24 Hour Laptops From HP? 205
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?
Is word processing not using a computer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who Cares? (Score:2, Insightful)
24 hours of anything is pretty damn good.
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.
Databases for CRM. (Score:3, Insightful)
They didn't state where the breakthrough came from (Score:5, 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.
Re:Is word processing not using a computer? (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 multitasking going on there's going to be some swapping, so it's going to eat through battery a bit quicker than if I only had Word up. On second thought, Word is such a bloated pig, it would probably use up more memory than SciTE, a Python interpreter or two, audacious, two Opera or Firefox windows.
So let's go back to saying the comment was probably inane.
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.
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:They didn't state where the breakthrough came f (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Is word processing not using a computer? (Score:4, Insightful)
What a completely moronic statement.
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.
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.
Who needs 24 hours of runtime? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is word processing not using a computer? (Score:2, Insightful)
Ignoring the fact that many developers will do a partial build from time to time, an IDE is doing a lot more in the background that a word processor. It's checking your syntax, suggesting functions, performing auto-completion. All of this work is more complex that the automatic spell checker and grammar checker.
Who said anything about an IDE? And do you have any idea how necessarily complex grammar checkers are? English is a LOT harder for a computer to parse than Python, Java, C or (insert your favorite here).