Lenovo's hot-swappable batteries made my colleagues nostalgic — but today's USB-C solutions are better

[Admin]

Lenovo's hot swappable batteries were a great way to keep working when you ran out of charge. Now, there are many ways to do that.

Lenovo's hot-swappable batteries made my colleagues nostalgic — but today's USB-C solutions are better : Read more

 

[abufrejoval]

These batteries were never hot-swappable: had you tried that, you'd have stone cold lost any work in progress.

You'd have to hibernate or shutdown, not even a suspend to RAM would have likely survived the time it took to swap those batteries.

Were they usefull? Were they worth the extra mechanics, form factor compromises?

Since batteries have limited life-times and deteriorate, having the ability to replace them, seemed to make sense. Except that those removable ones disappeared even faster from vendor support shops than the so-called "non-removable" units that came later.

Those were often so generic, you could get them from someone, somehow much later. And sometimes, those wouldn't even blow up.

But then there were always notebooks that would just eat batteries alive, original ones and replacements, and others, where the original battery seemed fine even after a decade of (admittedly moderate) use.

I cannot associate batteries with any type of nostalgia. They were a source of worry, trouble, concern, cost and anger from the very start.

Sure, without them portables would have remained portables and never operated without external power.

But boy, did they ever make you pay for the privilege!

Batteries suck! But needing external power sucks even more!

 

[dmiller5]

My T480 has both an internal and external battery....I've never hot-swapped between the standard and the extended batteries, but I just tried it and I didn't need to shut my laptop down. It just stayed on between batteries. Sure, in the event the internal battery is depleted I can see the above happening, so hopefully one would save their data prior to the hot swap...but we know that probably didn't happen lol.

Also...Also the T480 is charges using USB-C so it can also take advantage of external battery banks that provide fast enough power.

So both of best worlds?

To be fair when I was looking for a decent little laptop I was focused on the USB-C charging. I saw the external battery as a bonus and picked up the extended life one later.

 

[abufrejoval]

My T480 has both an internal and external battery....I've never hot-swapped between the standard and the extended batteries, but I just tried it and I didn't need to shut my laptop down. It just stayed on between batteries. Sure, in the event the internal battery is depleted I can see the above happening, so hopefully one would save their data prior to the hot swap...but we know that probably didn't happen lol.

Also...Also the T480 is charges using USB-C so it can also take advantage of external battery banks that provide fast enough power.

So both of best worlds?

To be fair when I was looking for a decent little laptop I was focused on the USB-C charging. I saw the external battery as a bonus and picked up the extended life one later.

I just checked and it turns out I was wrong: the T570 did have an internal battery and allowed for two variants of an external one (3 and 6 cell) in addition to the internal 3 cell. So it would have supported hot-swap, as long as the internal one wasn't depleted.

Sorry for that, but that doesn't change my personal lack of battery nostalgia.

 

[Notton]

The one thing I liked about removable battery packs was you could configure the laptop with an extended battery from the factory. Did it increase weight and size, and reduce portability? sure, but at least I wouldn't be stuck with a 24Whr in a laptop.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

Flashbacks to college when my MSI laptop had both a 6 cell and a 9 cell battery and I was still struggling to get through most days without charging, sadly not hot swappable. Even worse was when I bought a Surface Pro 3 after college and it's even worse as far as battery charging goes with that daft Surface Connect port.

I think an untapped market is to have a large USB-C battery pack, like the "big" towers Anker sells, but have a full LCD or even OLED display on them that would let them double as marketing displays, so they could show anything from the company's logo or person's name to a dynamic moving display, which would take much of the inelligance out of having a battery out at a table during a trade show or such.

 

[dmiller5]

The one thing I liked about removable battery packs was you could configure the laptop with an extended battery from the factory. Did it increase weight and size, and reduce portability? sure, but at least I wouldn't be stuck with a 24Whr in a laptop.

Yeah I also like that it props it up a little, you know, erognomics and cooling benefits too!

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

The one thing I liked about removable battery packs was you could configure the laptop with an extended battery from the factory. Did it increase weight and size, and reduce portability? sure, but at least I wouldn't be stuck with a 24Whr in a laptop.

The best thing was that you could REMOVE the battery if you were going to use it plugged in for extended durations without constantly tapping the battery.

 

[dmiller5]

Flashbacks to college when my MSI laptop had both a 6 cell and a 9 cell battery and I was still struggling to get through most days without charging, sadly not hot swappable. Even worse was when I bought a Surface Pro 3 after college and it's even worse as far as battery charging goes with that daft Surface Connect port.

I think an untapped market is to have a large USB-C battery pack, like the "big" towers Anker sells, but have a full LCD or even OLED display on them that would let them double as marketing displays, so they could show anything from the company's logo or person's name to a dynamic moving display, which would take much of the inelligance out of having a battery out at a table during a trade show or such.

Just went to a ball game and they had it where you could "rent" battery packs. I didn't take too close of a look, but I assume they give a certain time limit to return the packs or they'd charge whatever card was used. Also curious if they have built in cables [lightning vs usbc] and/or could only be recharged via proprietary connector.

 

[dalauder]

Lenovo might have pioneered the dual-battery setups. But every laptop had a removable battery before "ultrabooks", the PC's answer to the MacBook Air. Now all laptops are slim and nobody talks about it.

Removable batteries were great, since you just bought a new one for $35 when your laptop was four years old and it stopped lasting as long. But like cell phones, now manufacturers want you to throw your device out in 3 years instead of replacing the battery.

 

[RoLleRKoaSTeR]

It is great until that USB-c port gets damaged. EIther through abuse or poor engineering - looking at you Lenovo -- poor solder/connection.

 

[Notton]

Lenovo might have pioneered the dual-battery setups. But every laptop had a removable battery before "ultrabooks", the PC's answer to the MacBook Air. Now all laptops are slim and nobody talks about it.

Removable batteries were great, since you just bought a new one for $35 when your laptop was four years old and it stopped lasting as long. But like cell phones, now manufacturers want you to throw your device out in 3 years instead of replacing the battery.

That's not entirely true. You can buy replacement slim battery packs for ultrabook style laptops, be it straight from the manufacturer, or from a 3rd party.
The difficulty depends on the model, but I know for a fact I can buy a 60Whr to replace the 45Whr option for my Dell Inspiron. The problem is the price for the battery, and I don't want to invest anymore money into my laptop because I have several, unfixable, grievances with it.

 

[eichwana]

How many of these hot swappable batteries swell up, pushing your touchpad out of the socket? I'd wager none.

When your hot swappable battery did eventually stop holding a charge, how hard was it to unscrew everything, void the warranty and fiddle around with a battery glued to the chassis?

 

[lemongrassgarlic]

I cannot associate batteries with any type of nostalgia. They were a source of worry, trouble, concern, cost and anger from the very start.

Ain't that the truth !

I've never had luck with batteries.
Even keeping lithiums at 20-80 %, they get worse every day , even when you don't use them much.

 

[dalauder]

That's not entirely true. You can buy replacement slim battery packs for ultrabook style laptops, be it straight from the manufacturer, or from a 3rd party.
The difficulty depends on the model, but I know for a fact I can buy a 60Whr to replace the 45Whr option for my Dell Inspiron. The problem is the price for the battery, and I don't want to invest anymore money into my laptop because I have several, unfixable, grievances with it.

You can still replace any laptop battery, true. But I meant that they almost all used to just have a couple of latches to pull to eject the battery. Now they intent is for batteries to not be user replaceable.