Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Batteries! I hate fucking batteries. Why they piss me off.

A clusterfuck of Batteries...



Batteries... They're the one thing that nearly every portable electronic device relies upon.  And yet, they're the one thing that nearly everybody hates (or should).

While technology is constantly advancing, it seems like there's one thing that isn't: fucking batteries.

Batteries are the bane of any electronic device you have.  I have several portable electronic devices: an iPod Touch, an HTC EVO 4G, Nintendo DS, PSP, Laptops, etc...  Yet, the one thing that always becomes an issue for me are the fucking batteries...

Maybe it's just me I don't know but I find that the battery life on my electronic devices are never near my expectations.  Whenever I'm using one of my gadgets, there's always that thought I have where I ask myself "How much longer I do have before the battery runs out?"

That thought is like a fucking thorn to my side... It's always something I have to worry about.

About two months ago I had to buy a new battery for my Nintendo DS because the original one couldn't hold a charge anymore.  The ridiculous thing is I rarely even played it.  So I get my new battery, charge it up, and I get about 3½ hours worth of gameplay before it's dead.  The FUCK?! Now I'm not an idiot, I rarely run my devices on the maximum settings.  On a scale of 1-10, my screen brightness and volume settings are usually at a 7.  So one would think the battery would last longer yes?  Not in my case.

There are all sorts of different batteries.  Some are nickel based, some are lithium based.  Every battery has a mAh setting, and the higher the mAh, the longer it should last.  But man it certainly doesn't seem that way to me... I suppose it's because I'm a heavy consumer of these devices.  The thing is, the purpose of these devices are to be mobile, yet more then half the time these devices are tethered to the wall while they charge.

I wish the battery technology would hurry up and get in line with the rest of the electronic industry already...  Battery technology has been around for well over 100 years now.  Looking back at the history of battery, the technology behind batteries has been evoloving every 10-15 years.  The latest type of battery that the majority of all electronic devices use now are lithium or lithium ion, which now have been around since the early 1990's...  You would think after 15 years of using them we'd have a new battery technology by now.

I guess it wouldn't be so bad if these devices had solar technology that could provide a constant charge to the battery.  That would make sense right?  Solar energy has been around since the early 1960's which means it's been around for 40 years.  You would think after it being around for so long, the technology would be mature and cheap enough to deploy but it's not.  That's a whole other story I can bitch about later.

All I know is with the constant release of new technology, these things are getting smaller, faster, and are including more bells, whistles, features, kitchen sinks, etc... These gadgets are becoming more sophisticated, yet it feels like the technology that keep these gadgets running are not.

I want to see batteries that can run my small electronic devices for at least 5 days straight (120 hours) without requiring a recharge.  Once we can reach that point, I'll be a happy camper.