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by littlestymaar 1083 days ago
> My 18-hour laptop is more like 8-10 hours of real work usage,

Ans in which context do you find yourself needing to be even 8 hours in a row on your computer without being close to a power plug? You can even charge your computer in planes now!
3 comments
maleldil 1083 days ago
> which context do you find yourself needing to be even 8 hours in a row on your computer without being close to a power plug?

It's summer. I was writing a paper in an outdoor pub. No plug available, unless I wanted to go indoors (I didn't). I used the entire battery. Granted, it was mostly VS Code being a power hog.

> You can even charge your computer in planes now!

Not if you're flying economy on British Airways.

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stetrain 1082 days ago
Need? Fairly rarely. Not having to watch the battery percent tick down like a clock is nice though.

It charges when docked to my monitor at my desk, and I basically never have to worry about running low in any normal situation.

I can be in meetings all morning, plug it in over lunch, and be in meetings all afternoon without issue.

When working at home I can use it on the couch, or the patio, and when I'm done put it back in the bag for tomorrow without running to the charger.

Do I need it? No. I also don't need a nice keyboard, or a good monitor, or an ergonomic desk setup.

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jwells89 1083 days ago
Part of the appeal is the convenience. Not having to pull out the brick and charging cable, sit next to an outlet, and then pack it all back up is nice.

Longer battery life also means that for trips, you don't necessarily need to bring a full size laptop brick at all and instead can charge overnight off of a tiny phone charger.

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littlestymaar 1083 days ago
> Not having to pull out the brick and charging cable, sit next to an outlet, and then pack it all back up is nice.

But then even 18h isn't enough, and at some point you end up running to the plug in the middle of a meeting, because of course in the end you need to charge it (this is happening to a different co-worker almost every week in remotr, and I dont even spend that much time in meetings).

> Longer battery life also means that for trips, you don't necessarily need to bring a full size laptop brick at all and instead can charge overnight off of a tiny phone charger.

Given that a small charger is already enough to give you 30W, I'm not sure it's going to make too much of a difference: if you keep tour computer plugged while working, the battery will slowly discharge, but under most load I suspect it will still survive the day without issues.

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