Nine-Cell Battery Laptops Offer All-Day Computing

Lenovo, Sony, Dell and HP are kicking off a power-play with claims of between 10 and 32 hours of battery life in a clutch of laptop releases. Although the life expectancy covers quite a range, it seems the workday battery-operated notebook is now a reality.

One enabler of the long battery life is the introduction of Intel’s Sandy Bridge family of processors with integral graphics capabilities, or 2^nd Generation Core processors as they are now known, but better power management and innovative battery arrays also play their part.

The battle of the nine-packs

Lenovo has released two ThinkPad notebooks that offer long battery life. The T420s has a native battery life of around seven hours but a second battery can be used to extend this to over 10 hours. The downside is that the battery replaces the optical disc drive so DVDs and CDs cannot be accessed.

Its more powerful sibling, the T420, has greater lasting power through its nine-cell battery, compared with the 420s six-cell. This offers a battery life of 15 hours. Using a second battery, called a “slice”, that docks with the underside of the notebook, this long life can be expanded to an incredible 30 hours. Even using the eWEEK Europe reality check method of halving the stated battery life, the figures are still impressive.

The Lenovo nine-cell battery slice is an optional extra and adds to the weight and thickness to the slimline laptop. Greater power still carries a price.

The almost simultaneous arrival of competitors from HP and Dell is hardly surprising because all three companies had to stall their launches when a flaw was discovered in a companion chipset for the second generation Core processors. Some already-released models had to be recalled.

HP and Dell lock horns

The last time Dell and HP went head-to-head, HP ran an ad campaign mocking Dell’s Latitude E6400 with the slogan “Dude, your Dell died five hours ago”. This was a reference to the 24-hour battery claim from HP for its Elitebook 6930p.

This time around, Dell looks determined not to be caught out again and has not specified battery life for its Sandy Bridge-based XPS 15 and 17 models. Assuming that battery life for the new range is better than the Latitude’s former 19 hours, the estimated life for the high end model in the XPS 17 range – which features a 3D screen – could hold a lesson.

The XPS 17, supplied with 3D glasses, has a battery life of just over five hours, despite a nine-cell battery. Dell does not specify if this is native or with a slice in place but, assuming it is without, ten hours of use seems rather a large drop from over 19 hours – perhaps this reduction is the price to be paid for 3D screens.

HP seems ready if Dell does release battery performance details. It has just released the Elitebook 8460p and 8560p. The 8560p can be fitted with the HP Ultracapacity Notebook Battery to give 32 hours of mains-free time.

Battery life the main differentiator

Sony is taking the bespoke route with its Vaio S series using 2^nd Gen Core processors. Because the notebooks are available in various configurations, battery life has not been specified. However, there are pre-configured units such as the unattractively named VPCSB1X9E/S which is at the lower end of the battery life scale.

According to Sony, the configured Vaio has a single battery life of seven hours which can be increased to 14 hours with the “extended” Smart Battery option.

Suffice to say that all of the laptops compete equally on memory of 4MB and over, integral HD cameras and HD-capable screens, with hundreds of gigabytes of storage. It does seem that battery life is, for the time being , the main differentiator.

Although there seems to be a bit of tussling going on to show off who has the best-developed nine-pack, it is at least pretty safe to say that the all-day battery has arrived – but what effect the arrival of 3D will have, assuming that there will be a business need for it, is a question to which we may just be seeing an answer.