Asus adds battery longevity to its notebooks

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The latest laptops from Asus offer something better than longer battery life – longer-life batteries.

In announcing its B-series for business use, the company claimed to be the first to offer a laptop warranty that covers the battery life for three years. Current batteries tend to fade with each recharge but Asus promises its batteries will still maintain 80 per cent of full charge under the guarantee.

The power behind the claim is the use of Boston-Power’s Sonata cells. These are Lithium-ion batteries, like any other laptop batteries, but using chemical and design features for longevity.

Conventional lithium-ion power packs begin to fade noticeably after only 100 charges and have to be replaced after about a year, claimed Boston-Power. Sonata batteries extend this to over 1,000 charges. This is around three years, the average lifetime of a business computer, thereby lowering the total cost of ownership.

The battery-maker also waved the green flag by claims fewer replacements means the environment benefits.

The Asus claim to be the first to offer the warranty is not strictly true, as HP already sells Sonata batteries under the same conditions. The difference is Asus will offer the batteries as standard whilst HP stocks them as extras costing £57 - £116 plus VAT, depending on the supplier.

There are two basic models in the new notebook range, the B53 and B43. Already available in the US, the first notebook is the B53. This has a 15.6-inch screen with 1366 x 768 resolution, an Intel Core i5 processor, 2GB RAM, 320GB hard disk and Windows Professional 64-bit.

UK availability and prices have yet to be announced.

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