for me, the battery is purely for use where I cannot find an outlet; if I can find an outlet, I will tend to use it. For people like me, without juice, I’m rendered useless. :)
I end up in situations without power often so I need to keep my laptop charged up. The concept of working without the cord sounds great, but is not a reality for me.
My 2730p gets 4.5-to-5 hours of life per full charge with moderate power settings. When I’m at my office desk, I keep it plugged in to prevent it from entering standby while I’m a phone call or working on another project… I “f-ing hate” standby/hibernate while I’m at my own desk!
But I usually pull it off the charger and go mobile when I’m roaming around the hospital, and I make it to lunch time without any issue. Then I charge up over lunch and am good for the afternoon.
i almost always have my laptop plugged in, but i’m almost always at my desk, and i like my computer on all day long.
i actually use my computer unplugged more at home than anywhere. my x61 tablet is great to use on the can or in bed as an e-book reader.
I’ve started to see the light on this. I have one of the new MacBook Pro notebooks, and it really does get 6-7 hours of battery-powered use. I was in SFO airport last week, and someone saw me working for an hour and a half without being plugged in. They actually pointed out an available outlet to me. They were rather shocked when my reply was “thanks, but I’m good.”
I agree in theory, unfortunately you’re way off with your estimate of “normal” battery life. If you get decent computers, sure, you might squeeze that much out of them – but a lot of laptops sold at “idiot-stores” like best buy etc don’t really have that much battery life unless it’s specified as they’re meant for stupid consumers who don’t think to check such things. It’s all about “X GB ram, Y GHZ processor, Z MB video ram” etc, never about hours of battery life. Why I know this? During lectures, there are about 100 people with laptops. 4 outlets in the lecture hall. The battery life people have on their moronmachines range from about 40 minutes to 2 hours, with few goign longer. I’ve had several people admit that their laptop is useless because their brand new lapptop with power management on gives them max 1,5 hours of battery life.
Frankly, one of the reasons I like netbooks is that the battery is standardized (within the brand) and easy to get your hands on, AND it’s easy to swap out.
1000HE here, with 5-6 hours of high-performance CPU, sufficient brightness, and wifi on. I could probably squeeze out another 2 if I lowered the CPU and brightness. It does give me relief knowing that I won’t be caught up short, but still I do work 95% of the time tethered to an outlet. You never know :)
Pre-netbooks I would often bring the cord in my laptop bag but wouldn’t use it until later in the day if at all… but my notebooks have always focused more on frame rate than battery life.
Since EEE changed the world, I only take the netbook no extra battery, no cord & my no-power-required pad o paper with me for business around town.
The exception to this is airports. I will search out plugs at the ports to make sure I have plenty of juice on the longer plane rides.
Now this is amazing! My experience has been the complete opposite. Much more likely than not, wherever I go I find people using their laptops on batteries. In some instances, people are sitting ( for a long period ) next to an outlet but running on batteries. They are hogging it for me because the first thing I do is to “case the joint” for an outlet. I almost invariably use my tablet plugged in because of the reasons outlined by Gordon ( performance) and because it has, for convenience (in weight and size,) a small four-cell battery on even though I own two other eight-cell that I never used. I could do without batteries altogether, but you know, it’s good to have it Just In Case (TM.) I should also add that I am plugged-in but I’ve set power management not to charge battery unless it reaches a very low threshold. I do this because I don’t like the extra heat generated. I often see people who have been using their laptop away from an outlet suddenly get up and start to frantically look for an outlet which either I or the aforementioned hogger have laid a claim to. What astonishes me is that if these folks are so dependent on batteries, why is it that they did not have the foresight to be sitting next to the outlet and charging it up?
Wow – I have to admit I am a bit blown away by all of this. I am not newbie to using a laptop and even with power management on I get at best 3 hours of battery life on my laptop and have never really seen anyone getting much more than that.
Now granted I am talking about Windows PCs (I have a 17 inch HP Pavilion) and not Macs so I don’t know if that is the main difference as I don’t have much experience with them. I know that this blog (and many of these comments) often refer to Macs. If this is true – then that is just one more reason why my next computer will be a Mac!
I would be interested to know other than using the built in power management features that automatically lowers screen brightness and slows the CPU what others are doing to get what seems to me like a miraculous “5 – 6 hours” of battery life!
Can anyone share how you do this? And I’m not talking about a Netbook here – but a full fledged laptop.
I have a T61p and I can maybe squeeze 4 hours out of it (9 cell battery believe it or not). Workstation level graphics is what really kills the battery life on mine. So I can’t do much for very long without the battery running out.
I think it has a lot to do with the age of the laptop (and the battery). My work computer is a Compq nc6220 and the battery is really feeling it’s age. I used to go untethered with confidence for 2+ hours. Now I am to the point where if I have more than one meeting, I must take the cord with or run out of juice during the second meeting. It’s not worth the risk with aging batteries.
I agree, running off the battery is one of the primary reasons to have a Laptop with a long battery life, otherwise why complain, why spend the extra money.
I also use the Electrovaya PowerPad 95 in my large gearbag if I think I’ll be mobile the entire day. It works well if you think you also are not sure of the availability of outlets. I might buy another (larger capacity) PowerPad for my large gearbag and move the 95 to my small gearbag.
On every Windows laptop I’ve had, in the Sounds menu in Control Panel, I’ve set it to give an audible working for low battery. None of these computers has ever given me an audible warning of low battery. Does this setting ever work?
I wish I could cut the cord, but my battery is about 2 yrs old and barely holds a charge anymore. If I’m lucky, I can get 20 min. I’m out of work and can’t afford a new battery. :(
I agree with the others that it depends on the age of the computer as well as the age of the user. LOL. Those of us who have been around for awhile are too used to anemic battery life. I jumped on the netbook bandwagon with a few devices, the last of which was the 1000HE, great battery life of a real world 6+ hours. But I found that I needed a bigger screen a more performance. Searching around I found my current road rig, the Acer 3810T. Very nice 13 inch screen and a keyboard to lust over after typing on a cramped netbook keyboard. Core2Duo 1.4 processor, 4GB ram and actually able to play back video without stuttering. 3.5 pounds so its still pretty light for me. And best of all I have been getting 8+ hours of real world battery life out of it with vista balanced mode and no tweaking. So the chord stays home and I dont see the need for a second battery for awhile. When I am out and about I do see mostly a mixture of people both plugged and unplugged though. But now with Barnes and Noble giving wi-fi for free it will be more crowded. Its going to look like Panera Bread now.
I’d be much more likely to do that if my TC1100 wasn’t constrained to 2-3 hours of battery life, with NO extended batteries in existence and no spare batteries in my possession. Cut that down to below 2 hours if someone’s playing a game on it.
However, it does give me plenty of time to use it while I search for another power outlet, which usually isn’t too far from wherever I am. (I spend 90% of my time either at home or at my university, which is rife with power outlets!)
If you think that battery life on my TC1100 is poor, wait until you look at my PowerBook G3 (2000/Pismo/FireWire) and the battery it came with. 15 to 30 minutes off of AC at BEST. I practically HAD to remain plugged in at all times!
I could buy new batteries rated for 8 hours, and the PowerBook can take two for a whopping 16 hours (if you can do without an internal optical drive since that’s where the second battery goes), but the batteries are around 150 US$ each for a nine-year-old laptop. I’d rather put the money toward my TC1100.
Aggressive Power Management? Not sure how many people even know what Power Management is, not to mention the word “aggressive” before the term.
Spare Battery? If they go retail, it could have cost them $200. for it. Most people will not buy it unless they got their workplace to buy it for them.
Do you know that some people have Pentium 4 class laptops that is like an oven? P4 uses 100W but was at one time put into many laptops on the market. I know someone who bought an HP w/ a P4 class Celeron. The battery died also quickly too.
Power users should get those laptops which can take 2 batteries, and then plus some power management tricks etc. But then usually that means that the bay for the optical drive is sacrificed.
I bought my 1000HE because I didn’t like my Aspire One 8.9″ w/ 3 cells that can only do 2 hours (while charging my iPhone also acting as the 3G modem at the same time tethering). At one sitting while online at the same time it is not enough. Buying another battery is not cheap, if original brand.
Topping up is a good idea. What they should have done is to have thinner, retractable cords etc, rather than use desktop standard AC cords, big power bricks, and standard wiring. There is no reason that you need an AC cord rated for 13A if you are only using about 1A (on the AC side) at most. This is just being cheap, but it happens even if you buy a $5,000. laptop.
Batteries also age, and they are expensive to replace especially if they are original branded. It used to be $200. to $400. for one. Now there are third parties one, but you never know how safe or reliable those are.
And last but not least: topping up is the best practice to keep your Li-ion or Li-Poly battery in the best possible life expectancy. If you drain your battery, it counts as one cycle, and Li-ion is typical to have only 500 cycles at best. (Same idea for cellphone charging). So if you use your battery everyday, it won’t last very long.
What we want is either very small power brick, thin and retractable cords (or built in power supply like in some), but you want to plug if given the chance (but not to be an excuse to inconvenience other people at a coffee shop etc though).
If you have money of course you can buy 10 spare batteries. The article has a bit of an elitist after taste but may be I’m too sensitive.
As a consultant who’s always on the road, I am *always* plugged in whenever and wherever I get a chance (and I carry a fully charged battery with me always, as well as an extension strip and a charger just for my other battery – plus a power converter that works in just about most regions of the world; the same goes for my phone, too!).
I suppose I’ve just been in many, many situations where I’ve had my travel plans delayed, canceled or otherwise hosed, but that has in no way meant that the client did not want something when they expected it.
Secondly, you seem to forget just how little battery life means. On flights where you’re on the road one way or another anywhere between for 10-30 hours, two 5 hour batteries are a joke. Heck, I’ve even considered buying and carrying another Netbook just for this reason. My previous manager not only had extended and additional batteries, but also carried an additional MacBook Air with him always.
Obviously, our needs are different – but in my world, you’d be considered insane for not plugging in when you get the chance.