Someday we'll be able to deliver power to our laptops with tiny fuel cells or magic pills. A global effort exists to provide simple little machines to thirdworld children (the One Laptop Per Child initiative, at http://laptop.org) that you could power up by a hand crank or foot pedal. But most of you are tied to an electrical outlet at one point or another: either to run your laptop at work, or to recharge the internal battery for use traveling (or in mid-air or neighborhood).
A few alternates can bring power from sources other than a wall outlet and I'm going to avoid the main topic of personal windmills, sewing machine treadles, and pocket- sized nuclear reactors.
Adding a second internal battery
Certain laptop models generally larger and more sophisticated systems offer a multipurpose bay on one side or the other of the bottom box to hold a secondary rechargeable battery (or an extra hard disk drive or CD/DVD drive or other device). This second battery is usually smaller than the main battery, which means that it holds less energy. With respect to the model, though, it should add from one to three hours of extra life ... and close to a pound of weight.
Adding an external battery
It's not the most elegant kind of the computer equivalent of adding a sidecar to a motorcycle or training wheels to a bicycle but another solution is to purchase and use an external, or auxiliary, battery.
This device is commonly a small, pizza- box- like unit that sits beneath your laptop and connects to its standard power port. Another design is like a brick that sits alongside your laptop or on to the ground. These batteries come in a range of capacities, including models that meet or exceed the stored power of the main battery. Most include an electronic circuit that automatically adjusts the output voltage to your machine's needs and a set of converter tips that allow them to mate with laptops of differing designs. You may even find external batteries specifically designed to utilize your particular model.
These external batteries typically cost much more than a standard main battery because they include their own charger and because they may hold a higher capacity. And they add between 1 and 2 pounds to your load and take up almost as much space in your carry- on bag as the laptop itself.
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Emanuel Moreno at
08192010
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