Looking for Honesty in Laptop Battery Life

Mt friend and competitor Walt Mossberg runs what he calls a "harsh battery test" in which he times how long a laptop will run with the brightness turned all the way off, all power savings shut off, and playing an endless loop of music. I like Moorhead's suggestion that the laptop industry follow the example set by Apple, which rates the laptop batteries life of the iPhone for a number of different conditions such as talk time, Wi-Fi Web browsing, and music playback. A benchmark that said you could expect 4 hours of battery life working in Microsoft Word or Outlook, 3 1/2 hours actively browsing the Web, and 2 1/2 hours playing a DVD would be truly useful.