News Bits: HP Boasts 24-Hour Battery Life, Intel SSDs, Google Data Centers at Sea?

HP EliteBook claims 24-hour battery life

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HP announced it has reached a milestone in notebook history - 24 hours of battery life on a single charge. The EliteBook 6930p achieves its 24-hour battery life with the optional ultra-capacity 12-cell battery, HP Illumi-Lite LED-backlit display, and Intel solid-state disks (SSDs). HP claims an SSD adds up to seven percent more battery life compared to a traditional hard disk.

The optional 12-cell Ultra-Capacity battery is currently a $189 accessory and weighs 1.77 lbs by itself.

HP Press Release (BusinessWire.com)
HP Product Link

Intel introduces solid-state disks

Intel announced that its X18-M and X25-M Mainstream solid-state disks (SSDs) are now shipping. They are desinged for use in both notebook and desktop computers. The X18-M is a 1.8-inch drive, and the X25-M a 2.5-inch. SSDs run cooler, quieter, and are faster than traditional hard disk drives.

The 80GB versions of the drives are shipping now, carrying a price of $595 in quantities of 1,000. 160GB drives will begin sampling in the fourth quarter of this year. Intel claims the 80GB drive has a 250MB/s read and 70MB/s write.

Intel Press Release

HP outsourcing 15.6-inch notebook production to Taiwan

According to a DigiTimes report, HP is planning to outsource production of its upcoming 15.6-inch notebooks to Taiwan in 2009 - all 13-14 million of them. Quanta Computer, Wistron, Inventec, and Foxconn Electronics will be taking the orders. HP's 15.6-inch notebooks will have a 16:9 aspect ratio and feature LED backlighting technology. Four out of five HP notebooks with 14-15-inch screens will feature LED backlighting by the end of 2009.

Full Story (DigiTimes.com)

Google working on floating data centers

Google filed for a patent that details a "water-based data center." The floating data centers would be on barges or platforms, and bring computing to areas where land-based data centers are not practical.

Full Story (NYTimes.com)

 

thx for news Chaz

 

When I saw 24-hour battery life I thought wow, they've invented some awsome new battery tech. Then I read the thing just had 20-cells... I wish people would work on getting better life per cell, and that why I love hearing that the new dells and thinkpads are getting around an hour per cell.

 

Why are SSD's still so expensive? :/
I'm expecting a 350GB SSD for 600$, not 80GB.

 

Keep dreaming! New technology (MLC w/ a good controller) will always command a premium, especially since it's coming from Intel. I mean they released a $1000+ CPU. Don't complain, it will come down in price... eventually.

 

24-hour battery life: Apparently, that extra 12-cell battery is compatible with my nw8440. That said, I don't think I can even get close to 24 hours with it. If it lives up to the claim of providing "an additional 10 hours", then I'd probably get more like 12 1/2 - 14 hours of battery, and that still seems way too optimistic for my notebook. To put another way, that means the 6930p can get up to 14 hours of battery life with only its primary battery! That's doesn't seem right....

Intel SSDs: More competition and lower prices. I'm all for that!

HP notebook outsourcing: Isn't HP already doing this with their current notebooks, but in China instead of Taiwan?

Google's Floating Data Centers: Weird, but if they work, and Google has a reason for them...

 

24 hours... oh, I read this last night and I thought I was dreaming... hmm.

 

The 12-cell battery is rated for 95Wh, the standard battery is a 6-cell 55Wh. So really they're saying they can get around 8-9 hours on the stock battery, which is already hard to believe.

On my dv5z the display is spec'd at 4W. DRAM uses a couple watts per DIMM. So even excluding the CPU, for a machine with 4GB that's around 8W, bringing you down to a 7 hour maximum with a 6 cell battery. Then factor in all the other parts of the machine, (CPU, drive, fan, all the rest of the motherboard electronics, wifi, etc.) and you get a much smaller runtime. Even if the new LED-backlit display is super-efficient it can't shave more than 4W off the total power drain...

Maybe 24 hours of idle is possible. The Intel SSDs are extremely power efficient, so you could pretty much zero out the power draw of the hard drive from the equation, but that's still only a difference of 1W or so.

 

I don't believe it!

 

I've read the review of the Intel SSDs at Anandtech, those things blow all the other SSDs out of the water, but they start from $600+

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403

 

24 hour HP

I'll beleave it when I see it

 

Can't have performance and cost effectiveness for new things!

 

wow wow wow. Even if it isn't 24hrs because of marketing inflation. ID Still hit it. I can see it now, I would only charge it every week like I do my ipod classic. A man can dream!!!

 

Hi all,

I have a nc4200, which can take this kind of huge battery. It's a pentium-m 1,73ghz undervolted to 0,7v. The chipset and video card are special low power parts (hence the very low power consumption following)

My laptop currently has an internal 6 cells, which does 4 hours when screen is maxed out, wifi enabled, cpu idle (12w power consumption). That same battery does 5 hours when screen is dimmed out at minimum, wifi disabled, cpu idle (9,6 w power consumption).

Finally, when the screen is disabled, it consumes 8 watts for a total of 6 hours.

Do the math, it makes sense (52/12=~4,33hours ... and so on)

I also have an add-on 8 cells battery, which doubles that lifetime (they're both rated at 52wh ... for a total of 104wh). That makes the laptop a total of 10 hours with all maxed out, or 8 hours with all minimum.

Now, with their add-on battery rated at 92,88whr plus the ordinary 52wh battery, that makes 144,88wh, which is quite a lot of energy. Do the same math, you get ~15 hours with my laptop, in theory. That's with the minimal 9,6w power consumption. Now without the (energy wasting) LCD, you're getting 18 hours. The hard drive is still present ! Not bad.

They would need a laptop that consumes 6 watts to get to the 24 hour point with that battery setup. Strip another 2+ watts, and you get the 24 hours mark.

It's possible, but in the very best case situation ... Not the ordinary day you'll get !!

*Power consumption is measured with notebook hardware control

Math

 

Man a 12-cell batter slab for 24 hr battery life? what next, a mobile generator adapter for 3 months batter life? I feel sorry for the laptop, it'll look like it's been put on life support.

 

HP is not outsourcing to Taiwan. They are outsourcing production to Taiwanese manufacturers which have factory bases in China. The laptops will be manufactured in China with ingredients from all over the world.

 

Neither do I to be honest ... but who knows? Lets see someone review one of these creatures and give us the knowledge first hand!

Still ... even if it was only 75% of the claim it'd be nice!

 

I am still looking into Google Floating data center..... interesting thing they are doing...

have a look: (i love photos in the discussions)

 

i knew it. HP couldnt shift their manufacturing facilities into taiwan just lyk dat... their costs of manufacturing would become really high and they would be left behind in the competition