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I mainly do trans-pacific flights. In such long (>12h) flights I can't use wifi even if its on offer, as it chews through precious battery time too fast. I woul

I mainly do trans-pacific flights. In such long (>12h) flights I can't use wifi even if its on offer, as it chews through precious battery time too fast. I would kill for plane seats with power plugs, or even just USB power.

rconti 11y ago
I typically find I can get ~6 hours on most modern laptops, which means far more hours than I have the patience to stare at a computer screen for.
- thescriptkiddie 11y ago
  Last time I flew internationally, I brought a 2015 macbook pro retina with a hard drive full of videos. I only ended up getting 4 of the advertised 9 hours run time running VLC with the brightness turned all the way down. Luckily, there were power outlets hidden under the seats. I don't understand why power outlets aren't the number 1 selling point for airlines that have them.
  - scholia 11y ago
    In the days when I traveled a lot, I used IBM ThinkPad X laptops with expanded (9-cell) interchangeable batteries. You just take a spare charged battery and swap them over. I once did London -> Chicago -> Seattle and still had about an hour of battery life for the bus from seatac. That wasn't continuous use, but as much use as I needed.
  - PhantomGremlin 11y ago
    I brought a 2015 macbook pro retina with a hard drive full of videos Not clear which exact model you have. Some have a discrete AMD GPU which would take more power. Also it's not clear what format your videos were in. If it's something like DVD rips, then it could have been MPEG-2. I don't think Intel GPUs have any hardware support for playing that back. Also VLC probably doesn't take advantage of any CPU support for playing back video. You should do a little more research. Your reported performance seems disappointing. You should be able to do much better. For example the current model 13" claims: Up to 12 hours iTunes movie playback Notice they don't mention VLC there. :) So you might have to transcode your video into a format that iTunes supports.
    - thescriptkiddie 11y ago
      It's the low-end 15" model with Intel Iris 6100 integrated graphics, and the files were mostly H.264. I suppose I could have played them in iTunes, but I made a conscious decision to never run it.
DHJSH 11y ago
There are power plugs on all the Trans-Pacific United flights I fly. What airline are you using?
john_bygane 11y ago
Lol wat? I can't remember the time I flew international and didn't have power at the seat. This is economy as well, not fancy business class. Sometimes it's two power sockets shared between three seats, but it's fine if you juggle every couple of hours.

rconti 11y ago

I typically find I can get ~6 hours on most modern laptops, which means far more hours than I have the patience to stare at a computer screen for.

thescriptkiddie 11y ago
Last time I flew internationally, I brought a 2015 macbook pro retina with a hard drive full of videos. I only ended up getting 4 of the advertised 9 hours run time running VLC with the brightness turned all the way down. Luckily, there were power outlets hidden under the seats. I don't understand why power outlets aren't the number 1 selling point for airlines that have them.
- scholia 11y ago
  In the days when I traveled a lot, I used IBM ThinkPad X laptops with expanded (9-cell) interchangeable batteries. You just take a spare charged battery and swap them over. I once did London -> Chicago -> Seattle and still had about an hour of battery life for the bus from seatac. That wasn't continuous use, but as much use as I needed.
- PhantomGremlin 11y ago
  I brought a 2015 macbook pro retina with a hard drive full of videos Not clear which exact model you have. Some have a discrete AMD GPU which would take more power. Also it's not clear what format your videos were in. If it's something like DVD rips, then it could have been MPEG-2. I don't think Intel GPUs have any hardware support for playing that back. Also VLC probably doesn't take advantage of any CPU support for playing back video. You should do a little more research. Your reported performance seems disappointing. You should be able to do much better. For example the current model 13" claims: Up to 12 hours iTunes movie playback Notice they don't mention VLC there. :) So you might have to transcode your video into a format that iTunes supports.
  - thescriptkiddie 11y ago
    It's the low-end 15" model with Intel Iris 6100 integrated graphics, and the files were mostly H.264. I suppose I could have played them in iTunes, but I made a conscious decision to never run it.

DHJSH 11y ago

There are power plugs on all the Trans-Pacific United flights I fly. What airline are you using?

john_bygane 11y ago

Lol wat? I can't remember the time I flew international and didn't have power at the seat. This is economy as well, not fancy business class. Sometimes it's two power sockets shared between three seats, but it's fine if you juggle every couple of hours.