Hewlett-Packard announced plans to begin offering Boston-Power's Sonata extended-life battery to its laptop customers under the Enviro name. The Sonata technology is based on a traditional lithium ion chemistry, but manufacturing improvements allow the cells to charge faster and maintain their capacity for more charging cycles. This means that a laptop equipped with Sonata batteries will reach 80% of its total charge after only 30 minutes connected to an outlet. The really impressive news is that Boston-Power claims its batteries will last over a thousand charges before they show significant capacity losses. Combined with the fact that the cells will only cost around $30 more than traditional batteries, Sonata seems like it offers substantial savings in the long term. The first HP batteries featuring the tech should be available in early 2009.

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