FUJITSU LifeBook T901 Battery |
Posted: January 4, 2015 |
The kit includes the Sherpa 100 Power Pack, the Nomad 20 solar panel, and an AC inverter. The Nomad 20 solar panel is designed to recharge the Sherpa 100 power pack in 10-20 hours, depending on sunlight. Alternately, the Sherpa 100 power pack will recharge in three hours when plugged into an AC outlet. You can also recharge it from your car. The Sherpa 100 can recharge devices through two high-speed USB ports, a dedicated laptop port, or the AC adaptor. Devices recharge in the same time as if they were plugged into a wall outlet. The Sherpa 100 is twice as powerful as the Sherpa 50, yet it is nearly identical in size and weight. Check the chart below to see the number of times the Sherpa 100 will recharge a particular device.
How It’s Supposed To Do It? According to Goal Zero, the Sherpa 100 can deliver 120W of output, which is more than any other comparable pack. It was engineered using high-quality, brand name LG Chem Li-NMC cells — the same brand used in some electric cars — to provide long-lasting life. The AC inverter allows users to charge high capacity SLR camera batteries or laptops, which also distinguishes it from other competitive power packs and makes the Sherpa 100 an ideal off-the-grid power solution for on-the-go content creators. Knowing that customers would often be using the Sherpa 100 in the context of adventure, they reinforced the plastic casing in certain areas to ensure durability if dropped, while simultaneously maintaining the device’s slim profile. While the Sherpa 100 can be recharged in 10-20 hours with the included Nomad 20 solar panel, Goal Zero recommends daisy chaining two Nomad 20s together for maximum charging performance. How Does It Perform? We used the Sherpa 100 Solar Kit throughout our travels in Norway, Iceland, and Nepal. It was always cloudy and rainy in Iceland and we usually weren’t too far from electricty, so the Sherpa 100 wasn’t that useful there. It did however provide power for my laptop on long bus rides between cities.
The real test came while trekking and climbing in Nepal, where access to electricity was either very expensive, or not available at all. Charging: We charged the Sherpa 100 power pack using the Nomad 20 solar panel during both trekking, and while stationary at our climbing lodge. The latter of the two was far more effective. After more than a week of trekking from sunrise to sunset with the Sherpa 100 strapped to the outside of my expedition pack, it did not charge to 100%. That was most likely due to the lack of exposure to direct sunlight while below the treeline. Even once we got above the treeline, we were still unable to get much of a charge during trekking. Because we were constantly moving during daylight hours, there were not good opportunities to maintain the panels in a position of direct sunlight for maximum effectiveness. While stationary at the climbing lodge, however, we had much better luck. Mostly. With direct exposure to sunlight, the Sherpa 100 reached full charge from 40 per cent in the better part of a day. Once at 100 per cent, we simultaneously charged a couple of 2600mAh, 18.7Wh Wasabi Power Canon 5D Mk II batteries using the inverter while the Sherpa 100 was still recharging from the sun without it dipping below 100 per cent. Conditions at the lodge were perfectly ideal for solar charging: high altitude, clear skies, and entire days of direct sunlight. From 100 per cent, we were able to charge two 5D Mk II batteries, three Olympus OM-D E-M1 batteries (slightly less Wh), the InReach Explorer and my Nokia Lumia 928 before totally draining the Sherpa 100. We set up the kit the next morning to recharge, but after an entire day of direct sunlight, it never reached 20 per cent. One more day, same thing. Never reached 20 per cent, according to the LCD indicator. Fortunately, all of our batteries were charged up by that point; we were ready to photograph our climb of Imja Tse. After returning from the climb, we once again set the kit up; it fully charged in direct sunlight. I have no idea why it was not charging during those two perfectly ideal days — but before and after it has worked as specified.
One notable feature of the Goal Zero product family is the ability to daisy chain panels and rechargers together. We carried the Guide 10 kit (a much smaller kit designed for recharging mobile phones and GoPro cameras) and when not in use, we were able to daisy chain that panel to the Sherpa 100 to provide a little bump in charging power. The students who comprise Memorial High School’s Robotics Club began the new semester early Saturday working hard toward their biggest goal — winning the region’s FIRST Robotics Competition in March. The FIRST Robotics Competition had its international kickoff at 9:30 a.m., introducing this year’s theme — Recycle Rush — via video to the estimated 800 participants assembled at Oklahoma State University’s Wes Watkins Center in Stillwater and at the OSU-Tulsa campus. As soon as the clip ended, Memorial students went back to campus to brainstorm how best to build their robot in six weeks. “Recycle Rush is a game in which robots have to pick up totes which are just collapsible bins, stack them, place a recycle bin that looks like a trash can on top of that and then place what’s essentially a pool noodle inside as litter,” Memorial senior Patrick VanDusen said. “We got far enough to where we ended up going to worlds, and only 400 (teams) are allowed there,” Patrick VanDusen said. This year’s competition is different in a major way: Competition coordinators sent each of the 45 teams in the state an updated and more streamlined kit of parts, including motors, batteries, control system and components.
“It’s a refined version of the older stuff,” Memorial senior Jessica Meloy said while waiting for fellow team members to finish brainstorming. “It might not be the competition itself that’s the hardest ... it’s going to be how to figure out implementing what we already have. We design the mechanism, but once we’ve got that we have to refine it and apply (contest) rules to it.” Memorial robotics alumna Bridget Taylor, who will graduate from the University of Oklahoma in May with an engineering degree, is helping mentor the high school students and said learning how to operate the new kit would be an additional challenge. The group qualified for the world competition the past two years after winning an engineering inspiration award, which means the students helped others in the Tulsa area become interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics — or STEM — careers and hobbies. “You can sit in a classroom and listen to a teacher who’s older than you and that’s not cool,” Taylor said. “But (younger) kids think ‘Oh I hung out with a high schooler and I’m only in third grade’ and it’s cool for them. Learning basic skills will help them in not only engineering, but other STEM fields and even for technical degrees.” Meloy agreed, saying being mentored by older students helped her decide she wanted to become an engineer. “I knew from sixth grade I was going to come here (to Memorial) and be on the robotics team because it was fun and the high schoolers were fun to hang out with,” she said. “It’s not a job. It’s something fun to do.” Netbooks and Ultrabooks aren't known to have the best ergonomics. They tend to be compromised to, you know, make the laptop thinner or lighter, silly things like that. The Stream 11 is tiny and somehow, even with an entirely plastic frame, is actually really comfortable to hold, to type on, to carry around, and to throw carefree into a bag, on the couch, or as a frisbee. (Note: We don't use laptops as frisbees. Usually.)
The Stream 11 isn't the thinnest or lightest laptop around at 2.72 pounds and just under two centimeters tall. But the plastic clamshell case has a very grippy matte finish that's great for carrying around without a bag. Fingerprints don't snag easily and whether you get the somewhat feminine blue or far more girly pink, the case doesn't collect dirt easily. Great for messy kids who don't type with sticky fingers. The keyboard is likewise excellent. Typing on the Stream 11 is great, though as we've seen with this year's Chromebooks, a good type experience is pretty standard. Still, the Stream is better than most with lightweight chiclet-style keys that are well spaced and have good bounce. The same can't be said for the tiny trackpad, which is too small and too insensitive. As one of the few Windows laptops you can buy today without a touchscreen, a bad trackpad is a bad time, and this one's only marginally above 'meh.' Considering the cost of the Stream, it isn't surprising that the display is less than good. The panel is about as good as the non-glossy Acer C720, number eight on our best tech products of 2014, which is to say perfectly usable, barely bright enough outdoors in moderate conditions, and totally awful for watching full-fledged movies on. Unless you don't care about things like color accuracy, contrast, or how things look. In other words, it's perfect for Excel. Excel may, in fact, be the best reason for the Stream 11 if you are an adult and don't care about your personality showing on a colorful netbook. That may be one of the reasons why the Stream ships with a free year of Office 365, because sometimes work's gotta be done. In my own testing around the office and out in the world, for every funny look I got, two people asked how the laptop is and what it costs. And after hearing that low $200 price, whether it's a good buy for their kids. And it is. The Stream is great because it's small and light, it's simple, and it isn't completely limited to a single web browser. One of the biggest problems I've found for kids these days is that Chromebooks don't always play well with their school's online systems for homework, assuming the school uses one. Education web applications are still made mostly for Internet Explorer (and really old versions at that) and tend to be flash-based, so Chromebooks are a no-no. The Stream handles it just fine...along with all other Windows-based applications. Many of which are actually important. There's little room for the Stream 11 in the enterprise. The seven-hour battery life, which holds up especially well when under a lot of stress, is excellent The seven-hour battery life, which holds up especially well when under a lot of stress, is excellent, but the overall speed and performance isn't enough for power-hungry employees and executives who actually need to swap between a half-dozen tabs while also VPN'ing through to another server, and then some.
But for the family vacation, feel free to kick little Timmy off the laptop to check email or even write up a quick spreadsheet. Or host a full conference call with the decent microphone and speakers, which for a machine this small works surprisingly great. That's why it makes such a great gift. Unlike many fruitcake-esque tech devices that are great to give but awful to receive (or use), the Stream 11 has a clear use in the home for any family, as a standalone computer or a shared family PC. One that's both easy to use, that can handle any everyday task, and will last a full-day's charge. Even without the year of Office 365 the HP Stream 11 is a great buy.
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