I do think that there is nothing special in terms of these batteries except that they are bigger! Whether they last 1000 charges will remain to be seen, but if it can even go half the time they advertise before losing charge(2.5 yrs instead of 5 years), that will be a major win. I think it's the not losing capacity that is the bigger selling point, b/c every laptop I've had deteriorates quickly.
I don't know enough about batteries to say if this is something unique to Apple or if it's all just marketing hype, but HP has a type of battery tech that they bought from Boston battery or something that doesn't lose charge as well for a really long time.
That said, the batteries are undoubtedly bigger, and really should boost battery life by a healthy margin.
Specs are:
13" 58 watt hours
15" 73 watt hours
17: 95 watt hours
The 'regular' 6 cell on a 15" notebook is usually about 56 watt hours, while the 9 cell in the windows world is 84 watt hours.
So I think that the battery life should be pretty darn good, esp for the thinness and weight, since I hate batteries that stick out. I mean, seriously, why not just carry two flush batteries then? Or the AC adapter? It's no impressive feat if your battery is 12 cells but adds an entire inch to the laptop. 73 watt hours in the form factor that Apple has made it is not bad.
I am not worried in the slightest about the battery replacement b/c I can just open up my laptop and do it myself in 3 years when the batteries are all over ebay. It's really not that hard. Unless it's soldered on or something like that. If you can do a hard drive upgrade, you can replace the battery. I can't imagine it being that complicated as I've changed my ipod battery before.
