HP claims battery life of up to 4.25 hours with the supplied eight-cell, 73Wh battery. We tested this by measuring the system's power consumption using a Voltcraft VC-940 digital multimeter under a variety of conditions. With the system idling, Wi-Fi off and the screen set to 50 per cent brightness, the average power draw was 24.1W, giving a battery life estimate of 3 hours.
Turning the screen brightness up to 100 per cent, activating Wi-Fi and giving the laptop a decent workload (running PerformanceTest 7.0 and playing a Web-based flash video over Wi-Fi) boosted the average power consumption to 65.1W and reduced the estimated battery life to just 1.1 hours.
Although the 8730w isn't anyone's idea of a truly portable computer, it may on occasion need to run on battery power. If you're likely to need much more than an hour, we'd suggest investing in one of the extended battery options.
Conclusion
The workstation-class HP EliteBook 8730's performance, superb DreamColor screen and excellent build quality make it a pleasure to use. It would suit any power user requiring a top-notch graphics sub-system.
Additional editing by Charles Kloet
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