Laptops with top-notch battery life can crush the most premium machines no matter how stacked their specs are, because that tech is useless if it can't hold a charge.
Fortunately, there are plenty of notebooks that go the distance. Using our Laptop Mag Battery Test 2.0, which involves continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness, we've identified the laptops with best battery life on the market. We're talking more than 9 hours of endurance, which should more than suffice for that cross-country flight, a long day of meetings or multiple, back-to-back classes.
Note that, in February 2018, we stopped using the Laptop Battery Test 1.0, which surfed the web at a lower 100 nits of brightness. Since then, scores have gone down to reflect the more aggressive (and realistic) test.
On top of its awesome battery life, the Dell Latitude 7400 offers speedy performance thanks to its Core i7-8665U processor.
It also comes with a three-year warranty as the standard option, and it offers some neat security features -- like an IR camera for Windows Hello. The Dell Latitude 7400 impressively lunged itself toward the top of our laptops with best-in-class battery life.
The latest HP Spectre x360 is practically perfect, even without its its battery life. It's super light, at 2.7 pounds, and thin, at 0.7 inches thick; we can't help but love the footprint on top of the elegant aluminum design. Packed within is a strong Intel Core i7-1065G7 CPU and Intel Iris Plus graphics. It also has a great keyboard, thanks to large keys and hefty clicks. The battery life is merely a secondary award to everything else that's great about this laptop.
The Dell XPS 13 still has the slimmest bezels imaginable thanks to its InfinityEdge design, and as a bonus, Dell managed to fit the webcam in the top bezel, which has been a long-awaited feature. Oh, and its one of the laptops with best battery life.
To accompany those thin bezels is a gorgeous 13.3-inch, 1080p display. This baby is also super lightweight, coming in at 2.7 pounds and 0.3~0.46 inches thick, and it boasts a powerful new Whiskey Lake processor.
The Lenovo Yoga C630 sports a gorgeous aluminum chassis paired with a flexible, 0.5-inch thin design. Paired with its 4G LTE connectivity and long battery life, it’s a great option for people who frequently travel. As an added bonus, the Yoga C630 also features a decently colorful 13.3-inch panel.
At just 2.3 pounds and 0.5 inches thin, the Google Pixelbook Go packs a battery that pushes it for an awful long time. In fact, it's rare to find a Chromebook that lasts this long on a charge. It not only has strong performance, but it has a bright and colorful 1920 x 1080 display. The is the best long lasting Chromebook you can buy.
The HP Envy 13 endures in style with its bright, 1080p display. It also has an elegant 0.6-inch chassis that can lift the deck when the lid is open, to make for a more comfortable typing experience.
The generous size and spacing of the island-style keyboard on the Envy 13 made typing a joy. Now combo that with a fast Core i5-8265U CPU and a pair of powerful speakers. You've got yourself an awesome ultraportable laptop.
Apple has finally made a better keyboard for its MacBooks, tossing the Butterfly switches and putting in scissor switches, which makes the 16-inch MacBook Pro stand out. Apple also maintained the same size as its predecessor, at 0.6-inches thin, while expanding the display size to 16 inches. Top that off with the MacBook Pro's powerful Core i9 CPU and a strong AMD Radeon 5500M graphics card.
