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Last week Tom's Hardware produced results from its tests which showed that SSDs consumer more power, findings that flew in the face of conventional wisdom.

But AnandTech and Laptop magazine have found that wisdom is not unfounded.

Laptop tested a Gateway Windows PC, and although the gains were small - 10 minutes more than than the 3:13 hours that the HDD provided - they did at least demonstrate the SSD's advantage.

AnandTech, by contrast, <

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examined the MacBook Air, and found significant gains in battery life, from 11% for heavy downloading and web browsing, to 16.8% for wireless access and music playback.

"As expected, the impact on battery life isn't huge but it's definitely noticeable," the website notes. "With the 64GB SSD installed we're actually able to hit Apple's five hour battery life claim with the MacBook Air. Our wireless browsing test actually saw the biggest improvement in battery life, increasing a full 43 minutes from a simple drive swap."

Last week Apple cut £300 from the price of the SSD-based MacBook Air.

According to Jeff Janukowicz, research manager for solid state drives and HDD components at research firm IDC, Apple was able to make the price cut because it used first-generation SSDs. Second generation drives are now appearing that offer double the capacity for the same price, and as a result the cost of first-generation drives has dropped. It also means that Apple will soon be able to offer the MacBook Air with an 128GB SSD, rather than the current capacity of 64GB.