ByrdluvsAWACO

I've never used an adapter while inflight. Just charged up before hand.

What laptop do you have and what adapter do you use to power it while onboard aircraft?

Non-NonRev

Laptop = Sony Vaio Z1A

Adapter = IGo Juice

The Juice connects to both cigarette lighter style recepticles (AA) as well as Empower (UA, BA, LX, etc) recepticles. Better still, it comes with an AC cord, so it replaces the Sony power supply that came with the laptop - I only need to carry one compact unit for worldwide power

winkydink

Thinkpad T41

iGo Juice. When travelling, I use it for laptop power (in air and on ground) as well as for charging my PDA and cell phone. Now I only carry one power brick, instead of 4.

nmenaker

I use an older inflight power supply, cannot remember the name. From about five years ago when they were just available for UA and DL.

But, I always charge the 9 cell battery for the T42, which will do an entire flight, and/or TWO dvd's for a transcon.

The inflight power works great, when it is ON and WORKING. I would say domestic, 757, 747, 737 it is only on about 4 times out of 10. Chances are about 3 in ten, that it is "broken".

I am REALLY looking forward to power in the seats for ps flights.

SEA_Tigger

Batteries. Lots and lots of batteries. (I carry three).

I have an hp zd7000 17" wide desktop replacement laptop (can ya tell I travel like once every few months?) and at 120 watts or so, she's far too powerful for an iGo or Empower device (most are rated at 70 watts, tops).

Fortunately, three batteries are good for about seven hours of travel and when you add in meals, walkabouts, and other "down times", I can usually get across the Pacific or the Atlantic with them.

kluau88

On UA in F/C Empower
On SQ in C Regular Adapter

yashan

Same for me too, except I don't have a PDA.

sxpsxpsxp

ThinkPad T30 powered by the Juice when flying AA. Good book when flying another airline. Do any other domestic airlines have power ports in coach?

My battery has never lasted even through a single DVD movie.

PremEx

Probably an X-Tend empower adapter. Which is what I still use.

I bring the adapter on trips where I know I'll have the empower port available to me. If I'm flying all aircraft without empower ports, I charge up a second battery that I only use for the purpose of long onboard powerless flights.

Fujitsu C-7631

nmenaker

yeah, it was the empower one. They were like 150$, but there was a 1K deal that made it 75$ I think.

There used to be a code that one could check with MP Res, about if the aircraft was outfitted with empower. HR1 field, or MX1 code or something like that. I had it at one point, and would call, but when I got on the plane I would hear the dreaded "no, it has been disabled," or "no, they are not working" or "I will turn it on" but then nothing ever happenend.

Was not a perfect science.

holmedown

Samsung X05 - new one !!! always used to use car charger type on the Sony - and intended to onthis trip - but think it is sitting on the couch at home so it was battery - but 4.5 hours was just about enough - now recharging it with the mains charger, which luckily I did pack

sllevin

I use the nCharge from http://www.valence.com/

Great external unit that is really useful -- it emulates AC power, and I can also charge my cell phone off it.

Steve

Deimos

For those of you who seem to require a huge stack of batteries just to last through a flight I have a few tips.

• Turn down the brightness of the screen. Just a bit darker will make the batteries last longer, and all the way down to the darkest setting will make a huge difference.
• Turn off the wireless card. If the wireless card is on it will be running at maximum power to try and find a gateway, and that will really waste batteries.
• Switch off Bluetooth as well, since you most likely don't use it anyway in flight.
• Transfer your DVD video to the harddrive prior to the trip. If you play the DVD directly from the DVD-drive it will keep the disk spinning the entire time, again a waste of batteries.
• And obviously, charge the batteries when you have a chance. In the lounge or just at an outlet you find in the terminal. If you board each flight with a full battery you may even be able to make it without a spare.

I used to fly with two high-capacity batteries in addition to the standard battery of my Dell X300. Then I skipped one of the high-capacity ones, and now I leave the standard battery at home as well just using a single high-capacity battery even for really long trips. The weight of those extra batteries was just too much to carry around.

Efrem

Kensington universal adapter. It also takes care of AC at the destination, any voltage, so I don't have to carry an AC adapter too.

Only reason I got this particular one is that it was the only kind I could get at Logan Airport's Terminal C at the time. It's worked fine for several years now, through two laptop upgrades, but I could probably have saved some money if I'd had time to shop around more.

cubbie

I gave up messing with special tips and wires and battery pads and spare batteries and all that for all the different laptops and cellphones and pocket pc's I've had to carry, and now just use an APC TravelPower DC-AC power inverter. Provides a regular 3-prong AC outlet for whatever you want to charge, and plugs into car and AA cigarette-lighter-size outlets as well as the smaller DC outlets on other airlines.

The advantage of the APC over several other brands of inverters is the dual plugs. If you only fly AA, there are other brands of cigarette-lighter-only DC-AC inverters. I just bought one at Best Buy for about $20 to keep in the car, so I can keep the the APC one packed for airline flights.

The APC TravelPower costs about $50; the iGo Juice cost about $100. The APC is 75 watts; the iGo is 70 watts. They weigh about the same. It's not clear to me what's the advantage to the iGo that justifies double the price, unless it's the fact that you can connect more than one device at the same time.

cubbie