<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by traveler123:
An inverter may work in a plane, but it's silly. You're going from 12 volts to 110 volts back to 12 volts. You're losing a lot of power in the process and just going in a circle, not to mention the additional weight of your normal AC adapter and the inverter.
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I agree, but I also disagree. Inverters will work with any computer, and also recharge cell phones and IPODS. The airline power adapter are not available for all laptops, not even all Dells. When I bought a new Dell D600, there was no airline power adapter available. I had to use an inverter. Now, Targus does have an adapter tip, but there is a chip in the power supply that handshakes with the computer. The result is that my 120 watt Targus universal AC/DC power supply will only power my computer (regardless of whether using AC or airline power), but will not charge the battery. I found this out the hard way on a one week business trip--by the end of the trip, my battery was dead. The inverter that I took on a six leg trip to asia was a bulkier, but more useful solution.