>very developed with many new notebooks. my dell runs for >6-8 hours on batteries that would power a pc/104 computer or >intel SBC for maybe 4 hours. and in addition, i can plug my Most notebooks are not as well made as you might hope. Power conservation is really not their best feature. A Lizzy running WITHOUT power saving can run 8-10 hours on a 40Whr battery, the capacity of most notebook computer lithium batteries (about 13oz.). I've never bothered running the APM module or screen savers because it hasn't been worth the effort. Notebooks are typically designed for 2 hour useage, the time of the average domestic U.S. air flight. Trust me, you want to use just enough CPU for your task. For text, its usually a 50Mhz 486. For X windows, 100MHz. Having a machine constantly powered and accessible is one of THE big wins in wearable computing. Otherwise, don't bother. Not saying you can't use a laptop, but be prepared to hack with the battery system and be ready to get intimate with the internals of the machine if necessary. Many times they are not designed for the constant abuse. BTW, avoid Winbook notebooks at all costs. They are very shoddily made and not well maintained. IBM ThinkPads are a better choice if more $. Worth the investment to avoid breakage. Thad Starner MIT Media Laboratory Wearable Computing Project
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