"Harry Bloomfield" wrote in message
news
NY expressed precisely :
In my case, the next 120 months or so (assuming my watch lasts *another*
ten years). :-)

I don't think I've had a watch battery last *that* long. A few years, but
not ten.

Mine did, it uses a rechargeable and the face is a photocell.

Ah, if the battery can be recharged, either by what JWK refers to as "wrist
action" (!) or by photocell, then I can understand the battery lasting a
long time - indefinitely unless the battery gradually loses its ability to
hold its charge.

Talking of batteries losing their ability to hold charge... I'm not sure
what I do wrong with laptop batteries, but they only seem to last about 2
years before they stop holding their charge. Each time, I try to plug the
laptop into the mains only while I'm actually using it (to keep it fully
charged) or when the battery has become discharged, and I run it off battery
to about 1/3 charged every so often even though I have access to mains. I
don't leave the laptop on charge 24/7 for months on end. And yet my battery
dies after a couple of years whereas other people who abuse their batteries
by leaving the laptop on permanent mains seem to get much longer battery
life.

It's happened on the last 3 laptops I've had (Acer, HP and Samsung) covering
the period from XP, via Vista to Win 7.

In each case I end up with a laptop than can only be used on mains. The HP
went through 3 batteries, though in fairness only the first was a genuine HP
battery and the other two were Chinese clones, and I didn't get full use out
of the last battery because the laptop died (refused to turn on, reporting a
hardware motherboard error).