HP one-ups Dell, others with 24h battery

HP today heated up competition against Dell by announcing a special trim level of the EliteBook 6930p that it believes sets a new record in battery life. Through new firmware and graphics drivers, an Ultra Capacity battery pack, an LED-backlit display and Intel's just-launched 80GB SSD, the 14-inch notebook can last for as much as 24 hours on one charge. The figure if accurate would beat Dell's claimed 19-hour record and would be enough to last an entire Newark-to-Singapore flight with extra power left.

The SSD in particular is said to also add a level of shock-proofing that wasn't present in earlier models and also speeds it up in very disk-intensive tasks, in some cases by as much as 57 percent versus an EliteBook with a rotating hard drive.

HP doesn't price this special configuration of the 6930p but says it should be available soon. Dell also hasn't responded to the claims, which would give HP's battery life about seven hours more power than the best performance of HP's previous best portable and multiple times the battery performance of most normally configured notebooks.