(Posted by Clare Baldwin)

Advanced Microchip Devices Inc is arguing that laptop battery life should be measured the same way as cellphone battery life: in terms of idle time and talk time.

AMD first raised the issue in a blog post in March, but is again making the rounds to convey its message that current standards, which it says measure the equivalent of standby mode in a cell phone, is misleading consumers.

Why exactly is this issue so important to AMD? Because under current standards, laptops based on arch-foe Intel’s chips demonstrate significantly better battery life. Under alternative standards, their battery life is roughly equivalent to AMD’s.

“Twenty-dollar cell phones give better information to the consumer about battery life than a $799 notebook,” AMD vice president Patrick Moorhead said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday.

Moorhead said the current standard is based on dim screens (20 percent brightness), miniscule microprocessor loads (7 percent usage) and has WiFi turned off.

“That’s no Web browser, no audio like iTunes, no video, and no games,” he said.

Intel, which dominates about 80 percent of the PC market, was not available for comment but in March, executives told the Wall Street Journal it thought industry consortiums were a better forum to debate this issue than blog posts.