Power efficient laptops
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The 25 best battery life laptops for 2022Our rankings of longest-lasting laptops has a few surprises. Show
Dan Ackerman,
Lori Grunin
Jan. 6, 2021 7:50 p.m. PT
It should come as no surprise that battery life is one of the key things we look for in a laptop computer. What is surprising is which laptop brands and models take the top spotswhen it comes to battery life. They're not always the usual suspects. Why are we so obsessed with battery life? More than screen size, processing power, graphics card or number of ports, battery capacity is the first thing many of us think about before making a purchase, whether it's a school laptop, business laptop or gaming laptop. After all, you don't want your PC shutting down in the middle of a Netflix binge or while taking notes in a long lecture class, and carrying around a battery backup is just a hassle. Top performers
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While at one timeApple'sMacBooks(the MacBook Air and the Apple MacBook Pro) controlled much of the top of this chart, the current winner comes from an unexpected place: Asus' ExpertBook B9450F. The company's ultralight business laptop has excellent battery life, which comes in at over 16 hours. LG'sGram series is best known for being very light, and the 14-inchLG Gram 14is no exception at 2.5 pounds (even slim 15-inchlaptopsare usually over 4 pounds). But besides that, it ran for over 16 hours, which is exceptionally good. Part of the secret is that a larger 15-inch body just has room for a larger battery along with the larger screen and larger keyboard. Dell squeaks into the top 5 with theXPS 13. Read more
So many factors go into determining a laptop's battery life that it's hard to predict in advance how different laptops or different models of the same laptop will last based on specs (e.g., keyboard, hard drive, Retina display, number of USB ports, fingerprint reader) or price. How the manufacturer implements power-saving measures for the processor, screen, networking and peripherals can have a big impact, for example, in addition to the usual suspects. And how you use it has the biggest effect: Bingeing video is an obvious drain, but so is running the CPU at top speed for crunching numbers or keeping the screen brightness cranked all the way up. Even modern laptops with good battery life will drain under those conditions. However, there are a few rules of thumb when it comes to selecting a device that will last you all day:
And keep in mind, battery life isn't everything. The Snapdragon-based Asus NovaGo lasts all day, for example, but we still felt it made too many compromises to get there. Based on the extensive battery testing conducted in the CNET Labs, these are the PCs with the longest battery-life scores that we've seen over 2018 and 2019. The top five current performers are below, and afull list of the top 25can be found below the five leaders. Video: LG's lightweight Gram 14 2-in-1 is a battery-life leaderOur master list includes Windows and MacOS laptops, Windows two-in-one hybrids and Chromebooks running Google's Chrome OS. Not included are Android or iOStablets. The specific test used here streams a private video over Wi-Fi on an endless loop (no web browsing or anything else that would make our testing inconsistent). 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. Asus ExpertBook B9450F989 minutes, or 16 hours, 29 minutesA featherweight 14-inch laptop with great battery life, though the trade-off is performance. Read our Asus ExpertBook B9450 review. $1,580 at Amazon
$1,700 at eBay
LG Gram 14963 minutes, or 16 hours, 3 minutesThe LG Gram 14 laptop is an ultralight pen-enabled convertible with extraordinary battery life for its class, plus it's really, really light (just 2.5 pounds). Read our LG Gram 14 2-in-1 review. $1,340 at Amazon
LG Gram 17779 minutes, or 16 hours, 17 minutes
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Incredibly thin and light for a 17-incher, its battery life is great -- for a price. Read our LG Gram 17 (2020) review. $1,999 at Walmart
$1,567 at Amazon
Samsung Notebook 9 Pro750 minutes, or 12 hours, 30 minutesIt's not the most exciting design out there, but the 2019 Samsung Notebook 9 Pro is a slim, lightweight two-in-one with extra-long battery life, plus strong performance for its size. Read our Samsung Notebook 9 Pro (13-inch, 2019) review. $900 at Amazon
Dell XPS 13 9370686 minutes, or 11 hours, 26 minutes
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With a slightly bigger screen and smaller body, the new XPS 13 still manages to attain terrific battery life. Read our Dell XPS 13 (2020) review. For the rest of our top battery life performers, see the full list here. More for long-distance learners
25 best battery life laptopsSee all photos
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