Energizer's long-lasting laptop offers marathon power, but no air travel allowed

[Shawn Knight]

TL;DR: Avenir Telecom, the European telecommunications specialist with licensing rights to the Energizer brand, has announced a new laptop sporting a massive battery pack. It's so big, in fact, that you likely won't be able to fly with it due to Federal Aviation Administration guidelines.

The Energizer EnergyBook Pro Ultra features a four-cell, 13,000 mAh (192 Wh) battery that is said to be good for up to 11 hours of gaming or graphic design usage or 28 hours of "intense" office use such as browsing the web or participating in a conference call. In standby mode, users can go a full week without having to recharge.

The laptop make claims the battery is remarkably durable, and will experience only minimal degradation even after several hundred charge cycles.

The rest of the specs fall into the mid-range category. The EnergyBook Pro Ultra is powered by an unspecified AMD Ryzen 5 processor paired with 16 GB of DDR4 RAM and a 512 GB NVMe solid-state drive. You do get an 18-inch display with a 16:10 aspect ratio, but the resolution is limited to just 1,920 x 1,200. No word on what sort of graphics this laptop brings to the table.

Other extras mentioned in the press release include USB-C, HDMI, and USB 3.0 connectivity, as well as an SD card reader and a headphone jack.

Unfortunately for travelers, the Pro Ultra is unlikely to make it onto your next flight. The FAA currently limits batteries in electronic devices like laptops to 160 Wh, and those between 101-160 Wh require airline approval. Batteries over 160 Wh are prohibited.

Avenir Telecom announced two additional laptops, the EnergyBook Pro XL that also comes with an 18-inch display, and the compact EnergyBook Pro with a smaller 15-inch screen. Battery sizes for these models weren't mentioned.

Avenir Telecom lists a starting price of 449 € (around $527), but that's likely for one of the lower-level units and not the Pro Ultra. A launch date and target markets weren't mentioned, either.

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Energizer's long-lasting laptop offers marathon power, but no air travel allowed

 

[Theinsanegamer]

"powered by an unspecified AMD Ryzen 5 processor paired with 16 GB of DDR4 RAM"

Oh, so it's an outdated Zen 3, or maybe even zen 2, powered laptop. BOOORING.

How does Energizer keep getting this wrong? They did it with phones too, their designs either used way outdated processors or had screens with specs that would have been good circa 2008.

 

[Squid Surprise]

The flight thing is irrelevant… no airline security person is smart enough to know how big a battery is… they’ll just make sure it powers on if they do bother checking it at all…

 

[MakeMSGreatAgain]

What happened to the day of being able to have two modular battery packs installed and then hot swapping one for a fully charged one in your bag?

 

[daffy duck]

I don't even trust Energizer batteries let alone a laptop. I wonder who makes this for them?

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I don't even trust Energizer batteries let alone a laptop. I wonder who makes this for them?

Energizer lithium cells are WAY better then the Korean ones. Ego switch to a mix of Panasonic and Samsung cells to cut costs and there was a remarkable drop in quality and longevity compared to their older Energizer designs.

 

[WhiteLeaff]

I don't care if it weighs 2kg. I wanted something like this, but with more recent hardware. At least Ryzen 7xxx.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I don't care if it weighs 2kg. I wanted something like this, but with more recent hardware. At least Ryzen 7xxx.

Now hear me out.

One of these….with strix halo.

 

[cfenton]

What happened to the day of being able to have two modular battery packs installed and then hot swapping one for a fully charged one in your bag?

Battery life got good enough that most people don't need that feature. You can also get an external battery if you really need more run time.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Battery life got good enough that most people don't need that feature. You can also get an external battery if you really need more run time.

That feature went away to enforce planned obsolescence. Internal batteries are much harder for the tech ignorant to replace, and harder to find third party replacements for.

Also external batteries are not external batteries, they are battery chargers that suffer from serious efficiency losses. Completely different animal to having two actual batteries.