Originally Posted by
Luciferito
My Dell is a bigger one and indeed uses 90W. (I also have a smaller Lenovo which only needs 65W.) With due respect to the professionalism of Boeing's and CO's engineers and any technical limitiations, I wonder how it can be that the circuit doesn't support 90W - do they expect us to charge handheld radios only? I would assume that most people will charge laptops (particularly as DirecTV's IFE is now USD 6 on CO.) The flight attendant mentioned that he had problems even charging his iPhone and that's certainly not like a vacuum cleaner.
It ain't your living room. There's limited 115VAC 60Hz generating capacity (most aircraft equipment is 115VAC 400Hz, 28VDC, or 270VDC) on the aircraft and higher power delivery to each seat would require larger wires, which means more weight. Same reason there's 2 outlets per row instead of 3. Is it worth the extra 50 pounds (WAG) of wiring to provide 140W/seat instead of 70W?
Most road warriors are carrying smaller (~12-14") laptops with 45-65W power supplies. The leisure travelers have and are moving toward low power devices (netbooks, iPads, iPods). I can see how it doesn't make sense to take the weight penalty to support the few guys with portable desktops or who have chosen larger power adapters (for quicker battery charging).
A problem charging an iPhone (which can't draw much more than 5-10W) is a defect. The 90W laptop is out of scope.
Originally Posted by
joshwex90
That being said, my laptop is a netbook, which, using tlawrence85's formula, is only 30.02 volts.
ITYM 30 watts, likely at 19V on the DC side.