Oncore Power wants to charge every MacBook battery all of the time

If you find yourself burning through your MacBook or iBook batteries at an alarming rate, perhaps you require a charging solution that's, shall we say... more robust. That's where Oncore Power's psychotic 6-bay charging station comes into play. Never again will you have to suffer the indignation of a powerless laptop with the company's all-in-one solution to charge every brick in your arsenal at once. The device will juice up three batteries at once, letting you stagger the two bays of three slots so you're always one stylish wrist snap away from sweet, sweet power. Sure, it costs $395 (and presumably more for the version with included batteries), but you can't put a price on peace of mind, can you? Oh, wait. You can. It's $395.

[Via Macworld]

[futurebird @ Aug 12th 2008 1:10AM]

This would be great for a university like mine where too many people have these things-- I'm thinking of a battery club.

[phanbouy @ Aug 12th 2008 1:15AM]

"so what'd you do at college?

"oh, you know, classes, fooling around, battery club"

-OR-

"the first rule of battery club is don't talk about battery club"

[John @ Aug 12th 2008 1:29AM]

"The eighth rule of battery club is, if this is your first night, you have to fight."

[bboston7 @ Aug 12th 2008 2:33AM]

Oh man! You made my day phanbouy! That was so funny!

[Dillon @ Aug 12th 2008 3:14AM]

"The eighth rule of battery club is, if this is your first night, you have to charge."

[neofolklore @ Aug 12th 2008 7:51AM]

BREAKING NEWS

Member of Battery Club charged with battery

[Ken @ Aug 12th 2008 1:11AM]

Holy crap, expensive and not that people will need it.. BUT make one for macbook pro batteries and you have a buyer waiting.

[Darkroom @ Aug 12th 2008 9:30AM]

that's what apple said, but they still sell...

by the way, macbooks break faster than you can say "genius bar", that's the real reason why this product isn't going to take off.

[hiko36 @ Aug 12th 2008 1:11AM]

Who has that many macs besides businesses? Wait... I'm not even sure I know of many businesses that have that many macbooks...

[Allister @ Aug 12th 2008 1:39AM]

Schools...

[scott @ Aug 12th 2008 1:48AM]

you'd be surprised....the orginization i work for bought all it's full-time employees black macbooks...every one in the office uses one. =)

[hiko36 @ Aug 12th 2008 2:55AM]

Didn't think about schools using something like this to centralize mass amounts of macs for thieves... makes sense though.

[Colin Potter @ Aug 12th 2008 3:49AM]

this is more for the business types I think, you know, you need your computer to be free of tethers all day as you attend meetings and presentations, etc. so you keep a few spare batteries back at your desk so if the battery is about to die you run back to the desk, plug the computer in, swap the batteries and you're good again

[Paul @ Aug 12th 2008 1:12AM]

make it a 360 battery recharger and i'll buy it
that'd be perfect for a lan party

[Dillon @ Aug 12th 2008 1:22AM]

I'm sorry to break it to you man, but the Xbox 360 doesn't have a battery... unless you are talking about the itty bitty little bios battery I suppose.

[andres @ Aug 12th 2008 1:50AM]

i dont have a 360 battery charger, but i have a dvd rewinder if you are interested.

[nidx @ Aug 12th 2008 1:59AM]

@Dillon so the controllers run on magic?

[Dillon @ Aug 12th 2008 2:10AM]

Obviously. Magic freshly squeezed from magicians, unicorns, and dragonballs.

[Taylor @ Aug 12th 2008 2:59AM]

nidx: No.
Paul:
make yourself clear.

Also, if it's a LAN I'm sure you can be bothered enough to spend half an hour USB'd in to the console to charge the battery. It'd probably take less effort to plug in your controller than it does to replace the battery

[kal326 @ Aug 12th 2008 9:35AM]

@Paul
I got one for you and it will be a bargain at 295, 100 less then this mac one. However it will only charge two controller batteries at a time. Also I'm taking bids on the Brooklyn Bridge if anybody is interested.

[Dillon @ Aug 12th 2008 1:17AM]

What happens if one explodes?

[phanbouy @ Aug 12th 2008 1:23AM]

swearing and insurance claims

[Patriks7 @ Aug 12th 2008 7:24AM]

domino theory!

[lolz @ Aug 12th 2008 1:18AM]

make one for the macbook air

....

....


oh wait....

sorry, had to :P

[Taylor @ Aug 12th 2008 3:03AM]

before the inevitable storm of Mac fans saying ITS NOT FUNNY!

I'm a Black MacBook user and I lol'd at this comment.

Apple Fanboy Seal of Approval!

[Kevlar @ Aug 12th 2008 3:19AM]

x2 XD.

Actually, I just had this vision of a line of thin MBA's standing in a row in the charger. For those who can afford $345 for a 6x charger probably have at least 6 mba's kicking around eh?
"Oh no, my battery has died! Oh well, I'll grab the next one from the charger!"
Swap the whole thing XD

[Colin Potter @ Aug 12th 2008 3:43AM]

Seconded, that was funny as hell... Black macbook user approved.

By the way... the air seems so dated now... gimmicks get old fast huh?

[The Dude @ Aug 12th 2008 1:23AM]

Great, if you want to kill all of your batteries at the same time. Keeping fully-charged Li-ion batteries at various ambient temps kills their capacity to hold charge. So does burning through complete cycles. It's best to just let your battery reach 40% and at that point revert to outlet power. Then at 100% recharge you can go on until 40%, repeat, etc.

[Niz @ Aug 12th 2008 3:26AM]

Burning through cycles reduces capacity way more than leaving it plugged in all the time so I would say the best thing to do is keep it charged most of the time but then you would still have to go through a cycle maybe once every week or two to keep the battery in shape as it were.

[Colin Potter @ Aug 12th 2008 4:00AM]

really? my battery has been through over 100 full cycles (186 cycles total) and it still holds the same charge as before...

[Ian @ Aug 12th 2008 3:19PM]

uugghhh mbp with about 400 cycles, goddamn i need a new battery mine only gets about an hour per charge now.. and thats just doing light web surfing

[Magnulus @ Aug 12th 2008 1:24AM]

Right away, I thought those were hard drives, not batteries. Imagine my disappointment.

[Jared Harley @ Aug 12th 2008 1:33AM]

Imagined and enjoyed :)

[Mike10010100 @ Aug 12th 2008 2:08AM]

Dude, that would be the most awesome and easily-configured RAID array ever!

[roach @ Aug 12th 2008 1:27AM]

1 hot Apple battery: blow your face!
6 hot Apple battery: blow your house!!

[Zach @ Sep 13th 2008 2:26AM]

Sounds like a good time, roach.

[Drewsufer @ Aug 12th 2008 1:43AM]

Fantastic

[Drewsufer @ Aug 12th 2008 1:45AM]

Just great

[ed @ Aug 12th 2008 1:49AM]

That was kind of a cheap shot. It's clearly aimed at the education market. And it's probably incredibly useful.

[andres @ Aug 12th 2008 1:52AM]

and what if they are?

[Mike @ Aug 12th 2008 2:00AM]

So which are you?

[Andrew @ Aug 12th 2008 2:11AM]

what's the difference between a gay and a homo?

[Andrew @ Aug 12th 2008 2:12AM]

Or, you know, his steveness kindly provides this white cable with a plug on one end and a magnet on the other - I think this is designed to do much the same job

[waiownsyou @ Aug 12th 2008 2:48AM]

"The device will juice up three batteries at once..."

Wait, so three of the slots are potential battery holders?

I CALL SHENANIGANS!

[bolezhinkov @ Aug 12th 2008 3:39AM]

would you want to wait beside the charger to change them up?

[Ben @ Aug 12th 2008 3:51AM]

Grow up.

[Daniel @ Aug 12th 2008 6:18AM]

Good, Why? Because when i go on a freakin plane my batteries run out!. so if i have this handy then i have plenty backup plus i can rob power from plug sockets at the airport if need be. Prob 3 would do but 6 yeah 6 i can live with.

[neofolklore @ Aug 12th 2008 7:53AM]

anti-hetero

[Darkroom @ Aug 12th 2008 9:33AM]

i'm gay myself, but i still totally LOLed at this comment.

[Jack @ Aug 12th 2008 5:31PM]

would be even better if a Mac could stay turned on while i change the battery