Most Sandy Bridge CPUs will be quad-core, and quad-cores are traditionally not that great for notebooks. This is about to change with Huron River as it looks like that the quad-core Sandy Bridge can get almost identical battery life to dual-core Calpella based systems.

This is something that we’ve learned and seen with out own eyes and even big 15-inch workstation class notebooks with-quad cores should run for about four to five hours. Naturally there will be a dual-core version of Sandy Bridge that will be even more power aware, so you will see some great battery life from dual-cores, more than eight hours is definitely possible on select configurations.

The Huron River platform looks like a great notebook alternative that can even let you do some casual gaming.