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> ... back in the day people used to just carry spare batteries to increase capacity "Back in the day" batteries lasted 2 hours or less and even then I didn't

> ... back in the day people used to just carry spare batteries to increase capacity "Back in the day" batteries lasted 2 hours or less and even then I didn't know many people who bothered buying a spare. The extra weight and expense weren't worth the trade-off. Now with 8+ hour battery life, the trade-off is even worse.

_qulr 6y ago
Interesting argument. If people didn't bother buying a spare even when battery life was shorter, maybe longer battery life doesn't really matter all that much. ;-) Incidentally, I had a spare that I brought along when traveling. When I wasn't traveling, I generally didn't need the spare, but it was great when I did need it.
LeoPanthera 6y ago
Well it's only my anecdata vs your anecdata but that wasn't my experience at all. In the 90s through 2000s it was extremely common for people who primarily worked on laptops while travelling to have a "laptop bag", inside which you'd carry your power adapter, whatever PCMCIA cards you needed, a mouse, and a spare battery.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > Well it's only my anecdata vs your anecdata but that wasn't my experience at all. Indeed and much likely depended on use-cases. But battery life is vastly different now regardless. > PCMCIA cards you needed LOL do not miss those. I did have a sweet PCMCIA network card because Linux didn't support the onboard NIC. Back in the days when you had to scour 30+ web sites to find a laptop you could run Linux on reliably.
- spaceisballer 6y ago
  It wasn’t that long ago that our agency had thousands of people with laptops who travelled often (2007). We used to give them two batteries, a home charger and a car charger. You could get almost four hours on a full battery and that was not running a ton of software and no WiFi or wireless. Seemed common if you travelled to have more than one battery. Now it seems like you just want one of those battery backups to bring with for times when you don’t have a plug nearby.

_qulr 6y ago

Interesting argument. If people didn't bother buying a spare even when battery life was shorter, maybe longer battery life doesn't really matter all that much. ;-) Incidentally, I had a spare that I brought along when traveling. When I wasn't traveling, I generally didn't need the spare, but it was great when I did need it.

LeoPanthera 6y ago

Well it's only my anecdata vs your anecdata but that wasn't my experience at all. In the 90s through 2000s it was extremely common for people who primarily worked on laptops while travelling to have a "laptop bag", inside which you'd carry your power adapter, whatever PCMCIA cards you needed, a mouse, and a spare battery.

ogre_codes 6y ago
> Well it's only my anecdata vs your anecdata but that wasn't my experience at all. Indeed and much likely depended on use-cases. But battery life is vastly different now regardless. > PCMCIA cards you needed LOL do not miss those. I did have a sweet PCMCIA network card because Linux didn't support the onboard NIC. Back in the days when you had to scour 30+ web sites to find a laptop you could run Linux on reliably.
spaceisballer 6y ago
It wasn’t that long ago that our agency had thousands of people with laptops who travelled often (2007). We used to give them two batteries, a home charger and a car charger. You could get almost four hours on a full battery and that was not running a ton of software and no WiFi or wireless. Seemed common if you travelled to have more than one battery. Now it seems like you just want one of those battery backups to bring with for times when you don’t have a plug nearby.