Batteries better, but are they still guilty as charged?

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"Battery life is really a function of power consumption," said Mike Trainor, chief mobile-technology evangelist at Intel.

In 2003, for instance, Intel came out with the Pentium M, a notebook chip containing transistors that would power down during lag times to save energy. The company has also created dedicated teams of engineers to work with battery suppliers, the hard-drive industry and other segments to develop energy-efficient parts.

A few years ago, Intel invested in and began to promote the technology of a Taiwanese company called Toppoly Optoelectronics as well. In traditional notebook screens, only about 4 percent to 8 percent of the light from the light source actually ever reaches the viewer. The rest gets dissipated as it travels through several filters and polarization layers.

Toppoly created a way to open the apertures on the pixels, allowing more light to come through. Conversely, this reduces the energy required to run the screen. A notebook screen on a thin and light model containing Toppoly's technology might now consume 3 watts of power. In 2002, a screen of the same size might have required 4 to 5 watts, Trainor said.

Consumers have noticed the gain, he said. In 2000, battery life was the No. 1 complaint, and good battery life was not among the top five factors consumers considered when buying a notebook. By 2003, battery life became one of the top two criteria.

Battery manufacturers have improved their technology as well. In 1990, a lithium-ion battery might have provided 1,200 milliamp hours of energy. A battery of the same size now might provide 2,600 milliamp hours, said Hameed Chaudhury, product marketing manager for the energy component group at Sony, adding that Sony introduced the first lithium-ion batteries in 1990.

"You can change the molecular structure to pack in more active materials," he said. "Think of an hourglass. If you have finer grains of sand, you can put more in." Sony has also reduced the size of metallic components to increase space for active materials.

Lithium polymer, a battery gel material that can be shaped to fit efficiently inside phones or handhelds, has also grown in performance and popularity. One phone maker has completely converted to lithium polymer.

"People want slim phones. They don't want to go back to 10-millimeter cells," Chaudhury said.

Trouble ahead?
Problems, though, are brewing. For one thing, the end appears to be in sight for improvements to lithium ion. "The theoretical maximum will be reached by 2006 for lithium-ion chemistry," Chaudhury said.

To continue to improve performance, device makers will begin to combine batteries with other technologies, such as superconductors (reservoirs for electricity) and fuel cells. Toshiba has shown off a prototype fuel cell that it says can power an MP3 player for 20 hours. It may come out in 2006. Different types of fuel cells could be used to run laptops or televisions.

"That would truly be portable TV," said Fumio Ueno, an executive in the company's Display Devices & Components Control Center.

Companies will still manage to eke improvements out of batteries, Chaudhury added. Another company, Japan's Pionics, is working on technology to increase the density of lithium ion, while Zinc Matrix Power is coming out with an alkaline battery in 2006 that it says could double the run time of notebooks.

Still, customers may never be fully satisfied. "Things (in notebooks) are going in the direction of greater power consumption," which could sap battery performance, said Roger Kay, an analyst at IDC.

Then again, Kay admits that he gets close to eight hours of battery life out of his notebook, thanks to a nine-cell battery in the back and a lithium-polymer battery in the DVD bay.

[Que.Ball]

Now make them more durable

My laptop has Lithium Ion batteries which now only hold a 15
minute charge. When it was new they would last for 5 hours.

They want $149 for a replacement.

I wish they could at least make the replacements cheaper, or
make it so that the local battery place can replace the cells.

No incentive

Corporations, generally speaking, are very self serving and arrogant. The only reason we don't have better batteries is because they will make less money. They do not care about the impact on cutomers or the enviroment. The only thing that will reign them in is government intervention, but since corporations own the US government, that is unlikely to ever happen.

It is a shame that money rules everything, even common sence and decency. I wonder what good all that money will do for those people once the earth is rendered uninhabitable.

[markdoiron]

Best Possible Rechargeable Battery Improvement

the single best rechargeable battery improvement is the one that the mfg's aren't selling us: a standard-size, user-replaceable battery!!!!! i'd GLADLY pay an extra $10 to not have to buy an outrageously priced, proprietary battery; especially if that battery could only be replaced by the mfg (or, worse yet, was a "lifetime" battery in a sealed unit that meant the entire device had to be replaced!).

think about it: wouldn't it be nice to have one or two chargers for all your rechargeable batteries? that would mean you don't have to buy (ie PAY!) for a battery charger with every new product you get--a real cost savings. and wouldn't it be nice to be able to pull your "darn it just died!" battery from your cell phone and replace it with the one in your digital camera to make that important, deal-closing telephone call? or how about the battery in your old cell phone that's now so much trash still fits that digital camera that's worth keeping?

come on mfg's, quit with the excuses and give us a rechargeable batteries standard!!!

mark d.

ipod the worst

cnet forgot to mention how the ipod (any of them) all have the worst battery times than any other harddrive based music players. Even the video/music/photo players that came out long before apples new music/photo player has a much longer battery life. Up to 80%! What's the deal with that?

Pay more for less = apple.