At Computex today, Intel made a brief but potentially momentous announcement: it’s developed new power management technology for mobile displays that can cut battery consumption in half under some circumstances. The company didn’t go into the details of how its Intel Low Power Display Technology works, but it’s a combined effort with Sharp and Innolux, who are manufacturing the 1W LCD panel required for it. Sadly, you wouldn’t be able to retrofit this battery life extender into your existing laptop. Another requirement is that you’d have to use Intel’s graphics instead of Nvidia or AMD’s superior alternatives.

Even with the inevitable caveats, and without assuming that this will magically double the battery life of your future laptop or 2-in-1, this new technology is exciting. Intel rightly points out that the display is the biggest battery drain on any mobile device, so figuring out ways to improve its power efficiency is always a welcome change. Now it’s just a matter of waiting to see exactly how big of an improvement this is in practice with real-world devices.

Intel brought a Dell XPS 13 laptop fitted with the new low-power display to Computex, and the company claims the battery life improvement on that machine to be between four and eight hours, depending on how it’s used.