The 25 best battery life laptops for 2017
If you're shopping for a holiday laptop or hybrid, these are the models that offer the longest battery life.
- Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
Editor's note: An updated version of this roundup is here, in our collection of the laptops with the best battery life.
Anyone considering a new laptop purchase for themselves or as a gift should keep in mind that while speed and design very important, a lot of people care about battery life above all else. After all, there's nothing worse than having your laptop shut down in the middle of an big meeting, while writing an important email or halfway through streaming the latest binge-worthy Netflix series.
The good news is that laptops and two-in-one hybrids with 10 hours or more of battery life are now easy to find. That's thanks to improvements in Intel's Core i-series CPUs, as well as power and thermal management improvements in both Windows 10 and MacOS
Based on the extensive battery testing conducted in the CNET Labs, these are the 25 PCs with the longest battery life scores over the previous year, from the fall of 2016 through now. This list includes Windows and MacOS laptops, Windows two-in-one hybrids, and Chromebooks running Google's Chrome OS. Not included are Android or iOS tablets .
New additions in this latest update include the Lenovo Yoga 920, which jumps to Intel's latest eighth-gen CPUs, as well as the latest MacBook Air, which received a small CPU update earlier in 2017. Note that Microsoft's recent Surface Book 2 has two separate batteries, one in its tablet half, another in the keyboard base. Together, we've run them for up to 17 hours, but our battery performance for that system has been inconsistent, and we're conducting further tests before considering it for this list.
The full collection can be found here, with a breakout of the top laptops and their battery life scores below.
How we test
We call on our laptops to do a lot of things, from playing videos to office work to web surfing to games. As a middle ground task that's not too easy and not too intense, the specific test used here streams a private video over Wi-Fi on an endless loop. Note that these scores reflect the specific configurations we tested, and that screen resolution and CPU choice are some of the major factors that affect battery life.
The raw scores are presented below, while the related gallery includes context for each system and a link to its full review.
We'll update this list regularly, adding new high-level performers as we find them.
Top 25 Battery Life PCs
| Rank | System name | Battery life (hours:minutes) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Acer Chromebook R 13 | 13:02 |
| 2 | Lenovo Yoga 920 | 12:50 |
| 3 | Samsung Notebook 9 | 12:16 |
| 4 | Dell XPS 13 (late 2017) | 12:16 |
| 5 | Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon | 11:50 |
| 6 | Microsoft Surface Book (2016) | 11:49 |
| 7 | Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016) | 11:36 |
| 8 | HP EliteBook x360 (13-inch, 2017) | 11:34 |
| 9 | LG Gram 13 | 11:30 |
| 10 | Apple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (15-inch, 2017) | 10:43 |
| 11 | Apple MacBook (12-inch, 2017) | 10:26 |
| 12 | Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5-1570 | 10:23 |
| 13 | Microsoft Surface Laptop | 10:21 |
| 14 | Apple MacBook Air (13-inch, 2017) | 10:10 |
| 15 | Toshiba Portege X20W-D | 10:10 |
| 16 | Apple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (15-inch, 2016) | 10:08 |
| 17 | Apple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (13-inch, 2016 ) | 10:07 |
| 18 | HP Spectre x360 (15-inch, 2017) | 9:54 |
| 19 | LG Gram 15 | 9:42 |
| 20 | Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming | 9:38 |
| 21 | HP Spectre x360 (13-inch, 2016) | 9:21 |
| 22 | Acer Swft 1 | 9:16 |
| 23 | Lenovo ThinkPad X270 | 9:15 |
| 24 | Samsung Chomebook Pro | 8:57 |
| 25 | Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 | 8:56 |
| 15 | Toshiba Portege X20W-D | 10:10 |
| 16 | Apple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (15-inch, 2016) | 10:08 |
| 17 | Apple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (13-inch, 2016 ) | 10:07 |
| 18 | HP Spectre x360 (15-inch, 2017) | 9:54 |
| 19 | LG Gram 15 | 9:42 |
| 20 | Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming | 9:38 |
| 21 | HP Spectre x360 (13-inch, 2016) | 9:21 |
| 22 | Acer Swft 1 | 9:16 |
| 23 | Lenovo ThinkPad X270 | 9:15 |
| 24 | Samsung Chomebook Pro | 8:57 |
| 25 | Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 | 8:56 |
