Low power consumption of the screen, one of the more power-hungry components on a laptop, could lead to cheaper and lighter laptops, Jepsen said.

"Instead of putting six battery cells into this model, I'll try fewer or use less-powerful cells, making the machine lighter and cheaper, and the battery life exactly the same," Jepsen said.

The small bump in battery life isn't close to Jepsen's previous plans of laptop battery life between 20 and 40 hours. However, Jepsen said Pixel Qi is working to blur the line between the screen and motherboard, which could boost battery life more.

"We'll get to larger power savings later so the screen can enable much longer battery life, but for that we need the manufacturers to make changes in the motherboard, which will come in 2010-11," Jepsen said.

The screens will ship for sampling in a few months and be in laptops by the middle of the year, Jepsen said. Initially, the company will ship 10-inch screens. She didn't name PC makers that would eventually use those screens in laptops.