I'd much rather like to see the new high-capacity cells hit the market - apparently, 4000 mAh cells have been pretty much ready for half a decade, yet mass production will only start in a few years.
Right now, 3100 mAh is the most you can get out of a 18650 cell, and those are only made by Panasonic. Most laptop manufacturers use 2600 or 2800 mAh 18650 cells - obviously, there's not enough demand to accelerate the release of higher capacity batteries (which will also cost more).
Then again, Apple might very well be waiting for solid state cells to become ready for production...
As for smartphones, the RAZR Maxx is great with its 20+ hours life, hopefully other manufacturers will pick up on the trend.
Unfortunately, high-capacity cells are not enough if device manufacturers actively sabotage the potential for building longer-lived devices. The manufacturers can just add some power-hungry features instead.
In 2004 Intel had CPU parts with TDP of 5W http://ark.intel.com/products/27609, Pentium M ULV (ultra-low voltage) series. Now the lowest TDP in ULV series is 17W: http://ark.intel.com/products/54617. Of course, over the course of this time the memory controller and GPU got integrated on the chip. And manufacturers are not eager to use LV/ULV parts in their laptops anyway. But still, given the progression of Moore's law I think that low power consumption is just not a priority of chip, parts and laptop designers.
I don't think Apple is guilty of that. My wife was perfectly happy with her first-gen, 5 year-old C2D MacBook (we upgraded memory, hard-disk and battery) until a couple weeks back, when a small piece of the bottom casing fell off. Repairs will cost us about US$170 and it's still an excellent computer.
I am quite sure she'll be happy with her MBP for the next 5 years.
I agree, Apple is not particularly guilty of that; in fact, I think they are better than average. It's just that it looks like the average could be so much better, if only manufacturers and consumers cared.
Agreed. While my 3 year-old netbook is starting to show its age (I suspect support for its GPU will be dropped a couple Ubuntus from now), the fact I use it most of the time hooked to a keyboard, mouse and display allowed it to show less aesthetic aging than it would otherwise.
The Latitude line of Dell machines also ages very well - my company-issued notebook is a Latitude 4310 and it's built like a tank. My previous one, a D630 is still being used by a less lucky employee.
Hmm, I think the potential for low power usage is much better with current chips. Pentium 4's and M's were quite power hungry no matter what speed they ran at, while Core 2 Duo, Sandy Bridge and especially Ivy Bridge chips can be both power hungry (at the highest multiplier/clock) and low power (if locked at the lowest multiplier), so you get the best of both worlds. That's why ULV chips are only used for special cases these days.
In fact, a ULV Core 2 Duo is nothing more than a factory undervolted Core 2 Duo - you can significantly increase your battery life and reduce heat by undervolting (sadly, that's not possible anymore with Sandy and Ivy)...
Right now, 3100 mAh is the most you can get out of a 18650 cell, and those are only made by Panasonic. Most laptop manufacturers use 2600 or 2800 mAh 18650 cells - obviously, there's not enough demand to accelerate the release of higher capacity batteries (which will also cost more).
Then again, Apple might very well be waiting for solid state cells to become ready for production...
As for smartphones, the RAZR Maxx is great with its 20+ hours life, hopefully other manufacturers will pick up on the trend.