Acer: Laptop battery technology is still 'sluggish like a turtle'

The dream of a fuel cell or similar technology, capable of relaying long-term power to a laptop is hard to come true in the next few years, Acer recommends.

In fact, a series of major PC makers around the world are urgently required to recall up to 10 million laptop battery packs last year, fearing they might overheat, leading to a fire that has stripped a truth but people have deliberately hidden it for a long time: The battery technology developed much slower than other technologies inside a laptop.

According to Jim Wong, president of Acer IT products, safety is the most problematic of the battery. Electricity is generated from chemical reactions inside the battery pack, but an unwanted by-product is produced as heat.

" With so many chemicals inside, too many tests, battery technology evolved almost very slowly. The lithium-ion substances currently in use in batteries are now discovered 30-40 years ago ", Mr. Wong said.

According to Wong, fuel cells are promising, but the technology is not mature enough and ready for market launch. Fuel cells need materials like hydrogen, methanol, butane or natural gas to produce electricity.

In order to "massify" this technology, people not only need to go to fuel pumps (like gas stations) but also aviation agencies themselves must approve them for use on airplanes.

In an era where terrorism is everywhere now, even a lighter has been banned, the requirement for liquid fuel fuel to be brought to the plane is very difficult. As everyone understands, consumers have no way of buying a laptop that they can't bring with them when traveling or working on airplanes.

But battery technology cannot fail to evolve, especially when the "multimedia" era of ultra-portable computers is hitting. Their rich, powerful audiovisual features turn the life of the lithium-ion battery so short that it is difficult to accept. " High resolution is an archenemy with battery life ," Wong said.

Indeed, Blu-ray and HD DVD players are the number one battery killers. Some PC vendors choose the solution to use a larger battery pack, or have a better energy management mechanism (temporarily shut down some parts of the computer when not in use), but they don't improve the situation. picture is how.

Or say like Wong, " It's not a breakthrough that people expect fuel cells to do ."

Trong Cam