When you're searching for the best laptops for battery life in your price range, you can't count on manufacturer claims about battery life: you need real data. That's why we put every laptop we review to the test and run them through multiple instances of our battery test, which tasks the laptop with endlessly surfing the web via Wi-Fi with its screen set to 150 nits of brightness, then timing how long it takes to run out of power.
This test gives us a decent idea of how long you can expect a laptop to last on a single charge while browsing the web. More importantly, it gives us a standard metric we can use to see how laptops stack up against each other in terms of power efficiency.
That's how my team and I know that the Dell XPS 13 (2024) is currently one of the best laptops for battery life: it lasted nearly 20 hours (19:41) in our battery test, beating out every other consumer-grade laptop we've tested so far. But the 16-inch MacBook Pro isn't far behind, making it our second most recommended laptop if battery life is what matters most to you.
However, keep in mind that battery life fluctuates based on several factors, including what you're doing and how your laptop is configured. So while I stand by the numbers in this list, your own battery life with these laptops will vary!
The quick list
Here's a brief overview of the laptops on this list, along with quick links that let you jump down the page directly to a review of whichever laptop catches your eye.
The Dell XPS 13 (2024) is our top recommendation for the best laptop for battery life now that it has the power of Snapdragon X chips inside, which give this portable powerhouse killer speed and over 19 hours of battery life in our testing.
The 16-inch MacBook Pro M3 Max delivers the most raw power and battery life of any modern MacBook to date, lasting over 18 hours in our testing. Plus, it's got plenty of ports and a lovely mini-LED display.
The MacBook Air M1 is showing its age, and it's not good for much besides work, browsing the web and light video editing. But it's the lightest laptop on this list, and it lasted over 14 hours in our battery test.
The entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro M3 is a more portable version of its 16-inch sibling that's over a pound lighter, yet lasts over 16 hours in our battery tests. This is the long-lived laptop for anyone intimidated by the size of the 16-inch Pro.
The HP Omnibook X packs a powerful Snapdragon X chip that helps it last over 16 hours in our battery test. It's a speedy Windows 11 ultraportable that can't match the XPS 13's OLED upgrade, but does come cheaper with a higher-res display.
The MacBook Air M3 is best for those who want something light and easy to carry with a big screen. It's not as powerful as the other laptops on this list, but it's lighter and easier to carry yet lasted over 15 hours in our battery test.
The best laptops for battery life you can buy today
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The longest-lasting laptop
The Dell XPS 13 (2024) looks identical to the Dell XPS 13 Plus but it sports a Snapdragon X Elite chip that gives it excellent performance and an incredible 20-hour (well, technically 19 hours 41 minutes in our testing) battery life. It's one of the longest-lasting consumer laptops we've ever tested at Tom's Guide and one of the best Windows laptops you can buy right now.
If you can get past this laptop's controversial design, which features a function row of capacitive LED-lit keys and no visible touchpad, you'll find a reliable ultraportable that can handle almost anything you throw at it. Its 13.4-inch display delivers good picture quality, and once you get used to the tightly packed keys, you'll find a pleasant typing experience. Best of all, this laptop starts at $1,299, which is an excellent value for what you get.
Read our full Dell XPS 13 (2024).
The longest-lasting MacBook
The MacBook Pro 16-inch (M3 Max, 2023) delivers some of the best performance we've seen yet in a laptop of this size thanks to Apple's new M3 Max chip. Design wise, things remain relatively similar except that this laptop is now available in a new Space Black finish that's designed to prevent fingerprints. Most importantly for our purposes though, the M3 Max chip allowed the new MacBook Pro 16-inch to last for 17 hours and 11 minutes in our battery life test.
The MacBook Pro M3 Max also impressed us with its 16.2-inch Liquid Retina Display that remains as gorgeous as ever while its 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate made everything run smoothly including games. In terms of ports, there are two Thunderbolt 4/USB-C ports and a headphone jack on the left as well as another Thunderbolt 4/USB-C port, an HDMI port and an SD card slot on the right. At the moment, the MacBook Pro M3 Max is the premium Apple notebook to get especially if you're a professional video editor or just want a MacBook you can game on.
Read our full MacBook Pro 16-inch (M3 Max, 2023) review.
The best value
The MacBook Air was always the best MacBook for most people, and even though it's getting on in years it's still a great little laptop that offers 14+ hours of tested battery life.
The reason is the enduring strength of the M1 chip, which gives this plucky ultraportable enough power to tackle whatever day-to-day tasks you throw at it.
The MacBook Air's webcam is also quite good, as the M1 chip provides signal processing tricks to improve clarity and color accuracy. And, of course, the Magic Keyboard ensures you enjoy a comfy typing experience. #section-a-more-portable-pro-with great-battery-life
Read our full MacBook Air with M1 review.
A more portable Pro with great battery life
It couldn't last quite as long in our battery tests as its 16-inch sibling, but the 14-inch MacBook Pro M3 is still an all-star performer that lasted 17+ hours in our testing lab. It looks good doing it too thanks to the 14-inch mini-LED Liquid Retina XDR display, and in our lab tests we saw that it's display is even brighter than its predecessor.
However, peripheral fans should know the MacBook Pro M3 only has two Thunderbolt/USB-C ports on its left side compared to three available with the MacBook Pro M3 Pro. On the right side, you'll find an SD card slot which creative pros will certainly appreciate along with an HDMI port.
During the Tom's Guide battery test, the MacBook Pro M3 lasted an epic 17 hours and 25 minutes while continually surfing the web at 150 nits of screen brightness. Its keyboard remains basically unchanged and its power button continues to integrate a Touch ID button for easy logins.
Read our full MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3, 2023) review.
Another Snapdragon laptop with great battery life
The HP OmniBook X is a no-nonsense Windows 11 productivity ultraportable that's powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X chips, ensuring it delivers great performance and lasted over 18 hours in our battery life test.
That's incredible endurance that, alongside the 19+ hours earned by the Dell XPS 13 atop this list, prove Windows laptops can once again compete with MacBooks in terms of battery life.
But the list of Windows laptops that can last this long on a full charge is still short, so I recommend the OmniBook X here mostly as an alternative to the XPS 13 for Windows fans. The XPS 13 lasts longer on a full charge and can be upgraded with an OLED display, while the OmniBook X cannot.
However, the OmniBook X is a bit cheaper than the XPS 13 and comes with a larger, higher-res screen by default. Also, it doesn't have the smooshed-together keyboard that you find on the XPS 13. During our review we liked it less than the OLED option on the XPS 13, but if you're buying entry-level screens I think the OmniBook X still has the edge.
Read our full HP OmniBook X review.
The best big-screen MacBook
The MacBook Air M3 is an improved version of our best value pick, the original MacBook Air M1. The newer M3 models are as light and easy to carry as ever but now deliver blistering-fast performance with great battery life.
The 15-inch MacBook Air M3 and its smaller 13-inch sibling both lasted over 15 hours in our battery testing. The 13-inch model lasted about ten minutes longer than the 15-incher, but I recommend the 15-inch MacBook Air M3 first because that big 15-inch screen is a nice luxury.
Plus, you get a speedy laptop that's equally good at slinging spreadsheets, writing up term papers or watching your favorite shows on long-haul plane flights. IF you need a long-lived laptop that's lightweight with a big screen, this is the one to get.
Read our full Apple MacBook Air 15-inch M3 review.
Battery life test results
If you made it this far you know battery life is one of the key things to look at when deciding which laptop to buy, which is why we run every laptop we review through a series of battery tests to see how long it lasts on a full charge.
These tests do not reflect real-world use patterns since we have to set every laptop to the same settings in order to do fair comparisons. Thus, while the times listed here are accurate and useful as a comparison point, your own experience with a laptop's battery life will likely vary.
This is because when we run our battery test we set the laptop's display to 150 nits of brightness and have it endlessly browse the web via Wi-Fi until it dies. However, when you use your laptop you're likely adjusting brightness on the fly, doing all sorts of different tasks while perhaps listening to music or watching a video at the same time, and generally putting the machine through more of a workout than it gets in our test.
So while I stand by our testing and the battery life results we compare in the chart below, I want to be clear that your own experience will vary!
| Laptop | Battery life (hh:mm) |
| Dell XPS 13 (2024) | 19:41 |
| MacBook Pro 16-inch (M3 Max, 2023) | 18:20 |
| MacBook Pro 14-inch M3 | 17:25 |
| HP OmniBook X | 16:22 |
| MacBook Air 13-inch M3 | 15:13 |
| MacBook Air 15-inch M3 | 15:03 |
| MacBook Air with M1 | 14:41 |
How to choose the right long-lasting laptop for you
What kind of power do you need? Forget about battery power for a minute -- what kind of performance do you need from your new laptop? If you only need something basic for surfing the web, consider the MacBook Air M1: it's not fancy or new, but you can get one for cheap and they're still plenty good enough for surfing the web. But if you want to get work done, something nicer like the XPS 13 or MacBook Air M3 might be easier on you. And if you need raw power, the MacBook Pro is the way to go.
What kind of games do you want to play? Most mainstream laptops (including nearly everything on this list) feature integrated graphics, which can handle lightweight titles such as Minecraft and Fortnite but aren't ideal for graphically-demanding games or heavy visual work. For that, you'll want a laptop with a discrete graphics card (which typically have terrible battery life) or a MacBook Pro, which doesn't support as many games as a Windows machine but has more than enough power to run many at great framerates.
Do you want macOS or Windows? Once upon a time Chromebooks were the industry leaders in battery life, but nowadays its Macs and Windows machines leading the pack. So the main thing to decide if you want the best battery life is, Mac or Windows?
The Windows laptops with the best battery life are currently Snapdragon laptops, which means they're powered by Qualcomm's Arm chips and thus have some compatibility issues with select software. The top MacBooks all run on Apple silicon now and have good software support for everything except games, which are more hit-and-miss on Apple's laptops.
Whichever system you decide on, you may also want to consider investing in the best mouse and best keyboard for your needs so you can have some more ergonomic options for working on your new laptop.
How we test the best laptops for battery life
To find the best laptop, we run every machine through a rigorous suite of benchmarks and real-world tests to gauge how it will perform during everyday use.
We measure the average brightness and color quality of each laptop's display using our in-house light meter and colorimeter. For general performance, we run our machines through tests that include Geekbench 5 (CPU performance), as well as various 3DMark tests to measure graphics capabilities. We also run a file transfer test to measure how fast a machine's hard drive is, and our custom battery test that has the machine browse the internet over Wi-Fi until it runs out of juice.
