Smart Battery is a flop

[<Arto.Kiiskinen@fike.nce.nokia.com>]

Hello!!

What do you think about the new smart battery technology proposed by Intel and 
Duracell?

Will the technology come to the majority of the notebooks? Intel seems to 
believe so, and it would offer some improvement over present technology, but are 
you aware of any notebook manufacturer introducing a notebook based on smart 
battery in the near future??

The problem with smart battery is, that the end customer, who wants to use the 
computer, doesn't want to *think* about the battery, he/she just wants to be 
able to run the system as long as possible. 

I'm not sure if the end-user is interested in the 95% accurate battery 
fuel-gauge, because the main problem is, the battery just isn't giving him 
enough power anyway. The end user would not want to know that my battery has 
45,3 minutes time left. Rather, the user would like the money spent in the 
intelligent charger and battery to be used to make the battery larger,
that is capacity-wise. 

Extra hour of use is more important than knowing exactly the time left.
Especially as it seems likely that Li-Ion battery chemistry is going to improve 
greatly in the next few years. But am I wrong??

Comments, please!

Thanks!!

Arto Kiiskinen