Impressive battery life with Windows 8 tablets by HP, Dell, and Lenovo

I'm currently on a cross-country flight to speak at the HIMSS Southern California Chapter Annual Healthcare IT Conference on the topic of Social Media in Healthcare: Promoting Patient Empowerment and Engagement, Healthcare Value, and Patient Centered Care."

I decided to travel really light, so I packed an HP ElitePad 900 Windows 8 slate tablet PC (and left the Expansion Jacket and extra battery at home). The tablet weighs only 1.5 lbs.

I'm typing this as I'm working on the airplane, using Wi-Fi (Gogo Internet) and a Bluetooth keyboard. Based on my battery usage pattern on this 6-hr flight, it looks like I'll easily get 9 hours of battery life with the brightness setting on the low side.

When it comes to battery life on PCs, critics often say that published battery life figures often don't reflect real-world usage. I've found that newer Windows 8 tablets like the HP ElitePad, the Dell Latitude 10, and the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 all have very impressive battery life because they are powered by a second-generation Intel Atom dual-core processor that does a nice job balancing performance with battery life. I have been testing these 3 tablet PCs and I'll be writing more about my experiences using them.

The Microsoft Surface Pro uses a faster Intel processor, but you end up sacrificing battery life. I suspect that I'd probably only get 3-4 hrs of battery life with the Surface Pro, and that's just not enough for my usage patterns.