HP Reports Elitebook 6930p Can Last 24 Hours On A Charge

When it comes to laptops, battery life is essential and anything above 3 and a half hours in our book is decent. But HP is looking to blow those expectations out of the water.  The company announced yesterday a “milestone in mobile computing” and reports that they have achieved 24 hours of continuous notebook operation on a single battery charge. Measured by an industry-standard benchmark (HP tells us they used MobileMark 2007), the HP EliteBook 6930p configured with an optional ultra-capacity battery ( a 12-cell battery) delivered up to 24 hours of battery runtime. What gives the EliteBook 6930p the extra juice? Intel solid-state hard drives (SSDs) for one. We did a full review of Intel’s X25-M SSD and found that the Intel drive lasted over 20 minutes longer than a 5,400rpm hard drive. We assume some tweaking has been done to the HP EliteBook 6930p to give it those extra hours from the SSD. HP also says its mercury-free LED displays will help with power saving. According to the HP press release, “the highly efficient HP Illumi-Lite LED display boosts battery run time by up to 4 hours compared to traditional LCD displays, while the Intel SSD provides up to a 7 percent increase in battery life compared to traditional hard drives.” By contrast, when we reviewed a configuration of the Elitebook 6930p with a six-cell battery and 7,200 rpm SATA hard drive we got a runtime of 3 hours and 32 minutes on our battery life test (in which we unplug the computer, leave Wi-Fi on, and run a script that surfs the Web until the battery dies). We will be getting the EliteBook 6930p with the extra battery 12 cell battery and an Intel SSD next month and plan to bring you our experience of 24 hours of constant notebook time. HP reports that the system will be priced around $1,816.