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Mars11
October 23rd, 2011, 05:51 AM
CPUs, GPUs, HDDs, SSDs, LCDs, pretty much everything in computers or, more specifically, laptops has improved a lot over the last few years, but why not the batteries? Good battery life is a must for portable computers. Has anyone else noticed this?

NovaAesa
October 23rd, 2011, 06:05 AM
It's probably due to Moor's law which says that the number of transistors that can be packed into a certain space for a reasonable price rises exponentially with time. This isn't the case for things like batteries though.

Redblade20XX
October 23rd, 2011, 07:19 AM
Need to look back into my chemistry book.... :lolflag:
Actually batteries have changed pretty drastically over the years. Back in the day most electronics were huge just because of the battery size ( which they needed to supply the power for the vacuum tubes/transistors back in the day). As transistors developed, as stated by NovaAesa, power requirements dropped to where we have sizes now. On the composition side, better batteries are available but most likely they're not efficient to the ones we have now. You'll have to ask a chemist or a chem engineer why though! :P

- Red

Ctrl-Alt-F1
October 23rd, 2011, 08:50 AM
Batteries are getting more efficient. See Ipad for example. Little bitty device, but it can run 3d accelerated graphics for hours on end. It's not just efficient electronics, it's a good battery too.

**Not an Apple endorsement**

3rdalbum
October 23rd, 2011, 10:37 AM
If your computer overheats, it shuts down.

If your battery overheats, it explodes.

They have a higher safety margin as you can understand :-)

3Miro
October 23rd, 2011, 01:17 PM
There was a review about Power Supplies for desktops that said something long the lines: computer guys don't understand their PSU since the PSU is an Electrical Engineering problem as opposed to a computer problem.

The problem of storing electricity of later use has long pre-dated the computers. Older technology that has been around for a along time improves slowly. Unless we come up with something completely different, chemical batteries can only take us so far.

Mars11
October 23rd, 2011, 03:16 PM
Okay, thanks guys!