Laptops with the Longest Battery Life

No matter how stacked its specs are, a laptop is useless if it can’t hold a charge. Fortunately, there are plenty of notebooks that go the distance. Using our Laptop Mag Battery Test (continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi), we’ve identified the 10 longest-lasting notebooks on the market. We’re talking anywhere from 9 hours to more than 20 hours of endurance, which should more than suffice for that cross-country fight, long day of meetings or multiple, back-to-back classes.

Lenovo's X200 ThinkPad series is synonymous with portable productivity, and the X240 lets you get more done than ever without rushing to the nearest outlet. This lightweight laptop's built-in battery provides a good 7 hours and 40 minutes of juice, which stretches to a whopping 20 hours and 28 minutes when you upgrade from its 3-cell to its 6-cell battery. This endurance is the most we've ever gotten from a laptop without a sheet battery attached to the bottom, and makes the X240 the perfect productivity companion.

Mike Andronico has been reporting on the latest tech trends for Laptop since July 2013. With a B.A. in Journalism from Purchase College, Mike's love for "Street Fighter," comic books, and cool gadgets has led to contributions at GameNGuide, Examiner, Joonbug, and 2D-X.

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Laptops with the Longest Battery Life

No matter how stacked its specs are, a laptop is useless if it can’t hold a charge. Fortunately, there are plenty of notebooks that go the distance. Using our Laptop Mag Battery Test (continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi), we’ve identified the 10 longest-lasting notebooks on the market. We’re talking anywhere from 9 hours to more than 20 hours of endurance, which should more than suffice for that cross-country fight, long day of meetings or multiple, back-to-back classes.

Lenovo's X200 ThinkPad series is synonymous with portable productivity, and the X240 lets you get more done than ever without rushing to the nearest outlet. This lightweight laptop's built-in battery provides a good 7 hours and 40 minutes of juice, which stretches to a whopping 20 hours and 28 minutes when you upgrade from its 3-cell to its 6-cell battery. This endurance is the most we've ever gotten from a laptop without a sheet battery attached to the bottom, and makes the X240 the perfect productivity companion.

Mike Andronico has been reporting on the latest tech trends for Laptop since July 2013. With a B.A. in Journalism from Purchase College, Mike's love for "Street Fighter," comic books, and cool gadgets has led to contributions at GameNGuide, Examiner, Joonbug, and 2D-X.

View the original article here

Smartphones with the Longest Battery Life

With their zippy quad-core processors and big screens, smartphones have never been more powerful–or more power hungry. Yes, specs and apps matter, but what good are they if you’re hunting for an outlet by lunchtime? If you want a smartphone that endures, check out the handsets that made our list.

These devices lasted at least 8 hours on the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which involves continuous web surfing over 4G LTE. We set each phone’s display to 150 nits to normalize for brightness and make sure each handset is receiving at least 3 bars of service. See for yourself which smartphones truly go the distance.

It's clear that LG built its latest flagship phone to last. If its blazing fast Snapdragon 800 processor wasn't enough, the G2's 3,000 mAh battery lasted a record-setting 13 hours and 44 minutes on the LAPTOP Battery Test. The AT&T version lasted 10 hours and 42 minutes, while the Verizon model lasted 9:14. All of these runtimes are great. While the back-mounted power and volume keys aren't for everyone, overall the G2 is a formidable Android phone that's built to go the distance.

More: LG G2 (AT&T) Review

Responsible for the editorial vision for Laptopmag.com, Mark Spoonauer has been Editor in Chief of LAPTOP since 2003 and has covered technology for nearly 15 years. Mark speaks at key tech industry events and makes regular media appearances on CNBC, Fox and CNN. Mark was previously reviews editor at Mobile Computing, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc.

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LG G3: Top 5 Features

The LG G3 raises the bar in two key ways. This is the first smartphone to pack a quad HD screen, promising image quality that’s “better than real.” The handset also incorporates a laser autofocus camera, which should help you lock on your subject a lot faster than competing devices. Other highlights include proactive recommendations (such as alerting you to take an umbrella) and a powerful 1-watt speaker. But that’s just scratching the surface of this sexy  G3 can do. Here’s our list of top features.

Thanks to a new Laser Auto Focus feature, the LG G3's 13-MP OIS+ camera lets you capture shots at a fast clip without blur. The phone shoots a laser beam to measure the distance between the subject and the camera. Plus, the G3 lets you shoot just by touching the area of the screen where you want to focus. On the gimmicky side, the G3 enables users to capture selfies just by clenching your fist in front of the 2.1-MP front camera.

More: Smartphone Interactive Buying Guide

Responsible for the editorial vision for Laptopmag.com, Mark Spoonauer has been Editor in Chief of LAPTOP since 2003 and has covered technology for nearly 15 years. Mark speaks at key tech industry events and makes regular media appearances on CNBC, Fox and CNN. Mark was previously reviews editor at Mobile Computing, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc.

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12 Most Infuriating Tech Behaviors

Technology has given us more freedom than we’ve ever had before. We can book flights, pay our bills, share vacation photos and order food in just a few taps on our smartphones or tablets. But now that practically everyone owns a mobile device of some kind, we’re using them much more often — and picking up some nasty habits in the process. Raise your hand if you’ve seen these awful behaviors — then use it to smack the offender the next time around. 

Photos by Jeremy Lips.

Too often, people with earbuds stuck in their ears attempt to hold a conversation, whether they're talking to friends, checking out at the supermarket or chatting with colleagues in the office. You need to stop it. Not taking the headphones off signals to those around you that they're not important enough to deserve your attention.

More: 25 Worst Gadget Flops of All Time

Photos by Jeremy Lips.

Responsible for the editorial vision for Laptopmag.com, Mark Spoonauer has been Editor in Chief of LAPTOP since 2003 and has covered technology for nearly 15 years. Mark speaks at key tech industry events and makes regular media appearances on CNBC, Fox and CNN. Mark was previously reviews editor at Mobile Computing, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc.

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How to Download YouTube Videos on Your Android Phone

You’re watching an awesome Web series or boogying down to a music video on YouTube when you realize that you’re about to go somewhere with little or no connectivity. Fortunately, with a few simple steps you can save any video on YouTube to your Android phone for offline viewing. You can even convert music videos to MP3 files you can put on your playlist. Here’s how to download YouTube videos on your Android phone.

Note: Downloading videos may violate YouTube’s terms of service. 

1. Navigate to the settings menu on your Android phone. 

2. Select Security.

3. Toggle “Unknown sources” to on if it is not already checked. This setting will make sure you can install apps that don’t come from Google Play.

MORE: How to Download YouTube Videos on Your PC

4. Download YouTube Downloader from Dentex’s blog on your Android phone.

5. Tap the download notification for YouTube Downloader in your notification drawer.

6. Tap Install. The program will take a few seconds to install.

You can browse videos and download them either through the YouTube app or by using the YouTube Downloader’s search feature. We prefer using YouTube’s own app. 

1. Find the video you want in the YouTube app.

2. Tap the share button which appears when you tap on the video player.

3. Select YouTube Downloader from the share menu.

MORE: Smartphone Interactive Buying Guide

4. Select the video / audio format you wish to download. We recommend MP4 files in 1080 or 720p for videos and MP3 files if you only want the audio.

5. Tap Download here to confirm.

6. Tap Download to grab a plug-in file if necessary. This will only happen the first time you download a file in a given format.

1. Open YouTube Downloader.

2. Enter a term in the search box and tap the search button. A list of videos appears.

MORE: 5 Ways to Speed Up Your Android Phone in Under 5 Minutes

3. Tap the video you want to save. A list of options appears.

4. Select the video / audio format you wish to download. We recommend MP4 files in 1080 or 720p for videos and MP3 files if you only want the audio.

Whichever way you find your video, YouTube Downloader will then take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to download and store it on your phone. You can play the file directly from YouTube Downloader or find it in the Download folder on your phone.

The official Geeks Geek, as his weekly column is titled, Avram Piltch has guided the editorial and production of Laptopmag.com since 2007. With his technical knowledge and passion for testing, Avram programmed several of LAPTOP's real-world benchmarks, including the LAPTOP Battery Test. He holds a master’s degree in English from NYU.

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Apple Promises ‘iMessage Purgatory’ Bug Fix

Did you recently switch from an iOS phone to another mobile phone or smartphone? Texts sent to you might be getting trapped in Apple’s servers, due to an error in Apple’s iMessage service that the company just acknowledged today.

On iOS devices, users can use a service called iMessage to send and receive text messages via Wi-Fi and Apple’s servers, instead of SMS or MMS messages via phone networks. Many people prefer iMessage to SMS messaging because it does not rack up texting charges, and allows you to continue the same conversation over all your Apple devices.  But if you try to leave iOS for a different phone, the convenience of iMessage can quickly turn to frustration. 

MORE: 10 Tips and Tricks Every iPhone Owner Should Know

The problem is, if you change from an iOS device to another phone without explicitly disabling iMessage first, messages sent to you will get caught in Apple’s cloud servers, and remain there without ever reaching your new phone. This happens because Apple’s servers still think your phone number belongs to an iPhone, but can’t find an iPhone to which to deliver the message. Thus, the messages just sit in “iMessage Purgatory” without ever being delivered.

This flaw has existed in iPhones since 2011, with the launch of iMessage as a part of iOS 5. To fix the issue, users had to call Apple’s AppleCare tech support, who would manually edit the user’s AppleID. Even then, some users reported difficulty in getting the issue fixed. Shortly after the release of iOS 7 last fall, Apple released a patch for an iMessage issue where iOS users’ outbound messages weren’t sending. This patch didn’t seem to address the “iMessage Purgatory” issue, however.

What’s more, “iMessage Purgatory” became entirely inescapable recently, when a flaw on Apple’s company servers made it impossible for even AppleCare to fix the issue. Today, Apple has finally made its first public comments on the issue. 

“We recently fixed a server-side iMessage bug which was causing an issue for some users, and we have an additional bug fix in a future software update. For users still experiencing an issue, please contact AppleCare,” Apple said in a statement to tech news site Re:Code. 

This fix hasn’t come quickly enough for some: last Thursday (May 15) California resident Adrienne Moore filed a class action lawsuit against Apple. The complaint alleges that Apple “interfered” with users’ cellular service to the point that people who switch from Apple devices to other phones or tablets are “penalized and unable to obtain the full benefits of their wireless-services contracts.”

Moore is seeking $5 million in damages, though legal experts are saying the amount could increase if others join her lawsuit and it is successful. 

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