What Makes a Laptop Green?Everyone, including me, is suggesting you to buy a green laptop. We gave you enough reasons as to why you should buy a green laptop. And, we also shared some of the hot green laptop models that are worth a serious look. Now, if the green music emanating from TolMol hasn't bored you enough, let's look at what makes a laptop green. Power Laptop draws power either directly through its power adapter or from the charged battery. Typically, a laptop battery lasts anywhere between 2 to 9 hours depending upon the type of the laptop and how it is used. An energy efficient design can make a laptop consume lesser power while performing the same task with the same speed. The energy efficient laptops are designed to automatically regulate the power consumption. They smartly turn off the components that are not really in use. The sleep mode of a laptop is a simplest example of power consumption. But if you keep running a screen saver, it will eat up almost same amount of energy as in regular laptop use. And this is where the automatic control helps. Solar powered laptops could be another reality. There aren't too many of them yet but laptop makers are frantically trying to explore the solar energy usage. One obvious challenge is to make solar energy work for laptop users who aren't typically out in the field working directly under the sun. Those who do must be very small in number, compared to the whopping ~150 million laptop users on the globe. And what's the guarantee that they will be exposed to sun for long enough. Manufacturers are looking at first tackling the office use where the solar panels could be installed on the office building. Some like MSI Computer are designing laptops with cases having in-built solar cells. All these advancements should make a laptop more eco-friendly. Display Don't we love those flashy screens. We often aspire for bigger and brighter. Well, they too consume power. And the power consumption can vary depenting upon the display technology. For example, LCDs consume much lesser power than the old CRT based screens. Recently introduced LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology requires even lesser energy. Then we have the new OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) which is considered to be the best of all. Mobile makers are predominantly using OLED technology in the mini handset screens. Soon, we can expect to see OLED based Laptop screens as well. The challenge. however, is that new display technologies often comes with a cost. To make green machines popular among masses, the manufacturers will have an uphill task of keeping their prices at reasonable levels. Hard Drive - The Mighty Storage Hard drives are getting roomier and at the cost peanuts. But every read or write to a hard-drive consume power. You want your laptop to read and write with a lightening fast speed but you also want it to consume lesser power to stay eco-friendly. The green-pundits are recommending the usage of flash-memory that can accomplish both the goals. Toxic Emission The world is confronted with another challenge that people use their laptops for no longer than 3-4 years. Their design and disparity makes it harder to upgrade. Repairs as well as laptop components are expensive so people find it simpler and cheaper to buy a new one. The traditional laptops are not made of easily recycleable material. So when laptops are trashed, their toxic components start seeping into the ground. This could pose a serious health and environmental threats in the years to come. Laptop manufacturers are beginning to use recycled and recycleable material to make laptops. Asus Bamboo is one such example. There is a drive to use biopolymer to build laptop casing. Some manufacturers are also trying to revisit the laptop design so that the upgrades become as simple as in desktops. There are also trying to limit the usage of toxic components.
A lot of the green initiatives are still in early stages. Manufacturers may make tall claims so do look at the EPEAT and Energy Star rating of a laptop before you buy one.
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