Let’s have a light break today, after good Christmas party :) Today I won’t show you any crazy UI mock-ups or even hardware schemes. Today I have a simple thought, that develops previous idea with “hot swap” battery. And I will not even hide it under “more” tag so everybody can read it and share opinion. I think that it would be great for future tablet device to have a cradle (or a dock station, whatever you call it) with slot for backup battery charge. Right now I have 2 batteries but I have to swap them into the device in order to charge. It’s really sucks. I know that there are standalone Chinese chargers but I think you’ll agree that out-of-the-box dock will give more points for the device in business and media power-users. I have to admit that it’s not my own idea – I had PDA Loox 720 before n800 and it has such a feature in it’s cradle. So there’s nothing new in it but I don’t understand why manufacturers ignore such a great thing.
Tomorrow I’ll continue to shot UI ideas on you so prepare your brain and hands for hot discussion!
Maemo UI improvements blog. 
See also the thread “Tablet Companion Device” which has docking station discussed http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23704
Comment by allnameswereout — December 27, 2008 @ 14:40
What could be also done is to make swapping batteries way faster that it is nowadays: you have to shut down the device, swap the batteries, turn the device on.
What about “stop” the device by hibernation ?
Restart would then be faster and would consume less battery.
Comment by Aniello del Sorbo — December 27, 2008 @ 20:06
You can read my previous post here, Aneillo, I’ve already described my view about this problem :)
Thanks for the link, allnameswereout, didn’t know bout this thread, really worth reading!
Comment by Andrew Zhilin — December 27, 2008 @ 20:16