Wasn't expecting this

Interesting article, thanks for that. One would think that without having to spin up metallic/glass platters to a few thousand RPM and move around an arm and stuff would require a chunk of juice. Apparently theyre quire efficient.
 
I've been telling people this for over 2 years now, nice to see some website (unfortunately THG) come forward and finally give some creedence to what I and many others have known for a long time now. For all those people rushing out with money in hand screaming for an SSD in their Macbook Airs and Lenovo x300s and other laptops, just remember: we told you so but you wouldn't listen. :)

Hard drives have been around for nearly 40 years now and have developed over time into very power efficient devices; SSD, while it's true that they don't have moving parts, still have a lot of development time to go before they're that mature and efficient.

I always remember my Sony MiniDisc from years past, a magneto-optical-mechanical device that ran off one of those gumstick batteries but could also use an AA battery in a little holder that screwed into the bottom of the unit. Battery life of that device off a fully charged gumstick? Almost 40 hours. Battery life of that device off a fully charged gumstick and a brand new alkaline AA battery? Just over 100.

Now that's a magneto (magnets) optical (laser) mechanical (drive motor and laser assembly) device that outlasts/outlasted solid state devices of today by leaps and bounds so I know for a fact it's possible.

What's going on in the industry that screws end users on battery life? I know it's possible right now to design a laptop that can last for 10 hours on a single charge, with Wi-Fi enabled and screen brightness at truly useful levels, so why aren't manufacturers doing it?

Probably the same reasons no one is willing to put out a car with 100 MPG (which is entirely possible these days as well): there's more money to be made screwing over the consumer I guess.
 
An informed poster in the comments:
okayman said:
I'm also eager to buy an SSD, not because of power consumption issues, but instead is because it seemed to be less prone to shock than conventional HDD. I hate sudden deaths of HDD without much warning even sometimes you think you keep it working in good environment. SSD has a "life expectancy" you can predict of, at least.
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I agree with this guy 100%. I work on laptops for a living. I would say that roughly 40% of the units that come across my bench have hard drive problems that the owner wasn't even aware of. Smart failures/bad sectors/spindle misaligned/etc... Even if it isn't exhibiting problems now, chances are it will down the road. Moving parts in a device designed to hold sensitive data banging around in a backpack/briefcase all day FTL. I would rather have reliable data and poorer battery vs. slightly increased battery life and increased chances of loosing everything since last backup. Thats just me though.

What's going on in the industry that screws end users on battery life? I know it's possible right now to design a laptop that can last for 10 hours on a single charge, with Wi-Fi enabled and screen brightness at truly useful levels, so why aren't manufacturers doing it?
Click to expand...
Because stuff like this costs money that average consumers aren't willing to spend. They could easily use milspec components and a few extra months of R&D to produce laptops that last 20+ years with an almost 0% chance of failure in the most harshest conditions. Nobody's going to spend 20K on a laptop of this quality. Instead they will spend $500 on a laptop of average quality using the cheapest components available and with average battery life and a 5% (or whatever was deemed acceptable, I forget) chance of failure.
 
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