back to article Samsung Q430 14in notebook

There was a time when plastic sprayed sliver and moulded with a brushed metal-like texture was cool. The problem for Samsung, which has decked out the interior of the Q430 this way, is that such decor hasn't been hip for more than 30 years. In fact, all this laptop needs to bring back that ye olde home music centre look is a …

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  1. Connor
    WTF?

    Well....

    I quite like the design, but then again I did have one of those music centres and I loved it.

    Not sure how the battery manager reducing capacity to 80% helps? Is it just a case that, as a battery loses about 20% a year anyway, the first years loss won't be noticed because it always ran at 80% capacity? e.g. "I bought my laptop a year ago, it had 2.5 hour battery life then and it still does today!"

    Sounds like smoke and mirrors to me.

    1. Fuzz

      battery capacity

      The battery will lose less capacity if it's never charged beyond 80%. To go the whole 9 yards you should also recharge before you get to 18%.

      Problem with this is that although the lifetime of your battery is now longer you're only getting 62% of the capacity on each charge. This kind of tech works well on devices like ipods that produce 40 hours use between charges but on laptops where you're only getting 4-5 hours you want the whole 100% capacity available to you.

    2. Bluewhelk

      Battery Manager

      From Sony Vaio Control Centre...

      QUOTE

      Battery life will be about 80% of the one of the fully charged battery, however, this mode prevents battery degradation and is more effective if you usually use the computer with battery power.

      END QUOTE

      I'm using this feature as I spend a lot of time at a desk and only time will tell...

      On my previous laptop (a Rock Pegasus) the battery was OK after a year, after 2 years it didn't last quite as long and after 3 years it fell off a cliff. Sadly the video then went titsup so I've had to replace the whole thing :-(

      1. Ian Yates
        Joke

        Re; Batt. Man.

        So, you're saying that such an application adds an increased chase of falling off cliffs?

        They should add a consumer warning.

  2. Ball boy Silver badge

    Battery

    Actually, it does make sense: these cells are all charged with a constant current source, making it difficult to tell when it's truly 'full' as opposed to 'overcharged' (this problem gets worse with cell age, as I understand it). Leaving the cells slightly depleted will extend their usable life, especially for the folk who leave the thing on mains pretty much all the time (Mrs. Ball boy: are you listening?) even a laptop has overcharge prevention - which all should have these days - because the initial state when the laptop is powered-up is to go into a charge cycle...hence the long-term overcharging effects.

    As the author suggests, how useful this is depends on how long you intend to keep the laptop - personally, I'd keep a home laptop for a while & would probably still have this when brushed silver came back into fashion!

  3. Thorfkin
    FAIL

    Sexy? Not even close!

    Hell no! sometimes I feel like I am the only person left who likes technology to be plain flat black. I absolutely despise laptops with those god aweful silver or grey sections. This machine's color choice makes me nauseous.

  4. Steen Hive
    Flame

    Design?

    What a quaint idea - that somehow design gets "better" as time goes on. Of course it's bollocks - as proved beyond doubt by the plague of those hideous piano-lacquer flat-screen TVs. "Retro" in itself is neither good nor bad, design-wise - it's just "retro"

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