8-hour battery life for thin notebooks by 2008
The magic number for notebook designers in the near future just might be eight--as in the hours of a full workday.
A somewhat outlandish idea a few years ago, the eight-hour notebook is moving closer to reality as promising trends in battery materials and power consumption converge. If all goes well, within three to four years, portable PCs could see battery life double from today's four-hour stretch.
Chipmaker Intel, in fact, is so bullish on the matter that it recently moved up a deadline for notebook makers by two years. It's now asking them to produce by 2008 thin and light notebooks that can run for eight hours without the use of additional external batteries, said Mooly Eden, vice president of the company's mobility group. Notebooks are an area of keen interest for Intel and other processor companies. Chips for those systems generally sell at higher prices than their desktop counterparts, and are more profitable to boot. The notebook segment of the PC market is growing fast, and currently accounts for about 30 percent of the PC processors shipped.
