HP laptop gets 24 hour battery

It seems only the other day that I was on the Dell homepage and drooling over the promised nineteen hours of battery life available from the new Inspiron units, but time marches on: HP is upping the ante with a laptop capable of a full twenty-four hour runtime.

According to information obtained by BetaNews, HP is due to launch the laptop – an EliteBook 6930p – with a high-capacity battery option capable of running the unit for a full day and night.

This model of EliteBook, first announced this year, uses a variety of neat tricks to keep power consumption at a minimum, including a dinky little 14.1" display that uses energy-efficient LED backlighting and a solid-state drive in place of a traditional mechanical hard disk. These features combined with the new high-capacity battery allow the device to reach those awe-inspiring runtimes. It's also ruggedised to the US Department of Defence 810F standard, so no worries about the TSA being a little ham-fisted with it.

The technology behind the battery is, as yet, unknown – but it's almost certain to be a variant on the popular lithuim-polymer models adorning high-end devices these days.

Sadly, HP have failed to providing pricing information for this day-long marvel – the model of laptop mentioned is available right now starting at $1,899 (£1,094) from HP's website, but the high capacity battery won't be available until next month. If the technology really can offer a full twenty-four hour runtime, I'd imagine that it's going to be expensive. Couple in the fact that the market is experiencing something of a battery shortage at the moment, and it's likely that the add-on will bump up the cost of the laptop considerably.

Would you go for a laptop that can run for an entire day and night, or do you rely on your notebook running out of juice to remind you to stop playing Warcraft and go to bed? Share your thoughts over in the forums.

New capabilities for prism 200

City of Heroes: Midnight Hour Competition

Sony issues Vaio recall

Motion-based power due 2009