Battery-Saving Laptop Screens from Pixel Qi
San Francisco based Pixel Qi recently announced they will soon begin shipping a new class of computer screen, one that is said to increase the battery life of your lap-top by up to 50 percent. By including a technology that absorbs natural light sources into their LCD screens, Pixel Qi is dramatically lessening the amount of battery power needed to keep your computer screen lit up. “Instead of cranking up the backlight to fight sunlight or the light of the office overhead fluorescent tubes, we realized we could use the brilliant ambient light in the image itself, saving power,” said Mary Lou Jepsen, founder and CEO of Pixel Qi. “The conventional LCD screens in computers are just miniature LCD-TVs. That’s perfect, if all you want to do is watch movies all day, sitting in a darkened room, with the device plugged in.” Jepsen continued.
There is a slight downside to the technology being used by Pixel Qi. If you are, as Jepsen mentioned, watching movies or simply using your computer in a dark room, you will indeed notice a difference in the brightness of your screen. It’s the trade off for adding hours to your battery life, and something each person will have to take into cnsideration when deciding whether to make the switch.
It’s still unknown which pc makers will be making this technology available. The screens will be available for mini-laptops and ebook readers in high volume mass production in mid-2009. The mainstream laptop screens will be available in 2010.
Category: Battery News
