The best long battery-life laptops in 2024: work and play all day with our top picks

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REASONS TO BUY
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The best long-battery-life laptop is an essential tool for those constantly on the move or working long hours away from power sources. Today's laptops not only boast significant improvements in performance compared to their predecessors but also offer substantially enhanced battery life as well, so you no longer need to sacrifice one for the other. 

This is largely due to more powerful and energy-efficient components, like the best processors from Intel and AMD, but, it's important to note that not all laptops are built the same, with some offering much longer battery life than others.

Models like the 14-inch MacBook Pro and the Lenovo IdeaPad Duet Chromebook stand out for their seriously impressive efficiency, providing not just a slight convenience but a major improvement in how and where you can work. The ability to remain unplugged from morning until evening without the constant search for a power outlet frees you from being stationary, whether you're a digital nomad or simply prefer the flexibility of working from various locations within your home.

Our carefully curated list reflects a thorough comparison of crucial aspects such as processing power, graphic performance, storage capacity, display quality, and, fundamentally, battery longevity. These considerations are aimed at guiding you towards a well-informed decision, ensuring you select a laptop that meets your needs for enduring power and all-day computing efficiency.

The best long battery life laptop in 2024

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Below you'll find full write-ups for each of the best best long battery life laptop picks in our list. We've tested each one extensively, so you can be sure that our recommendations can be trusted. 

MacBook Pro 16-Inch (2021) against a white background

(Image credit: Apple)

The best long battery-life laptop overall

Top pick for energy efficient but big performance

Specifications

Battery life: Over 18 hours
CPU: Apple M1 Pro 10-core - Apple M1 Max 10-core
Graphics: Integrated 16-core GPU - Integrated 32-core GPU
RAM: 16GB – 64GB unified memory
Screen: 16.2-inch 3456 x 2234 Liquid Retina XDR display
Storage: 512GB – 8TB SSD

Reasons to buy

+
Extremely long battery life
+
Fantastic performance

Reasons to avoid

-
Very expensive

With the redesign of the 16-inch MacBook Pro in 2021, Apple released a stellar if extremely pricy portable that sent waves through the computing world. That’s because this update to the largest model in the Pro line now comes with an even beefier SoC with either the Apple M1 Pro or Apple M1 Max, providing the kind of performance you would expect only from a laptop sporting a pretty robust GPU. 

One of the most welcome additions to the MacBook Pro 16-inch (2021) is the addition of extra ports, something many of us have been bugging Apple to include in its professional laptops for a while now.

More importantly, it’s extremely energy efficient, lasting over 18 hours on a single charge. For a laptop with a bright, beautiful display and a powerhouse under the hood, that’s incredibly impressive.

Read the full review: MacBook Pro 16-inch (M1, 2021) 

MacBook Air (M1, 2020) against a white background

(Image credit: Apple)

The best lightweight, long battery-life laptop

The best Apple laptop for battery-life

Specifications

Battery life: Over 11 hours
CPU: Apple M1 chip with 8‑core CPU
Graphics: Integrated 7-core – 8-core GPU
RAM: 8GB – 16GB unified memory
Screen: 13.3-inch 2560 x 1600 Retina display
Storage: 256GB – 2TB SSD

Reasons to buy

+
macOS Big Sur is fast and responsive
+
Silent in use

Reasons to avoid

-
Fanless design could impact performance

The MacBook Air (M1, 2020) is hands down one of the most exciting Apple laptops of recent years, as the company's thinnest and slimmest model gets a boost under the hood that provides a giant leap forward in performance.

This is largely courtesy of Apple's M1 silicon chip, which has proved to be a real game-changer. The manufacturer’s highly-acclaimed, impressively powerful ARM-based chip offers upgraded internals without any additional cost.

It gave the laptop the much needed boost it deserved, giving it excellent performance alongside a brilliant battery life that lasts well past 11 hours – without raising the price to keep it fairly affordable still, certainly in comparison to some of its Windows 10 rivals. This is the best long battery life MacBook for pretty much everyone, even the creative users.

Read the full review: MacBook Air (M1, 2020)

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 against a white background

(Image credit: Asus)

The best long battery-life gaming laptop

Best battery life in a gaming laptop

Specifications

Battery life: Up to 11 hours
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 4800HS – 9 4900HS
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
RAM: up to 32GB
Screen: 14-inch Non-glare Full HD (1920 x 1080) IPS-level panel, 120Hz – 14-inch Non-glare WQHD (2560 x 1440) IPS-level panel, 60Hz
Storage: 512GB / 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0

Reasons to buy

+
Excellent performance
+
Thin and light

Reasons to avoid

-
No webcam
-
Fans can get loud

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is not perfect, missing a webcam and a Thunderbolt 3 port. However, it’s damn near close to being one, garnering our coveted yet rarely given five-star rating. We couldn’t resist. This is an absolute beast of a gaming laptop, delivering an incredible performance with its AMD Ryzen 4000 processors and Nvidia RTX 2060 graphics card. 

And, that’s while touting best-in-class battery life that will last you all day long – the best that we've ever seen in this category. As far as gaming laptops go, this is definitely among the best long battery life laptops out there, giving Ultrabooks a run for their money. Rounding those out is a fast display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a lightweight, ultrathin design and an affordable price tag. 

Read the full review: Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 

Lenovo IdeaPad Duet Chromebook against a white background

(Image credit: Lenovo)

The best long battery-life 2-in-1 laptop

Best choice for battery longevity

Specifications

Battery life: Up to 22 hours
CPU: MediaTek Helio P60T Processor
Graphics: ARM G72 MP3 800GHz
RAM: 4 GB LPDDR4X
Screen: 10.1" FHD (1920 x 1200) IPS, glossy, touchscreen, 400 nits
Storage: 64 GB eMMC

Reasons to buy

+
Lightweight and portable
+
Very affordable

Reasons to avoid

-
Tiny keyboard and finicky trackpad
-
Charger and headphones share a single port

True to its name, the Lenovo IdeaPad Duet Chromebook delivers two form factors in one, while utilizing the versatility of the Chrome OS and setting you back much less than many of the top Windows tablets out there. For this price, sacrifices have to be made, naturally – the keyboard is tiny, the trackpad isn’t as reliable, and the charger and headphones share one port. However, those are definitely not deal-breakers.

Of course, like all the best Chromebooks, its battery packs a breathtakingly long life of almost 22 hours. That means that it beats all our other picks for the best long battery life laptops when it comes to longevity. During our review, the Lenovo IdeaPad Duet Chromebook lasted 21 hours and 29 minutes in our TechRadar battery life test. So, you could pull an all-nighter, work through the day and mid-afternoon, and you’ll still pass out before it runs out of juice. 

Read the full review: Lenovo IdeaPad Duet Chromebook 

Dell XPS 13 (Late 2020) against a white background

(Image credit: Dell)

The best long battery-life Windows laptop

Ideal for users wanting a stunning display

Specifications

Battery life: Over 11 hours
CPU: Up to 11th Generation Intel Core i7-1165G7
Graphics: Up to Intel Iris Xe Graphics
RAM: Up to 32GB 4267MHz LPDDR4x
Screen: 13.4" FHD+ (1920 x 1200) InfinityEdge Non-Touch Anti-Glare 500-Nit – 13.4" UHD+ (3840 x 2400) InfinityEdge Touch Anti-Reflective 500-Nit Display
Storage: Up to 2TB M.2 PCIe NVMe

Reasons to buy

+
Stunning design
+
Gorgeous 16:10 display

Reasons to avoid

-
Sound quality is just OK

Touting a battery life of over 11 hours, the Dell XPS 13 (Late 2020) is an obvious shoo-in on this list, even if there are laptops that last longer. The Dell XPS line has consistently made it into our best laptops list, and they’re only getting better, combining longevity with breathtaking performance, a stunning display, and a whole lot of features. 

Aside from the downward-firing speakers that can be guilty of muffling the sound, Dell has once again produced an incredibly accomplished thin and light notebook that's a joy to use, and well worth investing in. 

Much like its predecessor, it’s a pricey investment – but that is barely reason enough for us to discourage Ultrabook fans, especially as this new entry raises the bar with Intel Evo certification, something that only a small number of high-performing laptops have. 

Read the full review: Dell XPS 13 (Late 2020)

LG Gram 17 (2021) against a white background

(Image credit: LG)

The best big-screen, long battery-life laptop

Best big screen pick

Specifications

Battery life: More than 13 hours
CPU: 11th-generation Intel Core i7
Graphics: Intel Iris Xe Graphics
RAM: 16GB LPDDR4X
Screen: 17-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) IPS LCD
Storage: up to 2TB NVMe SSD

Reasons to buy

+
Excellent battery life
+
Large, high quality display

Reasons to avoid

-
Subject to screen glare

Laptops for work are rejoining the 17-inch fray and leading them is the much-lauded LG Gram 17. This gravity-defying laptop has won awards for its thin and light form factor. It’s back and better than ever, with more powerful internals such as the 11th-generation Intel chips and the Iris Xe graphics, as well as two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports. The even better news is that its stunner of a screen has also made a welcome return. 

More importantly, as has its long battery life that gives you more than 13 hours on a full charge. If you are looking for a laptop with as much screen real estate and juice as you can get, it’s a winner. As long as you’re willing to pay the steep price.

Read the full review: LG Gram 17 (2021) 

Asus TUF A15 against a white background

(Image credit: Asus)

The best budget gaming laptop with great battery-life

Top value for money gamer's choice

Specifications

Battery life: Up to 12.3 hours
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 4600H – 7 4800H
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660TI – RTX 2060
RAM: up to 32 GB SDRAM
Screen: 15.6" (16:9) FHD (1920x1080) 60Hz Anti-Glare IPS-level Panel – 15.6" (16:9) FHD (1920x1080) 144Hz Anti-Glare IPS-level Panel
Storage: 1TB 5400 rpm SATA HDD – 256GB/512GB/1TB PCIe Gen3 SSD

Reasons to buy

+
Great 1080p performance
+
New AMD processors

Reasons to avoid

-
Noisy fans
-
Not the most powerful gaming laptop

Give us a laptop that touts one of AMD’s stellar Ryzen 400 mobile processors, and we’d be more than happy to try it on for size. What we found in the Asus TUF A15 is not just fantastic gaming performance, but a great value gaming rig with military-grade durability and impressively long battery life. 

It’s in part thanks to the energy-efficient AMD Ryzen 7 4800H, which doesn’t deplete the battery as fast as the more power-hungry Intel CPUs. The battery is also a huge 90Wh one, which explains the excellent 11 hours, 44 minutes, uptime we recorded in our looped 1080p video benchmark. With the help of Nvidia’s most powerful 1080p graphics cards, this Ryzen 4000-powered laptop – among the best long battery life laptops we’ve tested – will see you through all your 1080p gaming demands without burning a hole in your pocket.

Read the full review: Asus TUF A15

Acer Chromebook 15 against a white background

(Image credit: Acer)

The best long battery-life Chromebook

Top style pick

Specifications

Battery life: Up to 12 hours
CPU: Intel Pentium N4200
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 505
RAM: 4GB
Screen: 15.6-inch, FHD (1,920 x 1,080)
Storage: 32GB eMMC

Reasons to buy

+
1080p touch display
+
Attractive, fanless design

Reasons to avoid

-
Trackpad feels clunky
-
Easy to weigh down with tabs

With a solid build quality that can rival the best MacBook, it’s easy to excuse the Acer Chromebook 15’s apparent aversion to 2-in-1 form factors. Still, given that the best Chromebooks rolling out are fully convertible, thanks to the wide adoption of Android app support, the Acer Chromebook 15 has had to prove itself with more than just great style. 

Beyond its aptitude for laying flat using a 180-degree hinge, this beautiful 15-inch Chromebook also makes a great impression with its battery life. It lasted nearly 17 hours in our battery test. And, what’s more impressive here is that the manufacturer actually promises 12 hours of battery life. It's rare to see actual numbers come close to manufacturer claims, let alone exceed them by such a large margin.

Read the full review: Acer Chromebook 15

The best long battery-life laptop: how to choose

Unsurprisingly, when it comes to any decision on buying laptop computers, most of the initial decision-making will be based on personal, subjective choices. Of course, there is the age-old Mac or PC debate, added to which there is now a third dynamic in the shape of Chromebooks. 

That decision will immediately whittle you down to a smaller selection, after which you'll need to base your choice on key factors like budget, style, and size of laptop that best suits your needs. But given the theme of this article, you should also consider why it is you're after a laptop with long battery life. For example, if it's because you're always on the move, you should also consider each model's robustness and resilience, and how long it's likely to last being constantly bundled into bags and on and off trains. 

The best long battery life laptops: How we test

There's no stone left unturned in our bid to sort out the top laptops from the also-rans, as we endeavour to underpin each review with a detailed analysis of each contender listed on this page. 

For that we take into account everything from subjective factors such as style and looks, to objectively measurable performance parameters like battery life, storage capacity, and screen size. 

We also make sure to test out key physical traits too, such as hinges and display colours, to ensure that all our recommendations have been thoroughly put to the test.

Read here for more on how we test every product we review on TechRadar

John Loeffler
Components Editor

John (He/Him) is the Components Editor here at TechRadar and he is also a programmer, gamer, activist, and Brooklyn College alum currently living in Brooklyn, NY. 


Named by the CTA as a CES 2020 Media Trailblazer for his science and technology reporting, John specializes in all areas of computer science, including industry news, hardware reviews, PC gaming, as well as general science writing and the social impact of the tech industry.


You can find him online on Threads @johnloeffler.


Currently playing: Baldur's Gate 3 (just like everyone else).

With contributions from