Beginning in 2009, Hewlett-Packard will offer a notebook battery upgrade that is guaranteed for three years. The announcement was made Wednesday by Boston-Power, a supplier of lithium-ion batteries that will sell its Sonata battery to Hewlett-Packard. Representatives from both HP and Boston-Power declined to divulge many details on the relationship, primarily as B-P is a startup company, ramping production to meet the demands of its first customer.
A representative from HP said that the company will make the Sonata battery available on some mainstream consumer notebooks, without specifying which models. HP's commercial notebook division is "looking at it," a spokesman said.
The Sonata battery upgrade will cost between $20 and $30, the HP spokesman said. HP will market it as the HP Enviro Series program notebook battery with Sonata technology.
The guarantee will cover the performance of the battery, specifically a certain capacity level, according to the HP spokesman. If the battery's capacity drops below the guaranteed level -- a value less than 100 percent, the HP spokesman said -- a user can exchange the battery for another. For its part, Boston-Power markets Sonata as a technology that delivers "like-new performance" for three years, offering the "same, unwavering capacity of a new battery that entire time".
Although lithium-ion batteries have been plagued with a rash of problems, a Boston-Power spokesman said the company "was fundamentally founded on safety. It's a non-negotiable issue."
Boston-Power manufactures its cells in China. On its Web site, Boston-Power has provided links to its U.L., U.N., Nordic Ecolabel and China Environmental United Certification Center (CEC) certifications.
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