PowerBook G3 had 7 hours battery life!

[PowerFullMac]

...All in the title, because it had 2 battery slots... My question is, why did Apple not do that on the new Macs? Was it to make them smaller? Cut down costs?

Im curious now...

 

[iMpathetic]

...All in the title, because it had 2 battery slots... My question is, why did Apple not do that on the new Macs? Was it to make them smaller? Cut down costs?

Im curious now...

I think it was because the new Apple batteries don't slide into a slot, like the old ones did. Starting with the Clamshell iBooks and the titanium Powerbook G4s, the batteries were just chunks of the bottom of the notebook.

If Apple were to do that on, say, a MacBook, there'd be no room left for the internal components because MacBook batteries are enormous.

If Apple were to release a thick special "gaming" MacBook Pro, thy could possibly cram two batteries in there, but that's hte price we pay for thin, sexy notebooks, I guess.

 

[72930]

If you put the brightness of the new laptops down to what the G3 had, you would see a jump in battery life...

 

[PowerFullMac]

I think it was because the new Apple batteries don't slide into a slot, like the old ones did. Starting with the Clamshell iBooks and the titanium Powerbook G4s, the batteries were just chunks of the bottom of the notebook.

If Apple were to do that on, say, a MacBook, there'd be no room left for the internal components because MacBook batteries are enormous.

If Apple were to release a thick special "gaming" MacBook Pro, thy could possibly cram two batteries in there, but that's hte price we pay for thin, sexy notebooks, I guess.

So if they manage to make batteries more compact, we could see this again?

 

[Eraserhead]

If they allowed you to slide the optical drive out you could stick a second battery in there, I know I would.

 

[blurb23]

If they allowed you to slide the optical drive out you could stick a second battery in there, I know I would.

SmartBay FTW?

 

[iMpathetic]

So if they manage to make batteries more compact, we could see this again?

Possibly. Look at the Lenovo X300, they managed to stick a second battery in there. You do have to remove the teeny-weeny CD drive though. If Apple laptops became modular again, a second battery would be easily possible.

 

[PowerFullMac]

Possibly. Look at the Lenovo X300, they managed to stick a second battery in there. You do have to remove the teeny-weeny CD drive though. If Apple laptops became modular again, a second battery would be easily possible.

How about if you base a laptop on a MacBook Air but put a second battery in it? Would it be MacBook size?

 

[26139]

Weight

Weight. Batteries are heavy. The powerbook G3, while a fine computer, was quite heavy. Almost as heavy as the 17" powerbook, in fact.

Edit: Okay, not ALL powerbook G3s were as heavy as a 17" powerbook. The bronze keyboard model was 5.9 lbs, making it a bit heavier than the 15" powerbook.

But in COMPARISON to today's portables, they were relatively heavy.

 

[iMpathetic]

Weight. Batteries are heavy. The powerbook G3, while a fine computer, was quite heavy. Almost as heavy as the 17" powerbook, in fact.

True. I'm refurbing a Dell Latitude C600- an old P3 beast (but it was a "thin and light")- that has two 6 cell batteries. It weighs around 6.5lbs, even though it has no hard drive or optical drive ATM.