Laptops on airplanes and empower connections

What do you need to power your laptop

[cmendla]

I'm planning on flying overseas. I believe it will be on an Airbus a300? The plane we are taking is supposed to have empower outlets on board at every seat.There will be 3 of us so I'm sure one of us will have a working outlet.

I'm planning on taking a new HP laptop. I'm certain the batteries won't last for the flight and don't want to have to lug another set.

I am going to purchase the empower (sp?) adapters. My questions are

1. Will the empower power a laptop?

2. What else do I need to make things work.

I do have a Belkin Mobile power adapter that has the 12 volt adapter if that helps at all. I'm supposing that you can't plug in something like a 75 watt inverter.

BTW - we are flying steerage class, not business or first. (bummer.....eh?))

I'd appreciate any thoughts on this.

thanks

cg

[tangor]

Wish I could help. I won't get on an airplane! :)

[Visit Thailand]

Most of the newest planes do not even need adapters.

I suggest you check with your airline diurectly as each plane is configured differently.

I only choose airline now that have the power I need.

[JS_Harris]

I'd save your money, kick back and enjoy your 16 hour flight by reading a book. Unless you need to fly a lot or your business doesn't allow you to be offline for that long it makes no sense to buy expensive gear.

[vincevincevince]

The time spent on a plane is a rare moment of absolute isolation from the outside world... treasure it! No mobile, no email, no internet, no mail-man, no boss..

That being said; many of the netbooks will give you 8+ hours on a single extended capacity battery. Given the current price, it may be on a par with your adapter!

[cmendla]

We ended up taking six flights instead of four. On our return trip we were about an hour out of Rome when the cabin pressure changed, the plane descended and the engines cut back to idle. We had to fly around for 7 hours to burn fuel before landing. Turns out it was a cracked windscreen.

Anyway, we thought that there were no empower connections. We had asked 5 flight crews and no one knew anything about it. At the end of the sixth flight my son dropped something. It turns out that the empower connection is somewhat under the seat. That was on a US Airways Airbus.

[adamxcl]

The adapter is only a few bucks so I'm not sure what the talk of money is about. I always have one and an international power adapter whenever traveling. I used it on my last international sequence of flights.

With empower and even standard outlets, they rolled it out in stages when they added it to older planes so as of a few months ago when I used one, many planes on certain airlines only had in the first 11 or 12 rows in the regular cabin. Get a seat as far upfront as you can to be safe. And First class of course has power.