The 6 Best Laptops For Battery Life - Spring 2024 Reviews

The best laptop for battery life we've tested is the Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M3, 2023). This premium workstation's battery life lasts over 15 hours of light use. That's enough to easily get you through a full day, maybe even two, depending on your workload. It has a sharp Mini LED display, a spacious keyboard, and an easy-to-use haptic touchpad. Ports include three USB/Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI 2.1, and a full-size SD card reader. You can configure it with an M3 Pro or Max SoC (System on Chip); both are fast enough to handle demanding workloads like video editing, 3D graphics and animation, and programming. There's also a base M3 chip option if you don't need a lot of processing power but still want the 'Pro' features like the display and up-firing speakers.

A Windows alternative would be the Dell XPS 16 (2024). It's also a premium workstation laptop with tons of processing power and good battery life, although the hardware configuration will impact how long it lasts. Hardware options include Intel Core 7 or 9 CPUs, up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070, and either a 120Hz FHD+ IPS or a 90Hz 4K+ OLED panels. The latter features full DCI P3 color space coverage, making it an excellent choice for color-critical work at the cost of battery life. The SSD is user-replaceable, so you can easily increase the amount or upgrade to a better-performing memory or faster drive. While this laptop is incredibly well-built, unfortunately, the layout of the keyboard and touchpad design both require an adjustment period to use comfortably; accidental inputs abound with the edge-to-edge design of the keycaps, and you can't see the edges of the touchpad because of the front deck design.

Our best upper mid-range pick is the Apple MacBook Air 13 (2024). Like the Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M3, 2023) above, it's also a premium, well-built model with a battery that lasts easily through a typical eight-hour workday. Its base M3 SoC doesn't have as much processing power as the M3 Pro or Max variants, so it's better suited for lighter general productivity tasks like text processing, web browsing, and video playback. It can handle some demanding stuff like video editing, but you won't get as good an experience as on the Pro models.

With a bright retina display, a comfortable keyboard, and a gigantic haptic touchpad, the user experience is great. The main downside is that it only has two USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports; this supports two external displays, but only if you close the laptop. Apple still sells the M2-based Apple MacBook Air 13 (2022) as a more budget-friendly option, giving it a $100 USD price cut. The M3 model has only a few minor upgrades, including Wi-Fi 6E, slightly better performance, and support for two external displays (with the laptop closed).

We recommend the HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) for Windows users. This 14-inch 2-in-1 provides a premium user experience with outstanding build quality, a large haptic touchpad, and a crisp 2.8K OLED display while still delivering all-day battery life for light use. Its port selection is better than the MacBook Air, with one USB-A, two USB-C/Thunderbolt 4s, and a 3.5mm headphone jack, and it also supports the latest Wi-Fi 7 standard that provides faster connection speeds and lower latency if you have a compatible modem. Its Meteor Lake Intel processor has no problem handling general productivity tasks but isn't as well suited to more demanding workloads.

If you want a more modest mid-range model, check out the Lenovo Yoga 7i 16 (2023). It has a large 16-inch display that's well suited for split-screen multitasking, and since it's a 2-in-1, you can flip the screen around and use it as a tablet. The battery lasts a little over 12 hours of light use and charges over USB-C. You can choose between an FHD+ or QHD+ panel; we recommend the latter, as it looks sharper and gets brighter to combat glare. You can configure it with Intel 13th Gen U- and P-series CPUs, which are plenty fast for general productivity tasks like text processing, web browsing, presentations, and spreadsheets.

The keyboard feels great to type on and includes a Numpad, which is great for those working with lots of numbers. There's a fingerprint sensor and a facial recognition camera to log in quickly. For ports, you get two USB-As, two USB-C/Thunderbolt 4s, an HDMI, and a MicroSD card reader. The only complaint is that the webcam image has an unnatural tint, and the microphone picks up some background noise. Lastly, the display supports pen input, but you may have to buy the stylus separately, depending on the model. The pen uses Wacom AES technology and supports 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity and tilt.

For those on a tighter budget, we recommend the ASUS Vivobook 16 M1605 (2023), a 16-inch Windows ultraportable. While its battery life isn't as impressive as the other picks on our list, it'll last around eight hours of light use throughout the day. This model is all plastic, but it feels sturdy and is easy to carry around despite its size. You can configure it with an AMD Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7 CPU, which are more than adequate for everyday tasks like web browsing or video playback. While its standard 8GB of RAM configuration can be a bit limiting, models with 16GB are available through some retailers, or you can add more yourself since the RAM is user-replaceable.

The overall user experience is good. It has a comfortable keyboard, a large, responsive touchpad, and a decent 720p webcam. Its 1080p display looks reasonably sharp, and at 16 inches, it's a great size for general productivity work or media consumption; however, it isn't the brightest, so visibility may be an issue in well-lit rooms. You get Wi-Fi 6E wireless connectivity, a fingerprint sensor for quick logins, and a decent port selection with three USB-As, a USB-C, and an HDMI. Unfortunately, the USB-C doesn't support video output, so you'll have to use the HDMI port to connect an external display.

The best cheap laptop with long battery life we've tested is the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i Chromebook 14 (2023). This is a great option for younger students or anyone needing a simple device for web browsing and video playback. You can often find the Core i3 configuration—paired with an FHD display, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage—on sale for around $400 to $500 USD on Lenovo's website. Cheaper configurations exist; however, we don't recommend them unless you have an extremely light workload and don't mind compromising on the display quality.

The FHD touch-sensitive display looks sharp and gets bright enough for use in well-lit settings. If you're often on video calls, you'd be happy to know it has an excellent 1080p webcam. As for the keyboard and touchpad, the former feels spacious but a tad mushy, and the latter is small and sometimes unresponsive, unfortunately. On the upside, its battery life is outstanding at around 13 hours of light use. One last thing: Chrome OS is limited in the type of applications you can install, so make sure you can do everything through a Chrome browser or Android app.

The best 2-in-1 tablet for battery life we've tested is the Lenovo Chromebook Duet 5 (2021), a 13-inch Chrome OS tablet with a kickstand and detachable keyboard. This form factor is more comfortable to use as a tablet than 2-in-1s with a 360-degree hinge because you can take the keyboard off when you're just watching videos, making the device lighter and easier to hold. Plus, the keyboard comes with the device, so there's no need to spend extra. It isn't the most comfortable keyboard to type on; it's fine for a couple of emails but not a long essay.

The great thing about this device is its OLED display, which is rare among Chromebooks in this price range. It's sharp and bright, and like all OLEDs, it produces deep, inky blacks. The speakers get reasonably loud but don't have much bass and sound slightly unnatural. The battery lasts around 10 hours of light use or eight hours of video playback and charges over USB-C. Remember that Chrome OS doesn't support x86 Windows programs, so you must ensure you can do everything through a Chrome browser or Android app.

If you need to install x86 programs or prefer a Windows device, get the Microsoft Surface Pro 8 (2021). It's also a 2-in-1 tablet with a kickstand and detachable keyboard. Its type cover keyboard provides a better typing experience, but unlike the Lenovo, you need to buy it separately, which isn't cheap. You'll also have to buy the stylus separately. Its Intel 11th Gen CPU can handle much more, so it's a better option for heavy multitaskers, but it has a shorter battery life. There's a newer Microsoft Surface Pro 9; it's a minor upgrade to Intel 12th Gen CPUs and is more expensive. You can see it on Amazon here. Finally, Microsoft has announced the Surface Pro 11 with an ARM-based SoC, which you can read about here.