

A solar-powered Linux laptop is being designed - tanglesome
http://www.zdnet.com/first-solar-powered-linux-laptop-7000019183/

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aculver
I don't understand the convergence here at all. Isn't it better to just have
whatever laptop is best for you and whatever solar power source is best for
you?

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carlesfe
Probably the fact that it is a very low-power laptop helps it run only with
solar power. If it can't run on sun alone, I guess that it's not very useful
at all.

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zeckalpha
I think Joey Hess already has a solar powered Linux laptop, albeit its not
commercially available. Does anyone else have a setup like this?

[http://joey.hess.usesthis.com/](http://joey.hess.usesthis.com/)

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jarek
Joey has his whole house wired to a PV setup. Not really the same thing as
mounting one on the back of a laptop: for one, you can make the panel bigger
and thus get more energy quite easily. Having just the surface area of the
laptop constrains you quite a bit. With current technology you can only get
around 10-20 W out of a laptop-sized PV panel.

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DuskStar
I believe the panel unfolds from the back of the laptop, becoming 3x the size.
30-60W might not power a desktop replacement, but it's something like 10x what
a 2013 mba 11" draws. (38WH battery, 11+hour battery life in optimal
conditions)

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jarek
Oh, triple unfold is a little more reasonable. Still, the 10-20 W was fairly
optimistic; you might get the 20 W with a good panel with the laptop closed
and the lid flat in noon sun. With the unfold it'd be enough power to charge
and run an Atom laptop (charge at midday, use in shade earlier/later), but
it's still not strictly comparable to Joey Hess's setup. Different scale,
different purpose.

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alanctgardner2
This seems like a very interesting and ambitious goal, but the price seems way
off. It looks like the child of a $2000 ToughBook and a few hundred dollars
worth of solar cells. Could anyone speculate about the COG?

I don't understand why they would position it at $400 anyways, when certain
types of customers (those doing aid work, or safaris, or whatever else people
from North America and Europe do in remote places) would certainly be willing
to splash out a few grand. The founder explicitly says their goal isn't the
same as OLPC. You could even rent them to tourists (like those international
MiFi companies).

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mrt0mat0
it's actually 350. i'm not sure why they claimed the price wasn't announced,
as the bottom of the page clearly has a price for both: a 350 model and a
submersible version for 400.
[http://solaptop.com/en/products/laptops/](http://solaptop.com/en/products/laptops/)

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dcope
If they can get the price down, pairing this with the Google balloon WiFi
would be awesome. Making it easier and cheaper for people in developing
countries to get online would be great.

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sciurus
Previous discussion-
[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6167099](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6167099)

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supergauntlet
I seriously question why they went with the deprecated Atom instead of a ULV
i3. Maybe price concerns, but I think the people who would buy this device
would be willing to spend the extra $200 so it could have an actually good
processor.

