BRIGHT gadget-makers have invented a laptop that charges up using energy from the Sun.
Chinese tech giant Lenovo’s new laptop has solar panels built into the casing – allowing the battery to fill back up when you’re outdoors.
3
In fact, Lenovo reckons that you’ll get an hour of video playback from just 20 minutes of solar charging.
The new Lenovo Yoga Solar PC was revealed at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona this week.
Better still, it’s an “ultra-slim” laptop that measures just 15mm in thickness.
And it’s not too heavy either at 1.22 kilos, equivalent to about five iPhones.
Read more on tech products
The laptop is technically just a concept for now, but it could end up as a real on-sale product one day.
Lenovo says the idea is that you’ll be able to “turn any space – indoors or outdoors – into a productive workspace”.
The solar cells are built into the top part of the laptop casing – the bit that holds the screen.
And Lenovo boasts that its panels have a conversion rate of 24%.
The conversion rate is how much of the sunlight hitting the panels can be turned into electricity.
Normally this sits somewhere between 15% and 24%, which puts Lenovo’s creation at the very high end.
Lenovo says it has used ‘Back Contact Cell’ tech, moving the brackets and gridlines to the back of the solar cells.
That means there is more space for “active absorption”.
And Lenovo also claims that the laptop will be able to generate power “even in low-light conditions”.
Lenovo rival Samsung created a solar-powered laptop (the NC215S) all the way back in 2011.
3
That model was able to run for an hour for every two hours spent in the sun – but was very bulky.
By comparison, Lenovo says that its new device is “the world’s first ultra-slim solar-powered PC” – because it measures under 18mm in thickness.
Unfortunately there’s no telling when gadget fans will be able to snap up the device.
It’s officially being called a “proof of concept”, which means it won’t go on sale in its current form.
HOW DO SOLAR PANELS WORK?
Here’s what you need to know…
Solar panels are made up of materials that react to sunlight, like silicon.
These photovoltaic cells (which are usually encased in glass) absorb energy from the sunlight.
Sunlight is made up of photons – although they’re so tiny, you can’t see them in that way. You just see light.
When sunlight is hitting a panel, those photons are striking it.
This collision will kick otherwise electrons out of the atoms in the material, by energising them.
They’ll then move through the circuit and fall back into place in a gap where another electron was.
This process is providing electricity to the circuit – and energy can be harvested as it happens.
That energy can then be stored in a battery for later use. That’s what we would call “charging”.
As long as sunlight keeps hitting the solar panels, the process can continue.
3
That also means that there’s no word on price – and it’s hard go guess at, given Lenovo laptop pricing can range from a few hundred to thousands.
But given the gadget’s hi-tech charging system, it would likely be an expensive device.
In other wacky news, Huawei is showing off the “world’s first tri-fold smartphone” this week – at the same event where Lenovo’s new laptop appeared.
