[valve bouncer]

I guess like most of you I'm a bit disappointed in the battery life on the Galaxy SII. When I have the Map my Ride app going the battery gets violated. So I'm looking at getting an external battery. Most of the ones I'm looking at can charge Android phones as well as the new IPad so good for me and the boy when we travel at Christmas. The kicker is that my 2 year old netbook (Lenovo S10-3, only used when travelling) is about due for a new battery so if the external battery can charge that as well it'd be beaut.

From my preliminary gleanings I'd think I'd be looking at something with at least a 10,000 mAh rating. Also is it even possible to charge a netbook through the USB ports? Anything else I need to be aware of? Like to keep the price between $50-100 and don't mind getting a generic Chinese/HK/Taiwan unit via Ebay as they come with a 12 month warranty and *most* of the HK sellers especially are pretty good, free international shipping is great. Take note Amazon.

Cheers all and thanks for any help you can give.

 

[binary visions]

I have one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/New-Trent-IMP70D-Thunderbolt-Blackberry/dp/B002D4IHYM

Works well. They make a 12000 mAh version, too:
http://www.amazon.com/New-Trent-IMP120D-Thunderbolt-Blackberry/dp/B003ZBZ64Q

As for whether it's possible to charge the netbook... well, my ultraportable has a 1.5A charger, so it looks like a tablet charging port (usually around 2A) would supply that. I'm not much of an electrical guy; my laptop charger supplies 1.5A @ 20V, and the USB charger supplies it at 5V, so it appears that the USB charger would be significantly less efficient...

I think your biggest problem would be finding a cable that would do this, unless you wanted to wire your own and experiement.

 

[syadasti]

I think buying another battery for the netbook is best and likely not too expensive - maybe $20-30?

That big external USB pack BV notes max draw is (2A + 1A) x 5V = 10+5 watt ports = 15 watts total - that's probably less than most atom netbooks would need if you want to charge them while using it and/or it might only stay in trickle mode.

Plus you would need adapters to switch from USB to something like an DC/DC or auto/airline adapter so it would be even less efficient.

Some very new stuff has Power-over-USB which can handle up to 100 watts but I doubt any cheap "portable" battery pack comes close...

 

[valve bouncer]

I think buying another battery for the netbook is best and likely not too expensive - maybe $20-30?

Yeah spot on, $26 for a 6 cell (came with a 3 cell). Given I can charge the phone and the Ipad (despite what the device says, albeit slowly) via USB I'll probably go that route despite the prettiness of the New Trend BV posted which US Amazon won't ship to me anyway the moron bastards.

Edit- $33 or 2600 yen.

 

[syadasti]

I doubt your netbook USB would let you pull over .5A but you could check with charge-only USB cable:

http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/showthread.php?t=253866&p=3830535&viewfull=1#post3830535

 

[HardtailHack]

I have a Tesai external battery, seems well made and is assembled in Germany which is cool.
This is their largest model-
http://www.tensai.com/index.php/products/power-packs/tb9000rb

The only problem I have found so far that if I use mine as a power supply for speakers they have to be turned to a certain volume for the battery to stay powered up or if there is a long pause between songs it will switch off.

 

[berkshire_rider]

I guess like most of you I'm a bit disappointed in the battery life on the Galaxy SII. When I have the Map my Ride app going the battery gets violated. So I'm looking at getting an external battery. Most of the ones I'm looking at can charge Android phones as well as the new IPad so good for me and the boy when we travel at Christmas.

I have an HTC EVO 4G, but the following should still help:

Try running MapMyRide with GPS on, but the phone in airplane mode. It makes a huge difference in battery usage. (The drawback is you won't get maps or satellite view without data on - although you could download the map before switching to airplane mode or as needed during your ride).

Most of my rides are ~3 hours. Starting with a 90% battery, I still have 50-60% left after the ride if in airplane mode while using MapMyRide.