Intel Lunar Lake debuted on September 3, just ahead of IFA 2024, and we've been counting down the days until we got laptops running Intel's latest into our hands. Last week, they finally arrived, and our lab testers quickly went to work, running a combined hundreds of hours of battery, performance, display, and heat tests.
The Asus ExpertBook P5 is the lone business laptop among the first wave of Lunar Lake laptops we've received for review. Our full review is coming later this week, but the tests tell a compelling early story for the first Copilot+ PC for work from Asus.
Efficiency and productivity performance (including AI performance) were two key focuses for the Lunar Lake laptops, and based on what we've seen so far, they deliver.
These are critical battlegrounds facing up against laptops featuring Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite chipset, which saw laptops like the HP EliteBook Ultra deliver over 16 hours of battery life and excellent performance earlier this summer. These were the first laptops to truly challenge the MacBook lineup in performance and efficiency in years.
Apple has been the dominant force in our guide to the laptops with the best battery life since its transition to ARM-based Apple Silicon chips in 2020. The best MacBooks still deliver in that regard, but the competition has upped its game, and the Intel Lunar Lake chips are continuing the run of challengers started by Qualcomm.
But just where does it stand among the recent titans? Here's what our lab tests are showing us.
How long does the Asus ExpertBook P5 last on a charge?
Longevity is a critical feature for most business laptops, so let's start there and see how the ExpertBook P5 compares to the competition.
The Laptop Mag proprietary battery test sets the laptop to 150 nits of brightness and cycles through a series of dynamic, static, and video webpages with standby periods in between until the battery completely runs down.
Our lab testers ran this test three separate times to arrive at a reliable average result of 14 hours and 22 minutes for the ExpertBook P5.
While it's not enough to unseat some of the recent long-lasting laptops, over 14 hours is an excellent result, particularly considering its 14-inch 2.5K 144Hz display.
This compares well with the oft-recommended Apple MacBook Air 13 M3, which, at roughly the same price and display size, delivered 15 hours and 13 minutes in our test.
While it's not enough to unseat some of the recent long-lasting laptops, over 14 hours is an excellent result, particularly considering its 14-inch 2.5K 144Hz display.
While benchmark testing plays a significant role in our review process, we are still working on the full review, which will examine my real-world experience using the ExpertBook P5 to complete my work.
How does the keyboard feel? Can it handle the dozens of Chrome tabs along with a handful of apps that I tend to build up over a day? Is it robust enough to hold up to a regular commute or frequent travel?
These are all questions I'll address in the full review, but for now, here's a look at how it fares against the Dell XPS 13 (9350, Non-OLED), which is another new Intel Lunar Lake laptop, the MacBook Air 13 M3, and finally the aforementioned HP EliteBook Ultra.
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