batteries

See your MacBook battery status with Battery Health

Battery Health is, as its name implies, designed to tell you about your MacBook's battery, including current capacity and current charge level. Since battery health is an important factor for many of us on the move, knowing how healthy our battery is and how long we can depend on it can help prevent losing power when you need it most. Knowing when it is going to need replacing is also a handy piece of knowledge.

Battery Health is a small utility that installs quickly and easily. When launched the first time, Battery Health asks if you want to run … Read more

Magnetyze brings conductive charging to iPhone 4/4S

One of the features I was secretly hoping to see in the iPhone 5: induction-powered battery charging.

This already exists in the form of third-party products like the Powermat and Energizer Qi. Alas, Apple missed a chance to wow the world, catch up with smartphones like the Lumia 820 and 920, and perhaps distract from the massive disappointment that is the Lightning connector.

Fortunately, if you own an iPhone 4 or 4S, you still have options for cutting the charging cord. One of the latest: BuQu Tech's Magnetyze, a complete inductive conductive-charging kit priced at $69.99. Update: According … Read more

iPhone 5 estimated to cost 41 cents per year to charge

A new estimate claims Apple's latest iPhone costs 41 cents a year to keep charged, less than a third of its sibling, the iPad.

The metric, put out this week by energy analytics company Opower, is based on the assumption that iPhone owners will recharge their device once a day for the entire year:

Phone 5: consumed 9.5 watt-hours to charge, taking 1 hour and 50 minutes. Maximum wattage was 6.3 watts, with an average of approximately 5.0 W. Multiplying 0.0095 kWh/day by 365 days = 3.47 kWh per year. Annual charging cost is … Read more

Sony's svelte external battery looks like a smartphone

When you absolutely need to make sure your main squeeze -- your smartphone or tablet, that is -- can stay powered when away from a wall outlet, a seemingly never-ending number of external battery options exist.

Few of the chargers, however, look as sleek as the half-inch thick Sony CycleEnergy external battery announced today, featuring lithium ion flavors in either 3,500 or 7,000mAh capacities. The slim aluminum frame weighs up to 6.9 ounces and sports a design that probably makes it easy to bundle along with a phone. … Read more

Mophie Juice Pack Reserve Micro: A power pack for your keychain

You know the old saying: you can never be too rich or too thin, or have too much battery power for your Android phone.

If you're forever running low on juice, you've probably thought about packing along a spare battery -- but that's a hassle. Not only do you need a way to keep it charged, you also need a convenient place to stow it.… Read more

Top 5 features missing from iPhone 5

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The iPhone 5 has arrived, and it's pretty great. But I can't shake this nagging feeling that Apple could have done more.

A week ago, CNET's David Carnoy penned a great roundup of the most-wanted features that didn't make it into the iPhone 5. It seemed like easy pickings for a Top 5 video, so I imposed a ranking, stood in front of a camera, and created the video you see before you (click here if you don't see a video at the top of this … Read more

Q&A: MacFixIt Answers

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week readers wrote in with questions regarding an odd APSD-related firewall error in OS X, the utility and risks of having Java runtimes installed, options for maintaining Mountain Lion on corporate networks, and MacBook battery charging. We welcome views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Best practices to prolong battery life MacFixIt reader Jonathan asks:

I recently bought a MacBook Air, first-time Mac buyer, and I love it! Anyways, … Read more

iPhone 5 battery 'a perfect fit' among other leaked parts

We've seen battery packs, and even rear casings for what could very well be Apple's next iPhone, and now you can see both those things (along with other internal goodies) put together.

Repair site iResQ once again has posted what it says are leaked replacement parts for the unannounced, unreleased Apple device. That includes the rear casing, along with what looks to be the same battery pack that cropped up last month. iResQ has put the two pieces together, which you can see in the photo on the right.

"Along with all of the other parts that … Read more

Smartphones with long battery life (roundup)

Smartphones are the Swiss Army Knives of the tech world.

They're cell phones, music and video players, mobile Web browsers, and personal organizers, among other things. Not surprisingly, all this can take a toll on battery life, and when you depend on your smartphone for so much, the last thing you want is for it to run out of juice when you need it most.

Generally speaking, with moderate use, smartphones can give you a full day's performance before needing to be recharged, but not all gadgets are created equal -- some simply run out of steam early, whereas others will hang in there for the long haul. Here are eight smartphones with battery usage that really impressed us, whether it was because they scored well in our CNET Labs battery tests, or simply because their usage time stood out from the crowd of humdrum cell phone batteries we encountered (and believe us, we encounter a lot). Give one of these devices a try if you're looking for a phone that packs some decent juice.… Read more