On Sun, 4 Oct 2009 06:24:04 +0000 (UTC), "Geoffrey S. Mendelson"
wrote:

who where wrote:

That was one reason for the selection to be available. Unfortunately
(as I mentioned earlier) laptop manufacturers have one objective -
maximum runtime for minimum cost.

And weight. If cost and reliability were more important, they would use
nickle metal hydride cells. The cells are almost indestructable, easy to
charge, have no reputation of early failure or catching fire, and so on.
They can be reconditioned by draining them completely, which they actually
seem to do well with unlike any of the lithium cells.

and invariably a much higher self-discharge rate, although more
recently this has improved a lot (although *after* Li-Ion gained
widespread acceptance).

Somewhere along the way, people decided that expensive lithium cells were
"in" and nickle metal hydride cells were for flashlights and $10 MP3 players.

Weight and volumetric superiority were the main attractions,
particularly for cellphones. You could fit about twenty of my Nokia
GSM phone's pack inside the NiXX pack for my old Motorola analog flip.

This is IMHO one of the great failings of portable device design in this
century. What surprises me is that no one has picked up on this in the
"climate change" crowd, lithium cells use rarer materials and are much more
dangerous to the environment if dumped in the trash, which is where most of
them end up. (or worse, a recylce heap in China.)

which is the *same* as dumped in the trash :-(

Don't get me started on CFL's ...