These Are The Laptops With The Best Battery Life

10 hours away from the cord is all well and good, but what if you want even longer? Here are 7 portable laptops that will keep on trucking for up to 20 hours and get you through even the longest day of work.

Earlier in the year we looked at 2-in-1 laptops with the best battery life. But what are the best options when you include all laptops, not just convertibles?

Don’t forget there is a lot you can do to improve your battery life. Windows 10 gives some extra options to help draw things out a little.

As a just released, but not real world tested wildcard, Dell has announced the new XPS 13 and 15.

The 13 is already on sale, but the 15 won’t available until next week, on the 16th of October.

The XPS 13 claims up to 18 hours of battery life. If the previous model is anything to go by (and read more on that below) then it will be possible to hit those figures, but for real world use 15 hours or so might be more realistic.

Even more impressively, the XPS 15 claims up to 18 hours of battery life. There are a few downgrades you need to make that happen, such as a 1080P non touch screen, but that is still very impressive.


Toshiba Portege Z20t

When it comes to laptops you laptops you can actually buy (and we have tested), the Toshiba Portege Z20t has one of the longest real world battery life.

Clocking in at 17 hours, the convertible manages 9 hours from the tablet side, while the keyboard boosts that another 8 hours.

The Z20t owes its longevity to an efficient Core M CPU, as well as a 1080P screen.

In real world tests we could just hit the 17 hours if we were careful, but for more intensive use, closer to 15 was the norm.

Read Cam’s full review, or check out the options (from $1815) over at Toshiba.



Lenovo ThinkPad T450s and X250

Almost all new laptops these days have built in batteries that can’t be swapped out. Not the Lenovo Thinkpad range though, with two of the longest life models offering removable batteries.

Aimed at business travelers, the laptops actually have an internal battery as well, so you can hot swap the external one without powering off.

The extra batteries come in 3 or 6 cell models, though the latter adds some extra heft.

The ultra portable 12.5” X250 is rated for up to 21.4 hours of battery life with the fatter 6-cell option.

The larger 14.5” T450s is rated at 19.9 hours with the 6-cell.

Those results are very highly dependent on spec and use, so closer to 16 hours is more realistic. Still, if you are sitting on a plane with no Wi-Fi and the brightness right down, 20 hours is doable.

The Lenovo laptops give an impressive result, but it is worth noting that they are significantly bulkier than some of their slimline cousins that offer similar battery life.


Dell XPS 13

Ignoring the new model and its 18 hour battery life for a moment, the existing Dell XPS 13 has an impressively good 15 hour battery.

And it doesn’t need a Core M CPU either – that’s based on a Core i5.

Of course you do need to opt for the 1080P screen without touch, but the 4K is overkill and expensive anyway.

With careful use, it’s entirely possible to hit (or even exceed) the 15 hour battery life.

If you tend to run some more intensive programs, or crank the brightness up, then 12 hours is about what you can expect.

Work the little i5 hard and it will drop down to 8 hours or so, but that is still impressive for a highly loaded test.


Macbook Air

For those with a taste for OS X, the 13-inch Macbook Air is your best bet for long battery life.

Besting the 11-inch model, it can hit up to 12 hours in real world use.

The 13-inch Macbook Pro is also worth a mention, as it can also reach 12 hours if you really try.


Chromebook Pixel

Want ChromeOS? The new Pixel is a vast improvement on the old model and manages around 12 hours on a charge.

Sure, it’s expensive and you can’t run most of your favourite apps. But it is pretty cool.


How long does the battery life last in your laptop? Tell us in the comments.


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