HP now selling super-safe laptop battery with three-year guarantee

Considering that we're still getting reports every month or so about laptop batteries catching on fire and exploding, it's not really paranoid to be a little worried about the chemical cells that keep your notebook up and running.

When the crisis broke a few years ago, much research went into battery safety, but nothing ever came of it commercially, and today's batteries are more or less designed the same as they've ever been, just with a little stricter production processes.

Now, finally, one of these "safer" batteries has come to market via HP, which is selling batteries based on technology from Boston Power. The company claims its Sonata cells are "designed to meet and beat any safety standard" available. The HP version of these battery packs, known as the HP Enviro Series, are the first end-user products to use the Sonata technology, a technology which was first demonstrated over two years ago.

Priced at $150 (about a $20 premium over a standard battery), the six-cell battery packs are compatible with 16 existing HP and Compaq notebook models. Right now you can only get them as an add-on cell, but HP says it will begin selling the batteries with new laptops later this month.

There's more to this battery than just safety, though. First off, they charge lightning-fast, reaching up to 80 percent of total capacity in just 30 minutes. Arguably even better than that, the batteries can be recharged many more times than standard cells: Up to 1,000 times before performance and capacity begin to degrade, and HP backs that up with a three-year warranty on the batteries.

For comparison: Typical batteries take hours to hit 80 percent capacity and can only be recharged a few hundred times before capacity degrades to the point of uselessness (a problem called "battery fade").

Very cool technology, and I'd love to get a Sonata cell for my rig. I just wish they weren't so expensive!