NetbookBattery
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MSI Wind battery used as a not-exactly-portable, unreliable USB charger
Yes, we find the fact that our USB port won't charge our phone when our laptop is sleeping to be pretty annoying, too. But does that mean we'll rip the battery from it and use it as a semi-functional, clunky but self-sufficient charger? Well, probably not, but that doesn't mean someone else shouldn't. Now, we don't want to launch into a big round of spoilers or anything, but we'll say this: it takes a little over four minutes of sweet, blistering house music to get the battery off of the MSI Wind, and there are a couple of false starts before the phone (an iPhone) begins juicing up. The good news? It doesn't seem to permanently damage the battery pack in any way. The bad news? The song eventually does end. Check it out after the break. [Via Oh! Gizmo]
Exhaustive netbook battery comparison finds a clear winner, no victims
It's hardly the first netbook battery comparison to appear in the Thunderdome that is the internet, but this latest thirteen-strong round-up from Australia's NetbookReview is one of the more comprehensive to emerge as of late, with it only slightly compromised by a few netbooks that aren't available in the site's home country. Not surprisingly, the netbooks equipped with six-cell batteries came out well ahead of their less well off counterparts, with the MSI Wind U115 Hybrid leading the way with an impressive time of 6:56. That was obviously aided in no small part by the netbook's dual SSD / hard drive setup, and by a less commonly used 5100mAh six-cell battery, as opposed to the 6600mAh version used in the second and third place Eee PCs (which each clocked in around the four-hour mark). Bringing up the rear were the Lenovo IdeaPad S10 and Dell Mini 12, neither of which were able to eek out even two hours of use. As you might expect, however, all of the tests involved a worst-case scenario, so you can expect to get a good deal more juice from all of 'em if you're not spending every waking hour watching WMV files.
