The best battery life laptops of 2024: Expert tested and reviewed

As previously mentioned, we test all laptop batteries in the same way to provide a standard methodology for judging each machine’s endurance. Since this test is quite taxing on the laptop, most users will see battery metrics quite higher than these numbers here in day-to-day use. 

Of course, there are plenty of other factors that can result in different battery life metrics, depending on how you use your machine and whether or not you use different performance profiles. We’ve compiled our testing numbers here to provide an at-a-glance table with key specs and, of course, price points.

These five laptops are solid machines in their own right, but paired with their highly-optimized battery life, we’ve highlighted them as great picks for anyone who prioritizes a good battery when shopping for a new machine. If you’re still not sure which one is the right pick for you, check out our breakdown below. 

Batteries, like any electronic device, have a lifespan. Getting the most out of your laptop’s battery comes down to preserving its longevity with battery-saving modes, keeping it within normal operating temperatures, and being smart about how you charge it. Yes, that means you don’t need to leave it plugged in 24/7.

Letting your battery life go down past 50% (or 25%) before you charge it again is also a natural part of the battery’s lifecycle. Staying charged at 100% for its entire lifecycle has been shown to reduce its overall longevity. 

When you’re working with your laptop and want to make it last as long as possible, there are some key things that make a big difference: 

• Activate your system’s battery-saving mode. This will turn on presets designed to make the most of your charge by disabling things you don’t necessarily need, like keyboard backlighting, full-power processing to all your apps, and reducing screen brightness.
• Close apps you’re not using, as things running in the background can consume just as much power as apps that you are using. 
• Turn off Bluetooth or Wi-Fi if you’re not using them. These settings alone can go a long way toward reducing your laptop’s overall power drain. 
• Reduce your display brightness and disable your keyboard’s backlight. Although displays don’t drain as much power as they used to, running your laptop at full brightness will definitely carve a chunk out of your battery’s charge. Just use as much as you need. 

We use a combination of methods to test laptops here at ZDNET. First, we acquire data from benchmarking software to analyze a system’s metrics under the hood, and compare those to advertised numbers. Then, we spend an extended amount of time with the laptop (usually a week or two) using it the same way a normal consumer would, in order to analyze its portability, form factor, and how well the battery actually holds up, among others. For an extensive breakdown, check out our comprehensive laptop testing methodology.

• Benchmarking: First, we run a series of tests to put the computer’s hardware through the wringer in order to see what it’s capable of. Cinebench is one of the most commonly used hardware testing suites, which tests the laptop’s rendering performance on single and multiple CPU cores. PCMark 10 is another powerful program that covers a wide variety of tasks performed in the workplace, and there are many others that we use in tandem to gather as much data as we can. Some components we run tests on include:
• Processor: The “brain” of the laptop, and one of the most important factors that determines performance. The four biggest manufacturers that make most of the CPUs found in laptops today are Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and Apple (in their own machines only). This is tested in benchmarking software.
• The display: The size of the display (measured diagonally from corner to corner) is also what dictates the laptop’s overall size, and play a big role in the laptop’s cost. Brightness is measured in “nits,” and color spectrums are tested in benchmarking software.
• The graphics processor (GPU): Whether it’s integrated into the CPU or a dedicated graphics card, how well the machine handles graphics is a key factor when it comes to demanding visual tasks like video editing, rendering, and of course, gaming. We test the GPU with a combination of benchmarking software, gaming, and media playback. 
• Physical form factor: Finally, the laptop’s overall appearance and physical form factor encompasses its weight, thickness, how the keyboard and trackpad feel, and whether or not it has a display that can be folded back to form a tablet. We carry the laptop around for at least a week and note how well it commutes.
• Battery testing: We test a unit’s battery in a few ways. A handful of benchmarking programs have their own battery testing components, but we also will just let the laptop run for as long as it can under a medium load. We ensure screensavers and hibernation mode are turned off, set the display’s brightness and audio at 50%, load up a livestream on YouTube in Chrome, and wait ’til the end.
• The human element:  As we mentioned earlier, metrics and system data is important, but numbers alone don’t give you the full picture. This is where we weave in our personal experience with the device and tap into the practical use cases that consumers actually care about. 

Ultimately, our goal is to break down the capabilities of each and every laptop we test into digestible terms that real people can find useful. There is a lot of noise and confusion when it comes to navigating the laptop and computer consumer market, so we hope to bring an intuitive element to the whole process by leveraging our team’s decades of experience. 

These days, a “computer” for most people is a laptop of some kind. The desktop form factor – particularly in the shape of all-in-one (AIO) devices – is by no means finished. Still, laptops span the range from thin, light, and ultraportable to bulky, powerful, and deskbound. 

If small screens are a problem, you can always attach an external monitor. There are also plenty of hybrid 2-in-1 devices that straddle the divide between laptops and tablets.

Battery technology is closely linked to the laptop’s processor, and there have been leaps forward in processor technology this year. From the launch of Microsoft’s Copilot+ PCs with the Snapdragon X Elite Windows-on-ARM compatible chips, to comparable chips from AMD and Intel, the market has shifted, and that’s good news for consumers. 

Of the five machines on this list, three of them have the Snapdragon X Elite chip. The MacBook Air M3 utilizes Apple’s M3 Silicon processor, which has remained near the top of the list for power and efficiency for a few years now. The fifth machine on this list, Asus’ Zenbook S 14 with Intel’s Lunar Lake Series 2 processor is brand new to the playing field, but if additional models with this chip are anything like the Asus, will prove to go head to head with the leaders of the pack. 

These five laptops were chosen for their combination of marathon battery life and otherwise exceptional features, but this list is by no means exhaustive. There are other laptops out there that compete head to head with many of the devices here. Chromebook and Chromebook Plus devices in particular, have pulled ahead as some of the most impressive in terms of performance relative to battery life, and we’re including the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus as an attractive alternative.