How long can your batteries last?
Hurricane Dolly has landed, fortunately much to the south of Houston to the delight of those of us here. Hurricanes are a way of life for those on the Texas Coast and given the experiences of Katrina and Rita we keep a wary eye out when storms like Dolly begin approaching the Gulf Coast. Whenever I am facing the prospect of a storm like Dolly one of the thoughts that cross my mind has to do with what I can do in the event of a prolonged power outage. The longest I’ve faced in recent years is about 12 hours but we know that given severe enough circumstances those outages could far exceed that.
I am in an enviable position when it comes to battery life simply because I have some excellent mobile technology at my disposal, and a lot of it at that. Because of that when I tallied up how long I could survive a total power outage I was amazed at how long I could keep going on the blogging front. Here’s a list of what I added up:
MacBook Pro- 3 hours
HP 2710p- 10 hours (internal and slice batteries)
Lenovo IdeaPad U110- 7-8 hours (regular and extended batteries)
HP 2133 Mini-Note- 7 hours (regular and extended battery)
Fujitsu P1620- 10-11 hours (two extended batteries)
All told that’s a total of 37-39 hours I could keep going without the benefit of an outlet! Now connectivity would be another matter although I’m pretty well situated in that area too. Of the gadgets listed above all of them can be used with my Verizon v740 ExpressCard modem so as long as the Verizon network was up I’d be in good shape. Of course, if Verizon went down I have the fall-back network of AT&T and could use the HTC Advantage as a modem. I guess it’s safe to say I am as ready as anyone could be for such an outage.
Where did you get the two batteries for your 2133? I am still looking for the 3-cell battery to augment the 6-cell battery that the machine came with. Maybe you could prod your HP contacts to see when they’ll get around to offering these as accessories?
I got my 3 cell direct from HP and they should be available soon if not already. Check their online store.
They only have the 6-cell for $129. Part # KU528AA. I wouldn’t be surprised if the machine is discontinued before they have the battery available
Living in Houston for most of my life I am well aware of the problems of hurricanes, but I would also submit that we have not really seen a powerful storm here in a while – certainly not since the breakup of the Bell system and the move to broadband, cellular, and cable as primary means of communications. I wonder if we had a severe storm would there be power to drive cell towers? If you are using cable for VoIP there is a good chance you would be without both voice and Internet access for a while. It used to be that good old POTS lines had enough power running through them you could use an old phone even if your home’s power was out. Now most people have fancy home phones that require power adaptors to run. Somewhere in a box I have an old analog phone saved that does not require a power adapter just for emergencies. As for using a cell phone as a modem to get Internet access, IF the cell towers do have power, and they are not overloaded with people trying to make phone calls, then how much of the Internet today is really usable at any speed below low-end DSL speeds? Most websites have moved on to the assumption that no one uses dial-up anymore. Having a strong respect for hurricanes and the power of mother nature, I wonder just how things will fair when we have “the big one” And don’t get me started on evacuation plans. Houston grew way too large to successfully evacuate years ago. We will have gridlock again just as we did last time.
Although I only got my Mini-Note yesterday (love it – but boy do I wish it had a touch screen. if ever there was a device…….) you have just given me my next excuse for another computer purchase.
“Well Honey, Think of the extra tme on-line we’ll have if we get hit by a hurricane.”
Gordon
I’m surprised more people don’t own portable generators. They’re small and cheap. Having grown up in Florida, I learned there are lots of things that can knock out power for substantial periods of time — mostly storm-related (hurricanes, tornados, thunder storms…even the very rare ice storm), but even under “normal” operating conditions (esp. in the summer) the grid can be overwhelmed (resulting in forced blackouts or brownouts). If one’s livelihood depends on the availability of electricity (e.g., someone working from home), even short interruptions can be costly.
I realize this won’t help with the rest of the infrastructure we’d need to be able to “work in the cloud,” but this is cheap insurance for the home.
Two batteries for the NC8000 laptop with 3G data card, 6-7 hours.
The N800 battery plus the one out of the 770, 4 to 10 hours, depending on what it’s doing. It’ll only have connectivity as long as the battery in the W950 phone holds out though, which isn’t very long on 3G
If I’m desperate, I have old Palm 3 XE that can go as long the pile of AAA batteries lasts. No internet connection on that, though.
If the car is still working, I have an inverter and iGo charger that I can use to charge that lot. I don’t know how long the diesel would last running the engine at idle, a day or so?
Alan.
I come close, at about 33 hours, provided I rely solely on my UX, my Tekkeon packs, and my UPS units. That’s not a bad rig, however, and I don’t have to swap systems at any point.