battery

What's the most important measure of any laptop? Some might say the processor speed, or the size and weight, but at the end of the day, it's got to be battery life.

After all, these are mobile devices, designed to be used in coffee shops, airport lounges, and college libraries (even big laptops get carted around occasionally), so being able to spend the maximum amount of time possible away from a wall outlet is important.

During 2011, the CNET Labs team tested more than 100 laptops, from 11-inch ultraportables to monster 18-inch gaming rigs. Despite the wide range … Read more

There's always at least one person on your holiday shopping list you put off as long as possible because he or she is such a pain to find something for.

You know these kinds of people. The insufferable wiseacre who insists he's easy to shop for when he's constantly looking for weird movies no one has heard of (more accurately, ones no one wants to watch), or talks about how he needs to add to his collection of '70s and '80s TV commercials. They're like gift hipsters. It would be too easy to just get them something readily available.

These are the people for whom gift cards were created.

Ah, but it doesn't have to be that way. With a minimum of fuss, you can get something unusual for that precious snowflake in your life without having to leave the house. Here, in no particular order, are five Crave-worthy ideas that don't involve your online shopping history being inexorably linked to movies with titles like "Blood Freak" or "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies." … Read more

The first beta of iOS 5.1 may not resolve the battery drain problem that's been plaguing many iOS 5 users, claim some initial reports.

Released to registered developers on Monday, iOS 5.1 is Apple's latest attempt to squash the battery drain bug cited by a variety of users running iOS 5.

But early reports don't sound too encouraging.

Tech enthusiast site AppAdvice said yesterday it's been hearing "that iOS 5.1 doesn't seem to really help with the iOS 5 battery issues some users have been experiencing." The site already seemed … Read more

Last week, German tech site macerkopf.de stated that sources close to the development of iOS 5.0.2 claimed the update was coming this week to address battery performance issues that have been plaguing several iPhone 4S users since its release. Today, the site claims that the update will be delayed because of memory leaks in the code.

The most scandalous reports about the iPhone 4S thus far have been the battery performance issues, a problem that even Apple admitted, which it is not one to do very often.

The current version of iOS (5.0.1) was supposed … Read more

The daily recharge of smartphones may become a thing of the past if battery researchers can get lithium ions to behave in a different way.

Northwestern University and Argonne National Laboratory this week published advances on research that takes on lithium ion batteries' weak spot: the electrodes that hold electric charge. Both efforts reflect the quest among researchers to improve batteries by improving the anode and cathode material used in today's lithium ion batteries.

With a better anode, a cell phone could be charged in 15 minutes and have 10 times the energy storage capacity of current lithium ion … Read more

Battery life is always an issue with today's gadgets, from smartphones to tablets to electric cars, but researchers at Northwestern University have come up with a new technology that might lead to longer-lasting devices in the next few years.

Engineers from Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science discovered a way to redesign today's lithium ion cells, which are used in a number of consumer electronics, to address two major problems with today's batteries: energy capacity and charging time.

"We have found a way to extend a new lithium ion battery's charge life … Read more

Liquid Metal Battery, a company formed to make cheap storage for wind and solar power, has hired its first CEO.

Phil Giudice, who was the third employee of demand-response company EnerNoc and the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources Commissioner until earlier the year, announced his "new gig" on Twitter. One of his tasks as CEO is to raise more money to build up the company, he told The Boston Globe.

Liquid Metal Battery was spun out of the lab of Donald Sadoway, a professor of materials chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Funding for the company has … Read more

Apple has begun a new replacement program for some of its first-generation iPod Nano units, which, the company says, contain batteries that can overheat.

In an e-mail sent yesterday to owners of first-generation Nanos, Apple said the batteries in Nanos sold between September 2005 and December 2006 could "overheat and pose a safety risk."

In its note, Apple said the issue can be tracked back to a particular battery supplier, and that the potential for such overheating behavior "increases as the battery ages."

The new program offers a free replacement unit to customers whose device carries … Read more

Apple issued a brief statement Friday following reports that some users of the iPhone 4S are continuing to see battery life problems despite a fix released in yesterday's iOS update.

"The recent iOS software update addressed many of the battery issues that some customers experienced on their iOS 5 devices. We continue to investigate a few remaining issues," Apple said in a statement to All Things Digital.

Apple rolled out iOS 5.0.1 yesterday in large part to address the battery-drain situation, but some users say their batteries are still losing charge at a fast rate. … Read more