1. The list in brief
2. Best overall
3. Best performance
4. Best 14-inch
5. Best Asus laptop
6. Best ThinkPad
7. Best X1 Carbon
8. How we test
9. Why trust Laptop Mag
Laptops with the best battery life are what you need to function as a professional, a student, and a binge-watcher of TV shows. Your battery is always draining, even when idle — yeah, your laptops, too. So instead of arriving to something dead and in need of charging, let's find you a lively companion. Our list of laptops with best battery life have survived 13+ hours on a single charge. It'll outlast school, work, and me (before I have to take a nap).
To be 100% transparent, our tests won't accurately line up to how you use your laptop. We attempted to get close to real-world usage with our Laptop Mag Battery Test 2.0. It involves continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. That's not very bright — on average, it's roughly 50% brightness. If you find yourself wanting more battery, consider dimming the display.
Despite the change in numbers, our tests have been consistent throughout all recent laptops we've tested, which means that all of the following truly are the laptops with best battery life.
Rami has been swimming in laptops for most of his adult life, which is wild to think about, but excellent for you, those of which that need a new rig in their life. Rami knows that a long battery life can come from the cheapest and most expensive laptops. But it's not just about battery life, is it? The laptop has to be good as well. Rami knows which are the laptops with best battery life to choose.
The Quick List
Best overall
The MacBook Pro 16-inch (M2 Max, 2023) is packed with an M2 Pro CPU, M2 Pro GPU, 16GB to 96GB of RAM, and 512GB to 8TB of storage.
Best performance
Faster and more powerful, Apple has once again lived up to its hype and created a system that outpaces everything else on the market with the MacBook Pro 16.
Best 14-inch
The MacBook Pro 14 has only gotten better with the addition of Apple’s new M3 chip, which delivers better overall and gaming performance than its predecessor with even longer battery life.
Best Asus laptop
The Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425M) features truly impressive battery life, snappy performance, quality audio, and a comfortable keyboard.
Best ThinkPad
The business-class Lenovo ThinkPad Z16 has a beautiful 16-inch touchscreen, AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H Octa-core (8 Core) CPU, AMD Radeon 680M graphics, 16GB of RAM, and a 512 GB SSD.
Best X1 Carbon
The superb Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 11) has an Intel Core i7-1355U, Intel Iris Xe graphics, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB PCIe SSD.
The laptops with best battery life in 2024
Why you can trust Laptop Mag Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
From affordable budget laptops to elite business laptops, there are plenty of all-day-strong notebooks to choose from these days. Even gaming laptops like the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, which achieved more battery life than the 16-inch MacBook Pro thanks to its AMD Ryzen CPU, have come a long way in terms of balancing raw power with general mobility. Read on for our top picks!
Best overall
Since Apple swapped over to its proprietary CPUs, we have seen nothing but great things from the MacBooks flooding our way. What has been especially impressive, especially concerning this very page, is the absolute monster of a battery life. With Apple M2 Max chip, the MacBook Pro 16-inch saw nearly 19 hours of battery life. That's the longest lasting laptop of recent memory. But battery life isn't the only thing that this killer machine offers.
We are enjoying the new wave of games coming to MacBooks, and we had plenty of fun testing out Resident Evil Village on this machine. Let's not forget about that vivid 16-inch display and powerful audio, making this the optimal creative workstation. And we are officially back in the age where Apple laptops are rocking comfortable keyboards.
We do love this MacBook, but it is hella expensive ($2,699 starting, $5,299 as reviewed). So keep in mind your budget before you toss your wallet at this all consuming Cupertino-based tech company.
See our full MacBook Pro 16-inch (M2 Max, 2023) review.
Best performance
Even with the latest 16-inch Apple MacBook Pro rocking the company's most powerful CPU, the M3 Max, the laptop blew us away with just over 18 hours of battery life. It just goes to show that high performance and a sharp display don't have to impact battery life the way that laptop makers like to use as an excuse. Battery life isn't the only awesome thing about this laptop. That high performance wasn't a joke -- it beats out all other MacBooks and every competitor we threw at it.
One of the things we love the most about the Apple MacBook Pro (16-inch, M3 Max) is that 3456 x 2234 Liquid Retina XDR display. It's stunning, gorgeous, vivid, vibrant -- throw all the adjectives at it and most of them will stick to the wall. But let's not get it twisted, this machine is hella expensive. We're talking about $3,499 starting, and $3,999 as reviewed. You have to ask yourself, how much do you really need that shiny new 40-core GPU? If you're a creator, it's question worth asking.
See our full MacBook Pro 16-inch (M3 Max, 2023) review.
Best 14-inch
It's amazing what a new heart can do for a laptop. The latest MacBook Air ushers in a new era for Apple with its custom-made M3 chip. There's a reason that Apple has dominated the top of this page for so long. The company understands how to prioritize battery life in its chipsets, making the MacBook Pro 14 (M3, 2023) last for over 17 hours on a single charge. Listen, I'd love to have any other company at the top of this list, so laptop makers need to step it up.
Even on a 14-inch machine, Apple manages to pump out a super bright 3024 x 1964-pixel display. I'll say it until I can't breathe, but having a comfortable keyboard in a MacBook again is wild. It's honestly a sad thing to be impressed by, but MacBooks are getting better every year, and the Cupertino-based tech company made the best decision by leaving Intel behind.
See our full MacBook Pro 14 (M3, 2023) review.
Best Asus laptop
The Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425M) is a killer laptop with incredible battery life offering itself up for an incredibly affordable price. On the Laptop Mag battery test, the Zenbook 14 banged out a stunning 15 hours and 52 minutes. Asus has been killing it with its laptops lately, and this is a perfect example of that. Battery life isn't the only thing this machine has got going on.
Sporting Intel's latest Core Ultra 7 155H, the Asus Zenbook 14 has the power to get you through a modest number of tasks. Its comfortable keyboard will ensure you don't get exhausted throughout your day. And with a 14-inch, 1080p, OLED display, it'll be there for you at the end of the day when you want to stream your favorite shows on a gorgeous display. Warning -- its quality audio will get you headbanging subconsciously.
See our full Asus ExpertBook B9450 review.
Best ThinkPad
Lenovo's ThinkPads are one of the few brands that excel at not only being a business laptop, but a laptop in general. Yes, the price always gives us pause, as any business laptop blown up (because it wants companies to buy in bulk and not ask questions). However, finding the Lenovo ThinkPad Z16 on sale is a killer opportunity to get an excellent laptop with nearly 15 hours of battery life. But that's not the only feature we love about the Z16
The Lenovo ThinkPad Z16 is not only a thin and light business laptop, but it features enough screen space to get all of your work done without issue. With a 16-inch, 1920 x 1200-pixel display, you'll get enough color and brightness to bring life to your work on and offline. Let's not forget the powerful performance and graphics backed by AMD components. This is one spicy business laptop.
See our full Lenovo ThinkPad Z16 review.
Best X1 Carbon
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 11) is a refinement of the best ultraportable laptop for business users. The newest X1 Carbon now flaunts a 14-inch, 16:10, 1920 x 1200-pixel touch display, which means it offers 120 more vertical pixels than your typical 1920 x 1080-pixel screen. Also improving productivity are a wider touchpad and a human presence detection sensor for convenient login and enhanced security.
Swapping the engine for 13th Gen Intel chips adds considerably faster performance, but the battery life upgrade is even more enticing; the Gen 11 model lasts for nearly 14 hours on a charge. These perks are packaged in a familiar matte-black design with an aerospace space grade carbon fiber lid. It's super lightweight at 2.5 pounds, and it's even incredibly thin at 0.6 inches.
See our full Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 11) review.
How We Test Laptops with Best Battery Life
We put each laptop through extensive benchmark testing — both synthetic and real-world — before they end up in the hands of our reviewers. We evaluate each aspect of the laptop, including its performance, battery life, display, speakers and heat management.
In our benchmark testing, we use a Klein K10 colorimeter to detect the brightness and sRGB color gamut of the laptop's display. For performance testing, we run the laptop through a gauntlet of benchmarks, including Geekbench 4.3 and 5.0 and 3DMark professional graphics tests.
To determine real-world performance, we task the laptop to convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution and to duplicate a 4.97GB multimedia file. Our real-world graphics test is the Dirt 3 benchmark with medium settings at 1080p resolution.
We also run heat tests by playing a 15-minute full-screen video and measuring temperatures in different areas of the laptop. Last but not least, our battery test consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. For MacBooks and premium Windows 10 laptops, a runtime of over 9 hours is considered a good result whereas gaming laptops and workstations that can stay powered for longer than 5 hours deserve praise.
These tests are complemented with extensive hands-on testing from our reviewers who critique everything from the laptop's materials to the feel of its touchpad.
Why Trust Laptop Mag
Laptop Mag reviews over one hundred different laptops every year, from paperweight ultralights to everyday workhorses to lumbering gaming notebooks that scorch the frame rates of even the hottest AAA games. We're not just experts in the laptop field, as we go one step further by meticulously testing smartphones, tablets, headphones, PC accessories, software, and even the latest in gaming.
We are 100% independent and have decades of experience to help you buy with confidence. In fact, Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades, and we continue to deliver trustworthy reviews you can rely on.
Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you’re most likely to throw at it.
Our editorial trustworthiness is enforced by one of the world's largest technology publishers, Future Publishing. As a company, we have unrivaled experience across every tech sector — and we're the group's specialist for all things mobile tech.
