Comments on: Ultrabooks and Removable Batteries

By: alan

alan — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 16:20:46 +0000

Here’s an article about SATA power savings: http://www1.maximumpc.com/article/news/new_power-saving_devsleep_feature_added_sata_specification

SATA DevSleep kind of sounds similar to SATA ALPM (Aggressive Link Power Management) where the SATA link/controller can be put in an extremely low power/off mode. I know ALPM is implemented in many current SATA controllers. I don’t know about Windows but in Ubuntu it’s turned off by default though. DevSleep is newer and sounds like it can add more power savings.

By: DavidC1

DavidC1 — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 00:37:19 +0000

They haven’t made big advances since then. CPUs can be made idle most of the time but chipsets can’t, because it needs to be active to service I/O requests. The CPUs that integrate more functions just move that power from the chipset to the CPU instead.

By: someone

someone — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 01:58:07 +0000

Well, I found this article: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/01/06/windows-7-energy-efficiency.aspx from 2009 (yeah old). There’s a pie chart of what consumes power in a notebook. Seems like the chipset and screen uses up a lot of power.

Anyone know of a more current breakdown? I know there were a lot of power consumption advancements when Intel integrated some of the chipset functions and GPU into the CPU.

By: someone

someone — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 01:44:23 +0000

Any info on advances in power consumption in components other than the CPU/GPU? For example, screens, WiFi, fans, cooling and other controllers not integrated into the CPU.

By: DavidC1

DavidC1 — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 18:49:45 +0000

There are no conspiracies on battery technologies that holds progress back. Better batteries are simply more perfected devices, and there’s limit to how much it can become better.

All of the claims about batteries lasting 10x longer fall to the wayside because it doesn’t hold up to claims in reality, or its not mass manufacturable, or its not safe enough, or all of them.

Same with charging technologies that claim 30-100x faster charging speeds. Sure, even if you can do that, you’ll need either a massive charger or have an industrial grade power source routed to every house. Simply not practical.

People are spoiled with rate of advances in technology, but there’s no guarantee it’ll continue. Computers advanced fast because they can.

By: me

me — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:54:23 +0000

I’d like replaceable batteries if that also means I can use extended ones. I can use the battery that fits my planned use.

I also don’t bother with the whole charging to less than max capacity. Samsung suggesting charging to 80% of a 70% capacity battery (after 3 years) will make that already short ultrabook battery life even shorter. I’d rather do what the battery companies probably want me to do and get a new battery.

I agree that there should be some pressure on manufacturers to build more efficient and longer lasting batteries. Not sure how that can be done though since these manufacturers have an incentive to not do that.