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24 Hour Laptops From HP?
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Sep 10, 2008 07:57 AM
from the i'll-believe-it-when-i-can-fly-to-tokyo-and-back dept.
from the i'll-believe-it-when-i-can-fly-to-tokyo-and-back dept.
daveyboy79 writes "This article from the BBC shows HP's new laptop, the HP EliteBook 6930p. Configured with several options, such as the 80Gb SSD and the mercury-free LED displays, it allows users to get 24 hours of non-stop computing." The real question is, are we talking 24 hours of word processing? Or 24 hours of actually using your computer?
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Is word processing not using a computer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Databases for CRM. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Databases for CRM. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of that has gone online.
These days the power used for a web browser and the broadband modem that's built into the laptop seem to be the biggest factor in usage for a large swath of business laptop users.
I suspect whatever power is needed for playing MP3's and keeping a browser up is typical for most non-business users.
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Re: (Score:2)
Re:Databases for CRM. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
i have to listen to things without words i know.. if not i will start typeing the words
so i listen to alot of instrumental/clasical/music in a language i don't know.. (have to cycle them cause if you listen to it enough you will start to pick it up unknowningly)
if i where to listen to the Comedy chan - i would have some very intresting code
Re:Databases for CRM. (Score:5, Funny)
I like techno. I've found it sets a pace for my typing. Thankfully I've never started typing the words.
The system. Is down.
The system. Is down.
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Re:Databases for CRM. (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, one of the common complaints of SSDs is that their power consumption is relatively constant. Unlike hard drives, their power consumption isn't reduced when the drive is idle.
Mind you, I haven't read the article (obviously!) so I don't know if there's anything different about this SSD.
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Re:Databases for CRM. (Score:5, Funny)
I'd say [Citation needed] however I really don't want anything else from where you pulled that statement from.
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He got it from old news. (Score:3, Informative)
Some old slashdot story: Are SSDs Really More Power Efficient? [slashdot.org]. But that's actually old news now even the 80GB SATA SSDs will be power efficient [techreport.com] something like 1.5W while seeking, and being able to push 125MB/s sustained.
Re:He got it from old news. (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:He got it from old news. (Score:4, Informative)
And that story was debunked in the comments, and toms hardware even apologized for the bad conclusion IIRC.
YDNRC.
What Tom's really did post was: "We followed up with the article Flash SSD Update: More Results, More Answers, which proves our conclusion correct, despite the procedural mistake."
The updated story is at http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-hard-drive,1968.html [tomshardware.com]
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Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For many business users, word processors and excel account for the vast majority of time spent on computers, if they managed 24 hours for just that they'd have a viable market.
Plus e-mail. After all, most of what's involved in composing an e-mail is word processing, is it not?
Editing source code isn't fundamentally different than word processing, either.
Nor is posting a story to Slashdot.
Really, the comment about "are we talking 24 hours of word processing, or 24 hours of actually using your computer." is somewhat inane. Not everyone uses their computer for gaming.
OTOH, while I code, I like to listen to music and perhaps have a browser running. Plus e-mail. So with all that m
Re:Is word processing not using a computer? (Score:5, Insightful)
For many business users, word processors and excel account for the vast majority of time spent on computers, if they managed 24 hours for just that they'd have a viable market.
Vast majority implies that there is a market for word processor appliances. It would be easy to produce a black and white appliance that ran a single light office suite that lasted for more than 24 hours.
This is marketing. Very few people spend a vast majority of their time word processing. I would venture to guess that the time spent word processing is absolutely dwarfed by the time spent browsing the internet.
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Re:Is word processing not using a computer? (Score:5, Funny)
>It would be easy to produce a black and white appliance that ran a single light office suite that lasted for more than 24 hours.
Exactly. Im thinking some kind of ink delivering cylinder that when pressed against "non-e-ink paper" could produce marks which other humans would be able to "read." The life of this setup would last months if not years!
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, but the text is often extremely variable. I am considering a patent on a device which uses the energy from the actual keystrokes to power the machine, and provide a crisp, easily readable output on normal paper. I found one of these up in the attic of my house, but I'm sure that if I apply for the patent with words like "internet" and a few possible business methods I can can get it approved. It also makes a very cool clackety-clack sound while typing, a bit reminiscent of the old IBM model M, but lou
Re:Is word processing not using a computer? (Score:5, Funny)
I do websites (well, SEO, mostly) and internet marketing
You Sir, are more evil than Satan himself.
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Re:Is word processing not using a computer? (Score:4, Insightful)
What a completely moronic statement.
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Re:Is word processing not using a computer? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just about "graphic intensive games".
You use wireless, you code - do you compile? Do you listen to music?
These are just a few things that will make that 24h number shrink that were alluded to in the summary. No game playing required.
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Who Cares? (Score:2, Insightful)
24 hours of anything is pretty damn good.
Re:Who Cares? (Score:5, Funny)
My laptop can run in sleep mode for a week. Is that good?
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Re:Who Cares? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I've yet to meet someone that can do a 24 hour stint and still be productive at the end of it!
After 18 hours most people aren't worth sh|t!
Especially me! If you want my opinion, they should make something that can keep you awake and alert for 24 hours that won't get you locked up or convince you you're a fish!
24 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:24 (Score:5, Funny)
[deep-voice] Terrorists have installed a trigger mechanism on a HP EliteBook 6930p, which will detonate when the laptop shuts down or suspends. Now Jack has 24 hours to find the Chinese bad-asses who stole the charger. [/deep-voice]
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It would still be funny for one whole episode to be devoted to Jack's trip to Arby's.
Marketing speak (Score:4, Insightful)
It probably means low levels of IO and the display cranked to the dimmest levels all while not using the wireless radio. I think we would have heard about an increase in battery efficiency of this scale in something other than an HP laptop.
Re:Marketing speak (Score:5, Informative)
Well, perhaps you should RTFA.
From TFA
The company said the record battery life arises from a combination of HP engineering and energy-efficient notebook components such as Intel solid-state hard drives (SSD) and mercury-free LED displays.
The optional HP Illumi-Lite LED display boosts battery run time by up to four hours compared to traditional LCD displays, while the Intel SSD provides about a 7% increase in battery life compared to traditional hard drives.
It is worth noting that the 24-hour figure can be reached only by purchasing the ultra-capacity battery and upgrading the base model of the 6930p to include the Illumi-Lite display and 80 gigabyte version of the SSD.
The company says in addition to preserving battery life, tests have also shown that the new Intel SSD boosts overall performance by up to 57%, and data transfer rates are almost six times faster than traditional hard drives.
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Re:Marketing speak (Score:4, Funny)
Nah, that would be cheating.
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Witchcraft! Heresy! BLASPHEMER!
24 hours of... (Score:5, Funny)
31337 (Score:3, Funny)
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25 years ago I would have been reading a book while waiting for Elite to load off the tape.
Answer to the "real" question. (Score:2)
24 hours of word processing, or 24 hours of actually using your computer.
Yes.
Measurement standards (Score:2)
With Sony having just announced a new method for measuring battery life - drastically cutting their own claims, it will be interesting to see how these laptops compare. And also interesting to see the effect on sales between claiming huge figures and much more reasonable figures.
They didn't state where the breakthrough came from (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They didn't state where the breakthrough came f (Score:5, Insightful)
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Who needs 24 hours of runtime? (Score:3, Insightful)
24 hours? (Score:2)
Re:24 hours? (Score:4, Interesting)
Assuming Linux can get the correct info from your system, the average Linux notebook is probably configured to use power management less radically. The default power mgt settings for ubuntu under battery power are quite zippy. The CPU went to full speed at any hint of Flash on a web page and the LCD was at 100% brightness. By comparison the "Acer ePower Management" in XP under battery (same system) defaulted to a throttled CPU and a dimmed screen.
Once I changed the Ubuntu settings to control the system the same way, I found very similar performance and battery drain between it and XP.
As far as whether one or the other OS is more efficient I don't know. I haven't compared battery drain while encoding an mp3, thrashing a hard drive or such, but I don't see a difference when I'm just surfing or typing. I would imagine that power efficiency would depend more on the bloat of the running apps than the OS. If you're bogged down with 9 different kinds of anti-malware, running Aero, or that Compiz desktop in Linux, it's gonna take some kind of a hit I guess. I usually turn all the crap off.
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Mercury free LEDs (Score:2, Informative)
Mercury free LED.
This is a clear case of picking something poisonous and then claiming that you don't have it in your product.
Arsenic Free Bread - Lead Free Water...
Re:Mercury free LEDs (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I think "mercury free" was irrelevant to the battery life issue, but it's relevant for backlights.
Usual backlights do have mercury in them, the LED ones are mercury free, like saying "light" SSD, "fast" discrete graphics, or "low power" Atom CPU.
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Weight and size? (Score:3, Insightful)
It is not difficult to get a long battery life if you use a very large battery, so how large is this laptop, and more importantly how heavy is it? I assume it is not quite the eeepc.
Re:Weight and size? (Score:4, Informative)
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/pscmisc/vac/us/product_pdfs/6930p.pdf [hp.com]
2.1 kg it would appear. That's still a bit heavy for my taste.
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Battery Life (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I find modern portable laptops abhorrent in their power consumption. Roll on the domination of the EEEPC (although it's not as power-efficient as you might think) and other small embedded laptops.
Back in the 80's Amstrad made a portable word-processor, spreadsheet, calculator, BBC BASIC-capable computer that you could run off a set of ordinary (non-rechargeable) AA's for several WEEKS of constant usage. There were no moving parts, no excessive heat, and it even printed to Centronics printers and serial ports, and could store data on JEIDA SRAM cards. What the hell happened that we've taken such an enormous step back all in the name of "being able to run Windows"? The ironic part is that most people would pick up the Notepad's functions much quicker, there's much less distractions and it'd do most of what some people use their laptops for (writing up dissertations, books, etc.).
Amstrad got a lot of things right with the Notepad. Unfortunately, it hit a market at the wrong time and was never really sensibly updated (the next version put a 720k floppy in but whacked the requirements up to D-cell batteries and you get less life out of it). Imagine if you could have the Notepad (hell, stick with the greyscale LCD screen if you want, just make it a little wider and a little taller) which used USB flash and could connect to Ethernet instead (wireless might be a stretch because that's quite power-hungry). Authors, casual users, word-processors would be using them everywhere you go. And with modern battery and CPU technology you could have an ultra-light one that worked for just as long as the Notepad did but with more going on in terms of raw CPU power.
My GP2X - a 2 x 200MHz ARM Linux-capable computer, with colour LCD screen can run for about 5 or 6 hours easily from a set of 2 x 2700mAh AA batteries - that's a total of 8.1 Wh, so that's 1.5W constant for "ordinary use" power consumption (which is capable of running a SNES emulator at full speed, or playing full-screen video on it's TV-out). Next to me is an old (1.5GHz single-core) laptop - apparently it has 60Wh batteries that can keep it running for about two or three hours in "extremely low" use (i.e. sitting on the Windows desktop/screensaver). That's about 24W at idle for a "clean" install (i.e. no antivirus etc.). Now I'm not saying that either of those devices are the most or least efficient devices I could find but if you are just typing up a plain text document, consuming 24 times as much power as is actually necessary to get the job done is an incredible waste, not to mention the extra calories it takes to lug the full laptop with all its batteries and chargers somewhere to do it. I love my GP2X partly because it takes plain, ordinary rechargeable AA batteries (it can run off Duracells or equivalent for a similar time but I don't buy one-shot batteries any more) - higher capacity ones are obviously better and are available just about everywhere now because of the advent of digital cameras.
People have laptops not to get work done on the move (because there's almost always a PC wherever you happen to go now, and there are much better alternatives to do it) but because they are a fashion item. Power-hungry, extremely heavy, hard to repair, expensive to buy, fragile... laptops are not a common-sense choice for most things. Even those people who work "in the field" would probably be better off in the long run with the old-fashioned "portable" PC's rather than an ordinary laptop. A lot of people I know have even bought laptops and then leave them permanently plugged in on their desk, because "it looks nicer".
It reminds me of the time a salesman from a large educational company came in to "price up" for the school I work at. He had a top-of-the-range tablet touchscreen PC and all the gubbins (remote control, Bluetooth dongle, mini-Projector in a bag etc.). What did the engineer from the same company who came in to fix the server have when he arrived the next week? An old IBM Thinkpad from the 300MHz era and
throwback to the old days (Score:3, Interesting)
I've wondered what the battery life of an old Powerbook Duo would be with a modern design battery. Those machines got great battery life (6+hours) if you did some tricks, like using a RAM disk to avoid HD usage. The oldest ones had passive LCD monochrome displays. A modern battery design, with the expectation of driving Wifi, a bright screen, optical drive etc. for hours would probably be pretty remarkable in either an old Duo or a machine designed to maximize battery life, like this one. So it sounds promising but of course not for everyone.
More battery! (Score:4, Insightful)
They achieve this run time with more efficient parts and ... more battery! I wish other manufacturers (APPLE!) would take this approach. Another pound of battery in laptops, or a couple ounces in phones, and they'd hit a seriously useful run time. In most cases this would more than double their time between recharges.
As long as the fudge factor is constant... (Score:4, Interesting)
The typical laptop claims four hours and gets about two. My iPod claims eight hours and gets about four.
Peace to all the battery hypermilers who can actually get the stated life by turning off this, selecting that, and uninstalling the other thing. I believe you. I'm talking about me and the battery life I get.
HP claims twenty-four hours, so in real life it's probably about twelve. It's still a lot.
In the 1960s I loved an almost-forgotten comic strip called Smokey Stover. (Aha! Not so forgotten! [smokey-stover.com] Doesn't seem to be a searchable site... one that I loved and wish that I'd clipped and framed involved Smokey and an assistant are drilling a hole in the ceiling with a brace and bit. Smokey says "That's funny, this one-inch bit is making six-inch holes." In some inexplicable manner, the bit is drilling a perfectly round, clean, six-inch hole.
The assistant says, "Well, try this half-inch bit--then you'll only get a three-inch hole."
(Meanwhile, the OLPC people claimed twenty hours for the XO laptop, but it actually gets about four. That's not "fudge," that's some other brown substance.)
Re: (Score:2)
24 hours of web surfing with Chrome, 6 hours with Firefox, or 1 hour with M$IE.
Chrome's as resource heavy as any other browser.