<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by TxLobo:
Not True.......
the Airplane systems are set at a maximum of 75 watts. Some of the new Laptops such as Dell's inspirion need 90 watts, thus will not work on the plane. You should be aware of this as DELL does not alert purchaser, in fact their Sales reps at the Kiosk at DFW represented otherwise.</font>
Unless they've changed laptop designs, the use of a adapter which doesn't supply full power will simply cause the laptop to not charge the battery. 90W full draw for the AC adapter assumes you are charging the battery, running the LCD at full brightness, spinning the HD as well as all optical media.
The 75W being provided via the auto/airline adapter will still let you run the laptop, although it won't charge the battery. To do that, you must shut down the laptop, at which point the battery will begin charging.