| A great many users, especially businessmen, travellers and students, can hardly imagine their life without the laptop. It is portable and can be taken on board a ship to view business presentations or send/receive emails from co-workers or business partners. Still, the laptops cannot work 24/7 non-stop. Every now and again the laptop battery needs re-charging. Scarcely has anybody thought, when the first laptop battery was made and what it looked like.
In fact, the laptop battery has an exciting history. They have already come along way, but they still have a long way ahead before they are perfect. When we think about batteries for laptops, many of us think about the rechargeable ones that are deployed now. However, in the past AA batteries were widely used in laptops. It took a lot of AA batteries to run a laptop. More than that, it could not run for long. Some laptop users remember the heavy-weight lead acid based batteries that did not only last long, but also made a laptop very heavy.
The production of laptop batteries has been updated and upgraded since then. Lighter nickel cadmium batteries (NiCd) substituted lead acid based ones. Nevertheless, these batteries were not used long, because there were developed nickel metal hydride batteries (also called NiMH). They lasted a lot longer and were lighter. Their major drawback was the so-called memory defect they had. If not discharged completely, the battery remembered it and its output was lower.
A tremendous step towards progress in laptop batteries manufacture was taken when lithium ion batteries (LiON) entered the market. These batteries are light and have no memory defect. They are installed in technically advanced models.
Although LiON batteries run for several hours non-stop, they need re-charging. Since more and more people buy laptops yearly, the demand for durable batteries is rapidly increasing. Surely, there will be innovations until laptop batteries that do not require re-charging are invented. Regardless of the purpose you use a laptop for, you know that you require a long-lasting battery. You have to know the battery will die when you need your portable pc most of all. |
Article Details