Solid to the Core 2 Duo: Intel’s latest passes cross-country test

Publicity stunt or not, Intel is announcing a cross-country test of the battery life of the new Core 2 Duo. On a San Francisco-to-New York flight, two colleagues sat side-by-side, with one using the Core 2 Duo and the other using an older model.

The older model lasted until about Illinois, and the newer model lasted the whole way. And it wasn’t just word processing: The Intel users put the Core 2 Duo through a battery of tests, including taking part in high-performance games, listening to a variety of music files, and loading and viewing of hi-def DVDs.

The result is a five-hour battery life for performance and processing power that the company says rivals a desktop and certainly outperforms previous laptops.