HP Promises 24-Hour Battery-Life with New Technologies

Rob Williams

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Staff member
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From our front-page news:
Ask any mobile warrior for their biggest complaint about computing on the go, and the answer will be, without fail, "battery-life". The issue becomes worse as your craving for power increases, and some of today's popular notebooks (15.4" and upwards) suffer with less than three-hours of total battery-life... some even as low as two! Clearly, we need a revolutionary battery-type to come along.

Well, HP might just have what we are looking for. They've made an announcement that their new batteries last a long time, and by long, they mean twenty-four hours straight, based on tests with their EliteBook 6930p notebook. Aside from the battery, to reach such incredible lengths, one will also need an efficient SSD, Windows XP, an LED display and a special HP BIOS.

24 hours! That's truly incredible if the claims are true, and given HP's bragging of the 6930p's ability to last the entire duration of the longest flight in the world, they'd better have what it takes to back up their claims. The display-change to LED alone added four hours to the lifespan, which is incredible enough. Hopefully these amazing new technologies will find their way into other company's notebooks soon.

hp_laptop_091008.jpg

The ultra-capacity battery isn’t all that is needed to get 24 hours of use form the EliteBook. HP says that you also need to be running Windows XP, the latest Intel graphics drivers, and a special HP BIOS on the software side. HP is very specific on the hardware needs as well. The system has to be running HPs Illumi-Lite LED display and the new Intel 80GB SSD.


Source: DailyTech
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
Nice, I had been looking for a image of that thing.

The "catches" are a bit lengthy though, I'd really like to see one of those with a basic drive compared to a Latitude E6400. No idea how they tested, but I'd like to see it get 10 hours of video playtime... If it can play videos that long, it'll last significantly longer for just interest surfing, word processing, and music.
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
The best place to look for images like that would be on the products website ;-)

I do agree... there's a lot in play there, but that kind of battery-life impresses the heck out of me anyway. Luckily, many planes nowadays include a power socket anyway, so if you are smart about booking, you could bring your mammoth 17" gaming rig if you wanted to.
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
Hm, but I'd use it for notes with my classes. No more jockeying for those valuable seats with outlets nearby (just to have some student trip over the cord), or trying to find a free booth (booth = plug) to eat at while catching up on news, and so on.

5 hours of battery life just isn't enough if you have that many classes in one day, let alone the time between classes. ;)

Of course I guess that's all moot now for me, but it would have been nice at the time!
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
I'm curious... if you have to lug around books as it is, why not just pick up a spare battery to lug alone as well? They are so small nowadays, they could easily fit into a small bag or something.
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
I tried that idea with my first (and only) laptop, thinking I could get away with it. You'd still need a laptop that gets 3-4 hours battery life per charge though... best I could eek out of mine was 2:45 per battery with wifi and music or MS Word going.

And honestly, the weight does start to add up. Charger, laptop, two batteries... plus 5 classes worth of books, worst case. 9-cell battery packs are still hefty things. Ordinarily I wouldn't think twice about carting a 10lb DTR plus two batteries plus charger, but throw in a few books and it starts to get heavy after the third class walking around the campus.
 
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