14 DAY TRIAL // Hewlett-Packard announced today that it managed to resolve one of the biggest problems users of mobile devices face: battery life. According to HP, its EliteBook 6930p is able to run for a full 24 hours without recharging if its configuration includes an ultra-capacity battery and few other options, one of them being a solid state drive from Intel. The EliteBook 6930p has been configured to run for a long time without recharging in order to meet the run-time needs of mobile professionals.
“All-day computing has been the holy grail of notebook computing,” said Ted Clark, senior vice president and general manager, Notebook Global Business Unit, HP. “With the HP EliteBook 6930p, customers no longer have to worry about their notebook battery running out before their work day is over.”
Although HP does not give detailed specifications on the Ultra-Capacity battery that should be used on the notebook, the device might be a 12-cell battery that measures 6.0 x 1.3 x 10.6 in (15.25 x 3.33 x 26.88 cm) and weighs 1.77 lb (0.803 kg). The battery can be recharged even if it is not connected to the notebook and is priced at $189.
Besides the ultra-capacity battery, the EliteBook needs some other optional configurations as well in order to be able to operate for as long as 24 hours. According to the company, on the software side, the mobile PC needs to run Windows XP as its Operating System, besides the latest Intel graphics drivers and the special BIOS the vendor designed. A certain hardware configuration is required, and the company announced that the system must include HPs Illumi-Lite LED display as well as the new Intel 80GB SSD.
The HP Illumi-Lite LED display should reach the market sometime in October. The display itself is stated to be able to increase the battery life by four hours in comparison to traditional LCD displays. A seven percent improvement on battery life is said to be brought by Intel's SSD as well. We should notice that HP announced it is one of the companies that would launch Intel's X25-M and X18-M Mainstream SATA SSDs.
“Intel architected its new line of high-performance solid-state drives specifically to bring a new level of performance and reliability to the computing platform and make significant impact to the way people use their PCs,” said Randy Wilhelm, vice president and general manager, NAND Products Group, Intel. “The HP milestone is an example of the impact of this new level of performance that specifically delivers on lower power consumption for longer battery life.”
The company said that the runtime was verified on an industry standard benchmark, yet the actual benchmark hasn't been specified. HP's press release also states the fact that the actual battery life will vary due to product model, configuration, loaded applications, features, and power management settings. The capacity of the battery is said to decrease in time.