A piece in today’s NY Times reminded me not only of me when I travel, but also something I’ve been considering for some time – namely that battery life is beginning to supplant whiz bang features when I evaluate new devices or hardware.
It wasn’t always thus. There was a time several years ago – this was pre-wifi, pre-MP3, mind you – when all I was concerned about was getting the biggest, fastest, most feature-rich device. Then I began to travel. A lot. And my primary concern became not how infintesimally faster my processor would run Word, but how long my machine would run without the power lifeline.
Just a few weeks ago, I was in Denver and worked out of the Starbucks on 16th and Blake for a day. My primary concern? Keeping my iPod, Nokia, and Thinkpad all juiced up. Fortunately, this Starbucks had readily available outlets.
So it is that as I begin consider what a replacement for my Thinkpad X23 might look like, power is a major consideration for me. Flitting from outlet to outlet at coffee shops, airports and offices like some demented hummingbird gets old, you know?
