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

Battery life: 15-20 hours

It's safe to say that Microsoft's Surface Laptop was one of the best surprises of 2024. It's a lightweight, sleek device with a well-optimized hardware set and a marathon battery. I went hands-on with the laptop earlier this year and was thoroughly impressed with its snappy, responsive performance and reliable battery life.

As the quintessential Copilot+ PC, it's powered by the Snapdragon X Plus (10-core) or X Elite (12-core) processor, and what allows it to run so cool for so long. In my testing, I got over 15 hours of battery life on a single charge, but intermittent or light use can easily push that number up to well past 20 hours.

Review: Microsoft Surface Laptop

The combination of smart design with meaningful trade-offs is what makes the Surface Laptop so well-rounded, from a creator's device to a solid work machine, or anything in between. It feels fast and light and multitasks with ease across the Windows ecosystem. Web browsing with dozens of tabs, while connected to an external monitor feels responsive and smooth, a must for me to be considered a main driver. 

Basically, this is a laptop you can work remotely with for the whole day without a charger, and its sleek and minimal form factor supports some surprisingly robust performance. 

Microsoft Surface Laptop tech specs: CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite (12-core) | GPU: Qualcomm Adreno | RAM: 16GB-32GB | Storage: 256GB-1TB | Display: 13.8- or 15-inch touchscreen, 120Hz refresh rate, 500 nits brightness | Weight: 3.67 lbs.

Battery life: 15-18 hours

The resounding success of Apple's M2 MacBook Air was only improved upon with its successor, the M3 MacBook Air, and it's our pick for best battery life on an ultraportable laptop. This category has seen a host of newcomers, with some very close contenders when it comes to light and thin form factors this year, but the MacBook Air M3 has been at the party this whole time. 

Available in 13-inch and 15-inch display sizes, the MacBook Air is thin, light, and incredibly compact for its power. At just under three pounds for the smaller version and just over three pounds for the larger one, it can be slipped into virtually any bag and go unnoticed wherever you go.

Review: M3 MacBook Air

It's also no secret that the M3 lineup was designed to handle AI workloads, and the MacBook Air is no exception. With a 16-core Neural Engine (along with accelerators in the GPU/CPU for improved on-device machine learning) this MacBook Air can run various AI models and is future-proofed for the inevitable deluge of AI applications coming.

Apple MacBook Air M3 tech specs: CPU:  8-core CPU with 16-core Neural Engine, 10-core GPU | RAM:  Up to 24GB unified memory | Storage: Up to 512GB | Display: 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display, 60Hz refresh rate, 500 nits brightness | Weight: 2.7 lbs. for the 13-inch

Battery life: 14-21 hours

The OLED touchscreen on the ProArt PZ13 isn't the most high-end on the market, but it's boosted with image-enhancing apps like Dolby Vision, support for the entire DCI-P3 color gamut, and VESA Display HDR True Black for ultra-dark shadows. Everything works together to ensure a stunning visual experience (despite the the 60Hz refresh rate).

But the ProArt PZ13's coolest feature is the Creator Hub. It's a dashboard app that lets you adjust tools on the fly, like Color Control, which lets you change the on-screen color gamut, a DCI-P3 option that tweaks the colors for movies, and Display P3, which is recommended for artists as it more accurately displays hues. You can even adjust the color temperature.

Review: Asus ProArt PZ 13 

Most surprisingly, though, the battery life is fantastic, particularly for a creator-minded machine with an OLED display, which is historically notoriously power-hungry. In our testing, the ProArt PZ13 ran for over 21 hours straight when on the Best Power Efficiency mode. On Best Performance mode, the model managed to outperform most Intel-based laptops, as it lasted for about 14.5 hours on a single charge.

Asus ProArt PZ 13 tech specs: CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus (8-core) | GPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite Adreno | RAM: 16GB | Storage: 1TB | Display: 13.3-inch, 3K AMOLED touchscreen, 60Hz refresh rate, 500 nits brightness | Weight: 1.94 lbs.

Battery life: 13-18 hours

Dell's XPS 13 is as high-performing as it is diverse. As the brand's flagship consumer laptop line, these devices come in a myriad of configurations and are highly customizable. I recently went hands-on with Dell's XPS 13 for a few weeks, and enjoyed using it so much that I'm inclined to say it's one of the best 13-inch laptops I've tested this year.

Its performance feels good as a productivity machine: boot times move at warp speed, multitasking is a breeze, and browsing behavior feels snappy and responsive. When paired with the brilliant tandem OLED display, it feels like a true high-end productivity device.

Review: Dell XPS 13

Even better, the battery life on the Dell XPS 13 is very good. Of course, different configurations and performance modes will result in a high degree of variability. In our testing, we got over 17 hours of battery life running a livestream video over Wi-Fi without any of the power saving modes on. But there are lots of factors that can push the battery life of this machine to either end, resulting in one of the largest windows of possible battery life.

Dell XPS 13 tech specs: CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite (12-core) | GPU: Qualcomm Adreno | RAM: 16GB-32GB | Storage: 512GB-1TB | Display: 13.4-inch touch or non-touch, 120Hz refresh rate, 500 nits brightness | Weight: 2.6 lbs.

Battery life: 15-17 hours

Intel just announced its next generation of high-efficiency, AI-powered chips with the "Lunar Lake" Core Ultra Series 2, and one of the first laptops it's loaded on is the Asus Zenbook S 14. The new chip aims to bridge the gap with other AI-powered processors with upgraded x86 efficiency, with thinner, lighter devices (that endeavor to run cooler). 

The result on the Zenbook S 14 is a powerful laptop with a fantastic battery. During our livestream test, it lasted well over 17 hours streaming a full-screen video over Wi-Fi. The power-saving technology with Intel's "Intelligent Display" and dynamic tuning uses machine learning algorithms to automatically adjust brightness, refresh rate, and contrast, allowing it to effortlessly play media for hours with only a trickle of battery life.

Review: Asus Zenbook S 14 (Lunar Lake Series)

The performance element is just as nice. It's snappy, with rapid-fire load times and smooth transitions between apps while multitasking. Even better is the fact that the laptop's gorgeous OLED display with a variable 120Hz refresh rate feels smooth and premium.

Asus Zenbook S 14 (Intel Lunar Lake Series) tech specs: CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 200V "Lunar Lake" (Series 2) | GPU: Intel Arc Graphics | RAM: Up to 32GB | Storage: Up to 1TB | Display: 14-inch, 3K OLED, 120Hz refresh rate, 500 nits brightness | Weight: 2.65 lbs.