A clear message to ultra mobile PC OEM’s
{democracy:4}
If it wasn’t clear before, it is now. [If the results are not showing, make your vote and you’ll see them.]
While some people will accept 3-hours battery life for an Ultra Mobile PC, 85% of people want 4 or more hours. 50% of people here see 5 hours as minimum battery life for a UMPC.
4+ real hours. not the fake ones from “specification”
yep, 4 + with wireless and screen up..
6 real hours starts to feel like I might get away with one battery swap a day a lot of the time, and that’s important.
The concentration of responses at the top of the available selections probably indicates a few more selections would have been warranted on that end.
The basic idea that we need more battery life than we’re often getting comes across clearly, though.
We need some kind of breakthrough in battery technology. Something that brings up battery efficiency 30 – 50 percent without added size, and preferable without added weight.
I don’t feel 5 hours is long enough for UMPC – I’d really want 7 hours. 5 hours is acceptable for a laptop but not for UMPC.
Sadly, I think the question that manufacturers seem to be asking is, “how little battery life can I get away with before people will no longer buy the device?” That’s not the same question you’ve just asked. i.e., a vast majority of people may want at least 4 hours of battery life, but are they willing to put their money where their mouth is?
Is over four hours of battery life important enough that they’ll pay what it costs for it? Or will they complain about the price?
Is over four hours of battery life important enough that they’ll sacrifice small size and portability? Or will they complain about how (relatively) large the device is?
Until we have a breakthrough that gives us cheap, dense, highly efficient batteries, long battery life pretty much means a larger device, a more expensive device, or both. (And, incidentally, that breakthrough will cost money to develop. The manufacturer that develops it will have to find the money somewhere…)
We all want longer battery life. That’s not the interesting question. The interesting question is what we are willing to give up to get it.
[That said, various ARM-based devices do have 4 hour battery life, or better. Since you’re speaking specifically of UMPCs, I assume you weren’t talking about those.]
You know…the answer to your questions is 3 hours. You really don’t see it?
One of the main reasons I like my Samsung Q1UP so much… low-end, but true notebook-like power when compared to other UMPCs and yet 5 to 6 hours of real-world battery life. The compromise is size and weight, but it’s still far smaller than any notebook. I’m willing to sacrifice on weight and carry a second battery for another 5-6 hours as well. It’s not for everyone, but battery life was important to me when I made the purchase.
In response to JC’s comment, for me there’s an important point: if you make a basic UMPC with very good battery life and it seems to me that I have to pay more proportional to the battery cost I’ll buy it. What I suspect will happen is that companies will roll out very good batteries ONLY on their “top end, all the whiz bang (or gee-whiz) gadgets and premium software packages preloaded” model so that in order to get good battery life I’d have to pay for other stuff I don’t want. I know companies (other than ASUS :-) ) want to keep their product ranges simple to maximise economies, but I only want to spend on what’s important to me.
Yea – that is exactly why the Pixel Qi (again no relationship with them) is important. The ground breaking effort of the OLPC XO was the power saving features, the sunlight readable screen, the $10.00 replacement battery tech as well. Now, the question is why it is taking so long for the commercial offerings to even come close to matching the OLPC XO on battery life, sunlight readable screens, and that low priced user replaceable battery?
Pixel Qi is the source for licensing this tech. They say that they are working with folks, but can’t say who! So – not a peep from anyone yet about it? I sure hope that the Dell netbook has the Pixel Qi stuff (they are advertising on the new published specs in the url below about 5 hours of use on the new model that they are about to launch in August… we will have to wait and see how they are getting to this 5 hours of battery life).
http://www.umpcportal.com/2008/06/dell-e-netbook-images-specs-pricing-revealed/
Dell has since announced a 12″ (but that is not UMPC material at all).
OLPC XO had somewhere near 20 hours of battery life in e-reader mode (would turn off the processor frequently to save power as well, etc).
I want 50hr!!! I have 50-100hr with my HP 100LX on 2xAA. I don’t want backlight and color. I wont TIME!
Raon with 4000mAh and 12hr? Too small :-)