Apple's "new" battery technology??

[bobrip]

Not having a removeable battery is just lame. Besides needing to send it back for service, people on long trips have to resort to another plugin power source to augment. I see no good consumer oriented reason for them to have this policy. Users cannot be without their computer while it gets sent in for battery swap.

I was involved in battery powered product development for a few years. What we found was that if the battery was not consumer replaceable, you could leave out some plastic packaging. This means that either the product becomes smaller or you can pack more energy into the battery. There is a consumer advantages.

 

[Nubo]

We've had the 17" MBP for a couple of months now. I can say that 7+ hour runtime is REAL. Whatever they are doing under the covers, this battery ROCKS. This is more runtime than the previous notebook, even when carrying and caring for 2 batteries (and that really gets old). To me, this is great and I don't understand the antipathy. We'll see how longevity plays out. If they are right, 5 years would be phenomenal.

I'm not overly concerned with replacement. I've replaced hard drives, wifi cards in laptops, inclucing Apple, as well as "non-replaceable" batteries in several iPods. In all likelihood, this will be just another DIY, if it's ever even needed. For most people, 5 years does cover the relevant life of a laptop anyway.

Seems like a win-win to me.

 

[sonicj]

I was involved in battery powered product development for a few years. What we found was that if the battery was not consumer replaceable, you could leave out some plastic packaging. This means that either the product becomes smaller or you can pack more energy into the battery. There is a consumer advantages.

agreed! while the space savings may seem insignificant to those used to conventional cell formats, in terms of lipo cells, every mm saved can be directly converted to added capacity for the battery.

I'm not overly concerned with replacement. I've replaced hard drives, wifi cards in laptops, inclucing Apple, as well as "non-replaceable" batteries in several iPods. In all likelihood, this will be just another DIY, if it's ever even needed. For most people, 5 years does cover the relevant life of a laptop anyway.

Seems like a win-win to me.

ditto! if you can operate a screw driver and follow step by step instructions then chances are you're qualified to perform a battery swap on one of these new mbp's. by the time you're notebook needs a new battery, there will be dozens of 3rd party replacement cells available & step by step tutorials on youtube.

speaking of replacing cells... im past due!