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Working Toward a Universal Power Brick For Laptops
An anonymous reader links to PC Authority with some hopeful news about untangling a persistent annoyance for laptop users — namely, the myriad power supplies called for by laptop makers: "'On a PC, an ATX power supply for example will screw into certain mounting holes, have a maximum size and shape, and will take a standard 3-pin "kettle cord" for incoming power. If it complies with these standards, the PSU will be able to bolt into any manufacturer's ATX case.' Laptop design, on the other hand, involves cramming a PC into a tiny chassis, which usually has its own thermal design and power distribution requirements. This has led to the somewhat bizarre situation where every manufacturer has its own laptop power supply design. It now appears that some of the major players in laptops are getting together to work on a standardized laptop power supply design. Not only are big players involved, but the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) has created a team to work on the power supply standard."
Its about fracking time.
Hey industry (Sony I am looking at you) repeat after me:
Open standards help EVERYBODY!
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
It would be nice if they all standardized on a magsafe interface. Although I doubt it would happen, too expensive.
Regardless, this is great news. It would be very nice to have just 1 power brick for multiple devices.
At work we have a fleet of assorted laptops, and regularly have to go on a scrounge to find a power brick for someone who is visiting from another location who either left their brick at the other office/hotel/home/car and is running low on power
Or someone is issued a new laptop, and it only comes with one brick (which is semi-permanently tied to the docking station) and they need another for portable use. Why can't we use the one from their old laptop?
Even if it's the same manufacturer, the voltage or connector don't match. WTF?
If we need a second power brick, we don't reward the OEM with extra money. It's 3rd party for that (and usually cheaper too)
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"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
The power supply is a good start. Just hope that they also can take a bite at the batteries which are incredibly expensive related to what they actually contain.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
If every PC laptop uses the same plug, I would jump for joy. If it was an Apple style "magsafe" style connector I would get down on my knees and fellate each and every member of the standards committee. I've been griping for years now how the connector conspiracy is still going strong in the laptop space and what a pain it is to keep matching power cords to laptops.
Also, a standardized connector would let third parties come in and start making accessories and replacement bricks for a lot less than the highway robbery prices that the brand names charge.
Also, while they're at it, why not spec out a standarized battery compartment? Not everybody has to use it, but if all "regular size" laptops did, that would be a huge win. A standardized modular bay connector would be nice too. Not to mention a standardized docking adapter. It's like laptop manufacturers stopped caring about standardization after PCMCIA/PC-Card/Expresscard and have been more than willing to custom engineer everything every time. It's really annoying and the standardization efforts are long long overdue.
I read the internet for the articles.
Good luck getting Apple to play along. While I prefer their design, I doubt they'd even license out the spec to other manufacturers.
Then we can just connect straight to car batteries.
Easy peasy charging in the car.
12V sealed lead acid motorcycle battery in your pocket for when the li-ion is failing after a year.
The broken-screen laptops we use as headless servers could have UPS for cheapness using old car batteries.
It would be awesome!
PleasePleasePlease!
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Laptop makers have NO REASON to standardize.
The ideal consumer product is shitcanned at point of purchase by a delighted customer (toilet paper comes to mind).
Desktop PC form-factors made maintenance, part sourcing, and upgrading easy, but didn't help kill off old PCs.
Notebook makers OTOH can count on the failure of key components such as batteries to render their products "beyond economical repair". Combine that with low prices and crap build quality, and you have the recipe for repeat sales. (Good to foster performance upgrades, not so good for economy and ease of maintenance.)
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Here's a huge grain of salt:
Basically it's just four Taiwanese OEM manufacturers (Yes ASUS is just as much an OEM as a brand name) trying to lessen the cost of manufacture by making the laptop power supply a commodity item. While this would be a good thing for all involved, I wouldn't start rejoicing until Foxconn expresses an interest and of course Dell, Apple, Lenovo, etc.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...