All lithium-ion/polymer-based gadgets implement their own internal charging controller. The actual power source only needs to be a 5V regulated, clean DC source with high enough current rating. This 'charger' (which is just regulated 5V DC) should work with everything no problem.

(however Nokia and some others seem to play a few tricks here, according to a Nokia document linked to in some other posting they check the specific voltage to determine if it's a travel charger (5.2V) or a 'normal' charger (5.6V iirc). Shouldn't matter much though.)

Guys, we seem to have reversed the topic somewhere along the line. The problem of the OP were incompatible batteries. With the (external) charger, it's a clear story, it needs to supply a (hopefully standardized) DC voltage and a current according to pre-made profiles for battery types. The trouble is the battery. Every gadget knows how to charge/measure/use it's OWN battery, but not a higher capacity, different tech battery that might very well be available in 2-3 years (e.g. see sticking Li-ion batteries in phones designed with Ni-MH in mind).

I think it's being a bit optimistic to think that we could ever get something that works across battery tech changes. I for one simply wish that things would be working along same-tech devices, i.e. why are my Canon camera and my Ricoh camera using batteries that are almost, but not quite, the same (1mm size difference, triple-connectors in a slightly different place).

Lithium-ion/Lithium-polymer technology itself hasn't changed the last few years - it's the same now as it was in 2004. Any improvements in power density are small, and in any case those are the kind of improvents that should be immediately useful to old devices if there was any kind of standard: You should be able to get a larger capacity battery as a drop-in for your old one. And yes, that will work fine with the built-in, existing charger circuitry in your gadget. I replaced my 900mAh Lithium-ion battery in my Palm PDA with an 1150mAh Lithium-polymer battery and it works perfectly. You can do the same with many other devices, the problem is that battery replacements is a specialist industry. It should be standard.

Yeah, I want a common battery standard too for all this new stuff. But as someone pointed out, and I agree with, battery tech is in a huge tech boom, ironically enough spawned by a tech boom of a different kind. Without all the gadgets we have now, battery tech would likely still be stuck in the 1950's. As it is now, they're going through a revolution and all the evolutions and changes are making it frustrating for end users because one battery or battery tech is being quickly supplanted by another within just a few years.

And again the irony of that is we see much the same thing in the tech world, and yet we love it for the most part. IE, new toys left and right. Kinda makes you wonder though. We want a standard battery, but we love all our new shiny's. hehe. ^_^

Maybe it's a difference of perspective, but I've been trying to say that I don't see this tech boom as far as batteries are concerned.

After lithium-ion was introduced to cellphones and gadgets many years ago nothing has changed much. The power density has possibly increased a tiny little bit, but that's all.

This is very different from the actual gadgets that use these batteries. So, in short, there's no _technical_ reason why vendors couldn't standardize a little bit more on batteries (that is, shape, size and connectors). We'll be living with these kind of batteries for years more I'm sure. I've yet to see any new tech replacing lithium-ion/polymer batteries anytime soon.

Edit: I left out one significant change - at one point vendors changed from first generation batteries to second generation batteries. That's when the chargers switched to 5V from some earlier, lower voltage. E.g. the old, cube-formed Nokia chargers vs. the later ones.

While I understand that batteries invlve different technologies, but the point of standarddization can be applied to batteries using the same technology at least (like niMH, Li-Ion etc)

Its no like you have to make a standardized battery between the different technologies - but yes they can at least standardize a few sizes and connector points and charging levels etc for the same type of battery (like say for Li-Ion).
That is very much doable. But of course they DON'T WANT TO.

In fact if possible they want to lock in the battery with the chassis so you cant even replace whats inside. And they do have a justification for that too - "design constrains".

Design Constrains my foot. Its all a way to lock-in.

I mean if say Nokia can use the same battery between different devices (a Phone, a PDA, a smart phone, a high powered Camera phone - each of which naturally require different power requirements), that means the same principle can be applied between manufacturers - provided they had a STANDARD to follow.

I understand that where technology totally changes (say a fuel cell battery is introduced), that would require a totally new set of standards and cant follow the earlier standards of a Li-Ion battery in general.

I understand the difficulties raised by some, but I still feel like consolidation of form factors and voltage/amperage is achieveable to some extent...

rechargeable aa's?

there is at least one netbook in the works that can run of those...

No, that's called "Planned Obsolescence." They've gotten drunk on the koolaid of the tech rush and the dot com boom period and don't want that to change. And while I would prefer to see device lives up in the 5+ year range with 10+ years of total support, in our currently rapid expansion of tech, that's not gonna happen.

Standardizing battery tech will certainly slow things down a bit on the tech development curve, but in the end that's a good thing. There's no way in hell you need to have 2 year life cycles with no after life support on devices just because it makes your bottom line look good to the stockholders. Companies need to slow down a bit and start stabilizing their development curves. So what if I don't get the latest, greatest toy ever 3-6 months? I'd rather have something I can depend on for several years rather than the latest gizmo or gadget.
I think it is too, which is why I suggested it.
Actually, yeah. I just saw the info on it. In fact, I'm looking for someone to review it since I've got my plate full right now. Otherwise I'd grab it myself. The whole netbook with AA batteries thing was actually interesting to me.

heh, would love to give it a spin myself.

i do wonder if those coin batteries may have worked for phones btw. and didnt philips make mobiles that could run of standard AA's?

btw, i just read something about lithium-sulphur...
http://www.gizmag.com/next-generatio...sulphur/11926/