Globe-trotting IT executive Steve Shantz wrote a short post comparing the battery life of his Windows 7-running Dell XT2 tablet with that of his colleague’s 3G iPad.
Flying from Chicago to Singapore on business, Steve’s Dell battery gives out on him after just 2.5 hours of work. There are many more hours to go. His iPad-toting colleague, meanwhile, lands in Hong Kong and still has plenty of juice left.
Again, in the conference the two of them attend, Steve is left running around looking for power points, while his friend happily cruises through the day without them.
Personally, I think the battery life is one of the iPad’s greatest features. Apple knew from the outset that a cute mobile device like this had to be genuinely mobile – it couldn’t be tied to power outlets like most computers are. The battery had to be a top priority.
This is one reason, I think, why iPads are going down such a storm in the boardroom. Business executives value their own time too highly to be messing around with cables and hunting for sockets to plug them into. They just want to work whenever they need to. The iPad’s battery gives them what they want.
As Steve says, there are pros and cons to both devices. With the Dell, he has all his company documents with him offline. But there’s not much point in that if the device they’re on has run out of charge.
