Following on from the claim by Dell that some models in its new Latitude range can be configured to provide a 19 hour on battery life, comes HP’s announcement that its new HP EliteBook 6930p can be configured to deliver “all-day computing”.  Well of course hardware vendors in the computing world are always making big claims for their products, but what is the real story behind these claims?

With the Dell Latitude you need to have opt for a 9 cell battery instead of the standard 6 cell battery and purchase a 12 cell slice. This slice is a separate “slice” of laptop that fits beneath the laptop effectively giving you over three times the normal battery capacity.  Well it is a similar story with the HP in that you have to purchase a 12 cell ultra-capacity battery.

The story is slightly different though in that HP are providing optional energy efficient components, rather than massive battery power, as part of the mix which have to be selected to meet the all day computing goal. The technologies include solid-state hard drives (SSD) and LED displays. The SSD drives can reduce energy requirements by around 7% (and are also significantly faster and much less likely to fail) while the LED displays will also increase battery life substantially. To get HP’s claimed performance you have to choose these optional components which will obviously have a significant upward impact on the final cost.

However both of these components I expect to see become much more common in laptops in the near future, so I am giving the kudos points to HP.  The new HP Elitebook will be available from next month, however the Dell Latitude E6400 is now available through PriceGrabber.