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Notebook Battery Chargers?

Posted by Cliff on from the those-good-ideas-gone-undeveloped dept.

Nilatir asks: "Here at the University where I work we're checking out Dell notebooks to the students in the library and our main lab. While this is proven to be good for the students I'm having a hard time managing the batteries for the notebooks. By eliminating the floppy drives and using wireless APs to access network shares we were using two Li-Ion batteries in every Latitude and getting almost 8 hours of life a day from them. But, due to some students undying dependence on floppy disks, we were forced to drop down to one battery which will only last half the day at best. We now have an extra battery for each notebook with no way to charge them (even Dell's docking station has no charging bay). Have any slashdotters run into a problem like this and how you all resolve it? Does anyone know of external battery charging station for notebook batteries?" Will laptop makers ever learn that this is one of those accessories that would sell like hotcakes?

3 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. A different approach by joshuac · · Score: 5, Insightful

    why not an external USB floppy, and keep the dual internal batteries? Check out the floppy drive as a seperate item only for the students who feel they need it. That also buys you the ability to check out drives capable of handling different media beyond what the modular drive sold with the laptop (1.44MB floppy?) could handle.

  2. instead of more batteries.. by jon+doh! · · Score: 2, Insightful

    why don't you get an external usb floppy drive. they aren't nearly as expensive as an additional battery or a power supply, i think they're around $50.

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  3. Dude, don't buy a Dell! by ngoy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well, I guess you don't have a choice, but the other two manufacturers that I am familiar with (Toshiba and IBM) have always had external battery pack chargers available. Toshiba had (and may still) a charger that had spots for two batteries to charge at once.

    In your situation, I would recommend checking other departments for a non-repairable laptop that still charges (like a cracked lcd or something that the school will not pay to fix) and use that to charge batteries with. Or check eBay for a laptop that has similar damage but boots.

    ngoy

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