I Love Battery Packs and Portable Chargers

As Matt explained last year, batteries are holding up laptops, mobile phones and PMPs from lasting long enough and running fast enough to get things done properly on the go. What’s my solution? Portable battery packs.

I’ve reviewed a few iPhone battery packs and a few laptop battery packs, and the common conclusion is that these are fantastic for the person who needs to work from the field.

The current battery I’m looking at—the HyperMac External Battery—actually delivers an extra eight hours of power to the MacBook Pro. If we had a MacBook Air, it might even deliver up to their claimed 32 extra hours.

So why do I love these so much when it’s another thing to carry around? There aren’t always outlets to plug into when blogging from the field, and Apple Liveblogs are a perfect example where you have to keep going while sustaining an EVDO connection and transferring images every few sections to your laptop. That’s not a time for your equipment to die. Eight extra hours of power? Yes please.

As for phones, there’s always a need for extra power for smartphones. I welcome the extra heft if it means that many more songs, or movies, or emails or tweets. Until batteries get good enough that we can either charge them in a few seconds (capacitors), or dump a few ounces of liquid inside (fuel cells), I’m going to stock up on external battery packs.