Fancy a laptop or mobile phone battery that lasts more than 10 hours on the go?

Laptops and mobile phones are the two main mobile technologies that are widely used on campus and at work. If there is anything most users would like to have in their wish lists, I am sure it would be a battery that can last more than 10 hours on the go. While the mobile technology has changed so rapidly, the same does not seem to happen to the technology of the corresponding batteries.

Normal dry cells or rechargeable batteries are standardised into 9V, AA, AAA, C, D and so on in terms of "size" or type, and all torchlight manufacturers would design their torchlights to use these standard batteries already available in the market. Why are the laptop and mobile phone manufacturers use their own proprietory batteries of all shapes, sizes and capacities?

Would you like to walk into a supermarket or 7-Eleven store in future and buy your laptop or mobile battery you would your Energiser or Alkaline batteries? Don't you think there should be standard laptop or mobile phone batteries made available in the market, much like the hard disks?



The five different Acer laptops in my family use five different proprietory batteries of different sizes that are not interchangeable, but they are all using the same type of hard disk of the same dimensions, ironically surprising! I am not sure if Acer is involved in designing their own proprietory batteries? If so, why don't they make their own proprietory hard disks? They are obviously using the standard hard disks available in the market because there are only a few types of standard hard disks in the whole world.

If hard disks can be standardised and they dictate the dimensions of the laptop, why not the batteries? A certain coordinating body should come forward and introduce a worldwide standardisation for batteries, perhaps. Some companies should then take the lead to make standard batteries with long life (at least 10 hours) and make them available in the open market and even supermarkets, as standard parts for laptop or mobile phone users. Standardisation encourages mass production which leads to lower costs of production and eventually cheaper price for the consumers.

Once there are specialised manufacturers for standard laptop or mobile phone batteries, they can focus on long-term research and development work to constantly upgrade and improve the battery technologies, keeping in tandem with the rapid changes in the mobile technologies.