Laptop on a Plane - Where's My PowerPort?
Just imagine. You're booking a flight to Philadelphia to attend a big cheese business convention, but you'd like to review/tweak your presentation on the journey over. Fear not, conscientious business traveler. Laptopical's Matt Brodsky looks at a resource for finding airline seats with power ports.
Some of thenewest laptops out there, geared up with top-notch mobiletechnology, could last on their batteries on a plane ride acrossan entire continent. For the rest of us-with a lacking batterylife-a long flight could mean a long nap, instead of tapping awayon their notebook. But now there's Seat Guru, to help all of usout of a long haul battery crisis. The Seat Guru Web site can tell you exactly what airplane seats have power outlets for laptop use. It allows you to search by airplane model, by airline, by seat class, and by outlet type.
Just imagine. You're booking a plane to Phoenix for a bigbusiness presentation, but you need to fine-tune your work on theflight over. Never fear, intrepid business traveler. Simply checkthe airline and plane you plan on flying and head over to SeatGuru. There, you might find, for instance, that only rows 21 to23 on that plane have outlets, so best book early if you want togame or type away at 30,000 feet.
The site will also tell you that, perhaps, your standard ACoutlet will work in seat 21A. If that's the case, a little ACPower Port icon will appear in the seat on the screen, and you'llrest assured that your 110V AC cord with polarized, nonpolarized,or three-pronger plugs will work at that plane seat.
Maybe the Cigarette DC Power Port icon will appear for seat 21A.In that case, you'll need one of those adapters that you'd use inyour car cigarette lighter: a 15V DC power adapter withcapabilities up to 75 watts per outlet. Or more than likely,it'll show that 21A takes an EmPower adapter. EmPower ports arethe most common on planes-in more than 125,000 seats and 40airlines.
Another good thing about the site-it lists the main laptopadapter manufacturers out there-Targus, Kensington and iGo-andtheir usual retail prices.
However, all this info may be useless if your notebook ispower hungry. Usually, airport seat ports only crank out 75watts. Some laptops may work on this low level without chargingthe battery, or some may not work at all. Possibly worse, some laptops will worka little, then without warning peterout.
