As this is our most requested video to date, we decided to put Ben, one of the Technical Analysts here at Star Labs in front of a camera and show you a brief...
It looks like a typical, modern laptop. There’s hardly any ports on it, it uses a non removable lipo battery, and charges with a fragile USB C connector.
I want a big, swapable battery that uses 18650 cells, a robust charging connector, a full set of audio jacks, ethernet, and lots of USB A connectors. USB C connectors don’t belong on a laptop unless they are easily replaceable like on the framework laptops.
I’ve been using my Thinkpad that only charges over usb-c for 5 years now and the port is still like it was new. Can’t see why this is an issuse, especially that I used to have issues with some barrel port chargers and needed to replace them. On a contrary I now have charger with a plugin so simple that it’s unlikely it will break anytime soon and finding replacement charger is super easy as it is FINALLY a single standard port. I actually have 2 such chargers because of SteamDeck and they both work with both devices.
Even if the connector in my laptop broke, there’s second one that I only used few times + replacing it would be easier as it’s not a big deal to find fairly standard connector to be resoldered, and with older laptop chargers there are many different variants of proprietary connectors.
I have a Thinkpad that has both the USB C and the traditional Thinkpad charging port.
I normally just use the USB C port, but I do like having both available.
Even if the connector in my laptop broke, there’s second one that I only used few times
Unless your Thinkpad and mine differ – and maybe they do, given that mine has both the traditional and USB C charging ports, so a total of two – only one of the USB C ports can charge the laptop. On mine, both USB C ports can do USB PD, but one is in/out and the other is out only.
I want a big, swapable battery that uses 18650 cells,
I mean, me too. I think that having less than a 100 Wh battery is nuts, but it’s essentially impossible to find them.
I think that a couple of things have killed this:
Cost. Cutting battery size is an easy way to cut cost, and it’s less-explicit than, say, cutting RAM, as vendors often list a non-standardized “hours of battery life”.
USB PD plus external power stations. I think the expectation is that one will get one and having the user just use external ports makes life easier for the vendor and means that they don’t need to deal with counterfeit batteries and such. Also moves heat out of the laptop. I would be more sympathetic to this if there were a standard for a laptop to start automatically drawing from an external USB powerstation when its internal battery gets low, rather than requiring manually-triggering charging.
Weight. Apparently some people are super-rabid about laptop weight.
It looks like a typical, modern laptop. There’s hardly any ports on it, it uses a non removable lipo battery, and charges with a fragile USB C connector.
I want a big, swapable battery that uses 18650 cells, a robust charging connector, a full set of audio jacks, ethernet, and lots of USB A connectors. USB C connectors don’t belong on a laptop unless they are easily replaceable like on the framework laptops.
I’ve been using my Thinkpad that only charges over usb-c for 5 years now and the port is still like it was new. Can’t see why this is an issuse, especially that I used to have issues with some barrel port chargers and needed to replace them. On a contrary I now have charger with a plugin so simple that it’s unlikely it will break anytime soon and finding replacement charger is super easy as it is FINALLY a single standard port. I actually have 2 such chargers because of SteamDeck and they both work with both devices. Even if the connector in my laptop broke, there’s second one that I only used few times + replacing it would be easier as it’s not a big deal to find fairly standard connector to be resoldered, and with older laptop chargers there are many different variants of proprietary connectors.
I have a Thinkpad that has both the USB C and the traditional Thinkpad charging port.
I normally just use the USB C port, but I do like having both available.
Unless your Thinkpad and mine differ – and maybe they do, given that mine has both the traditional and USB C charging ports, so a total of two – only one of the USB C ports can charge the laptop. On mine, both USB C ports can do USB PD, but one is in/out and the other is out only.
I mean, me too. I think that having less than a 100 Wh battery is nuts, but it’s essentially impossible to find them.
I think that a couple of things have killed this:
Cost. Cutting battery size is an easy way to cut cost, and it’s less-explicit than, say, cutting RAM, as vendors often list a non-standardized “hours of battery life”.
USB PD plus external power stations. I think the expectation is that one will get one and having the user just use external ports makes life easier for the vendor and means that they don’t need to deal with counterfeit batteries and such. Also moves heat out of the laptop. I would be more sympathetic to this if there were a standard for a laptop to start automatically drawing from an external USB powerstation when its internal battery gets low, rather than requiring manually-triggering charging.
Weight. Apparently some people are super-rabid about laptop weight.
100 Wh is the maximum you’re allowed to bring on to an airplane.
Right, which is why I favor the 100Wh battery.