low power consumption laptops

[Xavier Barker]

Hi Matthew,

It was almost certainly me that said that 19V netbooks will run happily on 12V DC.  And yes, that means you don't need an adaptor.  ONe that I have a fair amount of experience with is the AspireOne 753 - it's a little over 10", so it's definitely in sub-notebook territory.  

When it comes to actual power consumption versus battery life, no - they're not the same.  As a Mac user, a great (expensive) option is the Macbook Air 11".  Idle, with the display on, it draws less than 10W on 230V. A gorilla charger might be the way with this.  The difference in battery life/power consumption can be seen in the move from the 2008-2010 Macbook Pro Air: The same processor on the newer MBA uses 25% less power than it did on the older one.  The battery is better AND the magsafe charger is more efficient AND other parts are designed to use less power.   

For comparison, a 19V netbook still has a 40W draw, compared to the 16V/45W Macbook Air.

Is that info of any use?

Cheers,
Xavier 

On 16/04/2011, at 3:49 AM, Matthew Dryer wrote:

> I am looking for advice re netbooks that have low power consumption, for use where the only source of power is solar.  Since I am normally a Mac user, I don't know much about netbooks.  Some of the discussion I've seen on this list talks about number of hours the battery lasts, but that's not necessarily the same as low consumption, since one can imagine a laptop whose battery lasts longer than another laptop (because it's a good battery), but which still consumes more energy.  However, I don't know if this difference is in practice real; maybe it turns out in practice that number of hours a battery lasts is a good measure of energy consumption.  Does anyone know the answer to that?
> 
> Someone said a few months ago "The best bit about the netbook is that 19V models, as i've said, will run happily in a 12V DC environment without the need for inversion".  Does this mean one doesn't need an adaptor?  I find this attractive since with my Macs I have had a lot of bad luck with adaptors for use with 12V DC failing.  And I can't find any information online about 19V netbooks.  Can anyone recommend a specific model like this?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Matthew