In a story for the Washington Post “It Takes a Discerning Eye to See Through Laptop Lingo” Rob Pegoraro explores the Dell and HP practice of shipping laptops “with batteries that will expire before you can finish watching a movie.” Read More…
In a story for the Washington Post “It Takes a Discerning Eye to See Through Laptop Lingo” Rob Pegoraro explores the Dell and HP practice of shipping laptops “with batteries that will expire before you can finish watching a movie.”
If you want a longer run time, you’ll have to upgrade to a heavier, sometimes larger replacement battery. If you don’t think to do this as you order the machine online, you wind up paying for two batteries, one of which will be doomed to collect dust in a closet somewhere.
He also calls out manufacturer’s exaggerated battery life and laptop weight claims and even mentions Apple’s misleading 14-inch iBook display:
Laptop screens can have their own quirks to consider. A larger screen may not show any more detail than a smaller display with the same resolution; it will just make the text and icons on the screen look bigger and slightly duller. Apple’s plus-sized 14-inch iBook is the prime example of this, with a screen that shows no more detail than the 12-inch LCD on its smaller sibling. (Note that a machine with a widescreen LCD will provide a better movie-watching experience and will likely fit better on the tray table of an airliner.)
