Feb/101
Solar Powered PC for 2010 – Pt2
In my last post I wrote about the Viliv S10, a super-efficient Windows-based PC that would serve well for solar-powered work duties. Last week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona I tested out another interesting bit of kit. This one looks much the same but in terms of internals, it’s like chalk and cheese compared to the S10.
The Compaq AirLife 100 is basically a smartphone cased in a netbook housing with a 10″ touchscreen and an estimated 30wh battery. The operating system is Android which has a great browser (although not as good or fast as Firefox or Chrome would be on the S10) and the ability to run many Android applications. The build quality is good, the keyboard is good and with 3G and Wifi built-in, connectivity is also good but the fantastic thing about this one is that it can idle with the screen off for DAYS instead of hours. In theory (untested) this little baby could run, connected to GPRS data providing 30-second GPS (built-in) location updates and polling email or similar services for about 3 days on a single charge. To top it off, it’s even more efficient than the S10 when running at full steam AND it weighs about 25% LESS!
With a 16GB SSD topping off the specs you’ve got a great lightweight, semi-rugged possibility.
- Est. 10 hours connected use (screen on, 3G on)
- Est. 150 hours occasional automatic GPS location uploads via cellular data.
- Est. 20 hours low-backlight typing. (wifi, 3G off)
- Add a 60wh power pack and if you’re careful with back-light and connectivity, you’ll get a weeks work out of it….in about 1.3KG!
This isn’t going to be the fastest productivty device you’ve ever used but if efficiency is more important than processing speed, the Airlife 100 will take some beating.
The Airlife 100 is due in the Spring and i’m quite excited to test it out longer term.
Check out my hands-on with the device at MWC last week:
Aug/072
Alternative energy for the tour.
Frank, another UMPC blogger found this…
He blogged about it here and called it a ‘European solution.’ He might be right because this year has been a terrible summer. My BBQ rate is down to once a week when it should be at least three times per week! A wind solution would need to be a lot bigger than this one though. According to the designers web page it takes 12 hours of wind to store enough power to charge a mobile phone. Mobile phones run on batteries of about 3 watt/hour. I’d get about 20 minutes of UMPC time per day with this version.
Frank. It might be easier for me to Fly over to Florida. You provide the tour Oranges OK?
Jun/070
Countdown on pause.
Just like all the best countdowns, this one is paused for a while. The reason? Taiwan. Both VIA and myself have been non-stop busy since Computex started 4 days ago and we’ve decided to delay for a week. Looking at the weather forecast, its probably a blessing in disguise because cloud and light rain is forecast for much of next week.
Watch out for a video overview of the Solar equipment coming up either later today or tomorrow.
May/072
Solar testing on hold.
Isnt it typical? Just hours after starting the solar panel testing last week it started to get cloudy. You can even see the first clouds appearing on the sun power graph that I used on the first test.
Ever since then the weather has been bad. Look at the last three days below. With weather like that I would have no chance of charging anything. The forecast for the next 6 days is the same too.
The only good thing about the rain was that I was able to re-test my old tent. I suspected it wasn’t going to be water resistant any more and I was right!
As for the bike, i’m really thinking of doing it on the Kronan bike now. Its a solid machine and the seat is really comfortable. I’m going to order a couple of new tyres and some spares this weekend and get it back up to match fitness.
The first of my planned start dates is approaching. I was hoping to start on the 21st May but thats just over a week away. Its not looking good. I am looking at a second date now (10-19th June.) just in case the outlook dosn’t improve in the next week.