The top 25 laptop battery life performers from CNET Labs
Forget screen size, processing power or number of ports. The first thing every laptop shopper should think about in a new purchase is battery life. After all, you don't want your PC shutting down in the middle of a Netflix binge or coffee shop brainstorming session.
Based on the extensive battery testing conducted in the CNET Labs, these are the 25 PCs with the longest battery-life scores that we've seen from 2018 through today. This list includes Windows and MacOS laptops, Windows two-in-one hybrids and Chromebooks running Google's Chrome OS. Not included are Android or iOS tablets.
The specific test used here streams a private video over Wi-Fi on an endless loop. Note that these scores reflect the specific configurations we tested, and that screen resolution and CPU choice are some of the major factors that affect battery life.
This shockingly light 15-inch laptop (it's about 2.5 pounds) also has amazing battery life, jumping to the top of our current list at 13 hours and 58 minutes (838 total minutes).
The first Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered laptop we've tested falls a bit short on performance and features but kills it in battery life at 13 hours, 12 minutes (792 minutes).
This 2018 version of the X1 Carbon laptop has a WQHD-resolution 14-inch display (2,560x1,440 pixels), with 100 percent Adobe RGB color gamut, brightness up to 500 nits and support for Dolby Vision HDR for greater brightness, contrast and color palette, all while bringing in big battery life numbers. Score: 13:07 or 787 minutes
Excellent performance and a stylish and functional design make the Lenovo Yoga C930 simply one of the best two-in-one laptops available, and its 12-plus hours of battery life is icing on the cake. Score: 12:25 or 746 minutes
The XPS 13 is one of our top choices for a premium Windows ultraportable laptop at its size, due in part to its speedy performance and 12-hour battery life. But, we're also very excited to check out the coming-soon 2019 version, which fixes an annoying webcam issue found on previous models. Hopefully the battery life will keep up. Score: 12:18 or 738 minutes
Acer's very low-cost 15-inch includes a DVD drive (a rarity these days), an Nvidia MX150 GPU and a battery that runs for a decent 11 hours, 58 minutes (718 minutes).
This basic hybrid from Dell has especially good speakers for movie-watching, and a pretty decent 10 hours, 22 minutes (622 minutes) of battery life. Newer models have eighth-gen Intel processors, which may even add a few minutes.
This is a faster Core i7 version of the XPS 13, which, while still impressive, ran about three hours shorter than the Core i5 version at 9:08 or 548 minutes.
This chart lists the laptops and battery life scores of the proceeding 25 systems. We'll update this feature regularly as we test and review new laptops. New entries since our last update are in bold.
