Only the laptops with the best battery life can crush the most premium competition no matter how stacked their specs are because laptops are useless if they can't hold a charge.
Fortunately, there are plenty of notebooks that go the distance. Using our Laptop Mag Battery Test 2.0, which involves continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness, we've identified the laptops with best battery life on the market.
We're talking more than 13-14 hours of endurance, which should more than suffice for that cross-country flight, a long day of meetings or multiple, back-to-back classes. These laptops can be anything, from premium consumer laptops to business laptops to even gaming laptops, yes, gaming laptops, like the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, which achieved more battery life than the 16-inch MacBook Pro thanks to its AMD Ryzen CPU. Read our best of CES 2023 article to see the future of tech. See our recent Asus Zenbook 14 (Q409ZA) OLED review, which didn't make this list, but still has relatively long battery life.
Note that, in February 2018, we switched from Laptop Battery Test 1.0, which surfed the web at a lower, 100 nits of brightness, so scores have gone down to reflect the more aggressive (and realistic) test.
The laptops with best battery life
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The new king of the MacBooks is here. Long be its reign (which should be about a year). Apple’s coming out of the gate swinging, outfitting the laptop with the company’s proprietary M2 Max chip. It puts competitors to shame while putting a clear gulf between its predecessors. And yes, it is possible to game on this system thanks to the chip. I had a hell of a good time being terrified during Resident Evil Village.
In addition to the powerful chipset, you get a captivating 16-inch display, powerful audio and a super comfy keyboard. But the cherry on the top is the battery life, which lasted nearly 19 hours. In short, the MacBook Pro 16 is an unmitigated beast. But not so fast — there’s always a price. And in the case of MacBook Pro 16 M2 Max, the price is the actual cost ($2,699 starting, $5,299 as reviewed). It’s par for the course with Apple, but it still will give most people, including this reviewer, pause.
But if you want the crème de la crème of Macs, the MacBook Pro 16 sits at the top of the heap.
See our full MacBook Pro 16-inch (M2 Max, 2023) review.
Apple has a tough act to follow with the new MacBook Pro 13 ($1,899 reviewed, $1,299 starting). Its predecessor took the world by storm back in 2020 with its show-stopping M1 chip. And the climb seems even steeper this time. There's no snazzy design update, no extra ports to get excited about. That means everything riding on the new M2 SOC, and as per usual, Apple rises and surpasses the challenge.
The next chapter in Apple computing continues and the company's bet on custom silicon continues to hit the jackpot. M2 is 18% more powerful than its ancestor with an 8-core CPU. M2 is also bringing a new 10-core GPU that's 35% faster than the previous model. And if that isn't enough to get you excited, Apple has found a way to improve on the laptop's power efficiency, delivering over 18 hours of battery life. Read on to learn more about Apple's latest home run.
See our full Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, M2, 2022) review.
Call it the emancipation of Apple, the company’s freedom song or just plain liberation. With the advent of the M1 chip, Apple is free –– free to be faster and stronger, free to dominate. And the company’s wasting no time in asserting its dominance. Not only does the 13-inch MacBook Pro with M1 have better overall and graphics performance, it has some of the longest battery life we’ve ever seen on a laptop.
Apple could have stopped there, but instead, you get faster web page loading times, a more powerful camera and seamless integration between Mac, iPad and iPhone thanks to native Universal apps. The 5nm chip even improves the camera and microphones. If you’re looking for the fastest, most powerful premium laptop in the land, say hello to the new king.
See our full Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020) review.
The HP Elite Folio is packed with innovative, solution-solving tech — not gimmicks — that substantiates its $2,000 price tag. It also gives the Energizer Bunny a run for its money; it lasted a jaw-dropping 16 hours and 21 minutes on a charge.
Not only does the Elite Folio have the endurance of an Olympic champion, but it breaks records like one, too. The Elite Folio is the world’s first business convertible with a spectacular pull-forward mechanism. The feature lets you transform the display into a digital easel so you can get your Bob Ross on. The Elite Folio comes with an awesome stylus — a plus for users who have an affinity for digital note taking and doodling.
See our full HP Elite Folio review.
Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 6 is a refinement of the best 2-in-1 laptop for business users. Taking a page from the X1 Carbon, the newest Yoga now flaunts a 14-inch display with a taller 16:10 aspect ratio for more vertical screen space — a boon for enterprise users. Also improving productivity are a wider touchpad and a human presence detection sensor for convenient login and enhanced security.
Swapping the engine for 11th Gen Intel chips adds considerably faster performance, but the battery life upgrade is even more enticing; the Gen 6 model lasts for nearly 15 hours on a charge. These perks are packaged in a sleek aluminum chassis with a convenient 2-in-1 design and a handy stylus slot. It may not be as lightweight as the ThinkPad X1 Carbon or as alluring as the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga, but the ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 6 could just be the best overall package of the trio.
See our full Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga (Gen 6) review.
It's amazing what a new heart can do for a laptop. The latest MacBook Air ushers in a new era for Apple with its custom-made M1 chip. Yes, Apple's long-awaited transition away from Intel and into the ARMs of custom silicon has arrived, and the new chip blows us away.
I'll start by saying the new MacBook Air is an improvement over the previous model in every way, bringing monumental performance and battery life enhancements. Those bold claims Apple made about the M1? They weren't exaggerations. This MacBook Air out-muscles every laptop in its class while lasting a full day on a charge. And it does so with a fanless design, meaning the Air is pin-drop silent.
Along with record-setting performance, Apple Silicon adds iOS and iPadOS apps to the Mac App Store. You also get better webcam quality, and macOS Big Sur is a gorgeous redesign of Apple's desktop OS. The new MacBook Air may have a few faults, but it's the closest Apple has ever been to crafting the perfect laptop.
See our full MacBook Air with M1 review.
I’ve been on the hunt for a really good business laptop, and with the ThinkPad Z16 in my hands, I can finally end my search. It’s got a slick, dual-tone design: silver on the outside and dusky on the inside. And to Lenovo loyalists’ delight, the keyboard features the beloved, striking-red TrackPoint that will catch your eye every time you open the lid.
It’s also the perfect size for a business laptop. It’s not too small (like the compact machines on our best 13-inch laptops page), but it’s not ridiculously unwieldy like the 18-inch laptops that are gaining popularity nowadays — it’s juuuust right.
However, I will admit that the ThinkPad Z16 is a bit heavier than I expected. But to be fair, Lenovo never marketed this laptop as a thin-and-light ultraportable. It’s a business laptop, which means it will likely be sitting on a desk for hours on end before it’s picked up and thrown inside a laptop bag.
The ThinkPad Z16 definitely earned a spot on our best business laptops page, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect.
See our full Lenovo ThinkPad Z16 review.
The Acer Chromebook 514 is outfitted with an MediaTek Kompanio 828 ARM Cortex A76 processor, Mali-G57 MC5 integrated graphics, 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM, 64GB of flash memory storage, and a 14-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS touchscreen all for just $460.
This Chromebook, like most, fulfills a simple aesthetic with a silver chassis that comes in at 12.7 x 8.9 x 0.7 inches and 2.9 pounds. Packed within that build is a pair of top-firing speakers and performed surprisingly well. We listened to several hit songs that translated voices crisply and clearly.
You're not going to be breaking down any digital doors with its processor, but you'll get some decent performance from the Acer Chromebook 514, as it managed to compete with an 11th Gen Intel Core i3-1115G4 CPU.
What you'll be happy about the most to see is its incredibly long battery life. The Acer Chromebook 514 lasted 14 hours and 8 minutes on our Laptop Mag battery test. That's way more than the 9:03 Chromebook average. If you're using this for work or school, you'll get more than a day's work out of this.
See our full Acer Chromebook 514 review.
No matter what your configuration, the MacBook Pro 14 is in a class of its own. The laptop retains its stunning good looks, powerful speakers, high-resolution camera, and comfortable keyboard. But the real stars of this story are the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips, which bring even more power and efficiency to the table.
True to its word, the M2 Pro and Max MacBooks consistently outperform their predecessors as well as the Intel-powered competition. Seriously, look at those benchmarks, outside of the display section, the MacBook Pro 14 was rarely not on the winning edge of the spectrum.
And if that wasn’t enough Apple is finally addressing the gaming issue, teaming with Capcom to make its case with a port of Resident Evil Village that played just as well as if it were PC or console. All the company has to do now is to get more AAA titles into its roster, and we’re having a seriously interesting conversation on just what a Mac can and can’t do.
See our full MacBook Pro 14-inch (2023) review.
You don’t typically get good battery life on a laptop with a large display — more screen space means more battery drain — but the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7620) says “bump that.”
For $1,249, you’re buying a premium chassis (please get Dark Green), packed with a bright 16-inch touchscreen display, strong performance, and a long-lasting battery. It’s not perfect — I didn’t like the keyboard and touchpad experience, and the audio wasn’t up to par. But it’s also not exorbitantly expensive.
If you want a big laptop with a big battery, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7620) is easily one of the best laptops you can buy.
See our full Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7620) review.
How we test the laptops with best battery life
We put each laptop through extensive benchmark testing — both synthetic and real-world — before they end up in the hands of our reviewers. We evaluate each aspect of the laptop, including its performance, battery life, display, speakers and heat management.
In our benchmark testing, we use a Klein K10 colorimeter to detect the brightness and sRGB color gamut of the laptop's display. For performance testing, we run the laptop through a gauntlet of benchmarks, including Geekbench 4.3 and 5.0 and 3DMark professional graphics tests.
To determine real-world performance, we task the laptop to convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution and to duplicate a 4.97GB multimedia file. Our real-world graphics test is the Dirt 3 benchmark with medium settings at 1080p resolution.
We also run heat tests by playing a 15-minute full-screen video and measuring temperatures in different areas of the laptop. Last but not least, our battery test consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. For MacBooks and premium Windows 10 laptops, a runtime of over 9 hours is considered a good result whereas gaming laptops and workstations that can stay powered for longer than 5 hours deserve praise.
These tests are complemented with extensive hands-on testing from our reviewers who critique everything from the laptop's materials to the feel of its touchpad.
