Mobile computers have been getting more and more popular recently due to their indisputable evolution towards affordable stylish devices with long battery life. However, there is no limit for perfection and current standard four hours of autonomous work for typical notebooks may double in a two-three years time. Mobile PC manufacturers, silicon designers and battery makers are working on notebooks to get the longest battery life out of whatever type of accumulators they use.

?The spec says this, but it depends on some degree on usage, batteries also don't have that life for long. They might have four hours at the beginning of the year, but if you start doing more multimedia, it might go down to 2.5 hours by the end of the year,?said Roger Kay, an analyst at IDC.

Intel is one of the companies that benefits most from good notebook sales, which is why Intel is most interested in laptops with long-life batteries, since this will boost sales of notebooks and Intel's silicon.

?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,?writes CNET News.com.

The main source of extra battery life is finding new ways of storing power. While researching new materials for batteries, researchers have to keep attention to the space that the possible battery may consume.

?The biggest gains in battery life are likely to come from the guts of the batteries themselves.

For instance, start-up Zinc Matrix Power has devised a way to produce batteries out of zinc alkaline that can provide more energy than conventional lithium ion batteries but don't take up any more space inside a laptop,?says Mike Trainor, chief mobile technology evangelist at Intel.

• CNET News.com: Get Ready for the 9-to-5 Notebook.