Get 16 Hours of Power for Your MacBook Air
According to the press surrounding its launch, the MacBook Air is useless, a crippled computer with just one USB port, no optical drive, a high price tag and — above all — a battery that can’t be switched out. According to customers, however, it is a slim and lightweight Mac, easy to carry anywhere and popular. I see them all the time in coffee shops.
For most people, the only time a computer will be used away from a power outlet for any significant amount of time is on a long-haul flight, which doesn’t happen often (if you are a frequent-flying businessman, buy a regular MacBook). If you are in the tiny minority that wants the lightest Mac possible and yet also wants to carry around extra batteries, you can now buy the QuickerTek external pack for the MacBook Air, which promises you an astonishing 16 hours of use. It plugs into the power socket on the Mac and the Mac acts just like it was plugged in, showing 100% charge for up 10 hours before it starts to use its own internal battery. That’s 10 hours of uncertainty as to the charge you have left, as the QuickerTek pack has no charge indicator.
And about that charge. It is listed as 6-10 hours, which means six. The problem is that the 16 hour claim includes the MacBook Air battery, listed at a rather optimistic six hours as well. In the real world you can expect around three hours under a light load. Taking QuickerTek’s word for efficacy of its own pack, we’ll add another six. That’s 9 altogether, which isn’t bad, but far from the 16 claimed.
The battery pack will cost a rather steep $350, and you’ll have to spring for a modified magsafe charger to charge it (another $100) or send your own off to be tweaked ($25). Expensive? Yes, but cheaper than upgrading to business class where you could just plug the thing in.
