Huge, Heavy Retro-Styled Box Juices MacBooks with C-Cells

If you were looking for the most expensive and least ecologically-friendly way to power your MacBook, then you could do a lot worse than pick the MacBook Air External Power from Bird Electron. If your other criterion is to have a device that looks like a 1970s cassette tape recorder, then you really have no choice.

Here are the numbers. The asking price is ¥23,100, or around $290. Then you have to buy enough C-cell batteries (yes, I said C-cells) to fill it. It takes eight of them. Next, you'll need to buy a MagSafe airline adapter, which is another $50.

Then, when your 11-inch MacBook Air has finally exhausted its five-hour battery life, you plug it into this money-sucking behemoth and enjoy mere two extra hours. At least you can head to the corner store and buy up their entire stock of C-cells to keep the thing going. Or, you know, spend the money on a coffee and recharge at a Starbucks.

It gets worse. The box weighs in at a whopping 1,050 grams, or 2.3 pounds, or just about the exact same weight as the 11-inch Air. And that's without batteries. Add in eight c-cells and, according to this chart, you'll add another 520 grams, or 1.1 pounds.

As a backup for disasters, when you can't recharge even an external li-ion battery, this could be worth it. That's a rather rare use-case, though. Still, it looks awesome, and that counts for something, I guess.

MacBook Air External Power

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