We just tested the longest-lasting laptop ever — and it blows away the MacBook Air
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It has been nearly a month since we crowned the HP OmniBook X as the laptop battery life champ. And it just got beat.
HP's Snapdragon X Elite-powered notebook lasted for an astonishing 16 hours and 22 minutes on the Tom's Guide battery life test — easily surpassing both the MacBook Air 13-inch M3 and MacBook Air 15-inch M3 by over an hour.
That’s an amazing feat for a Windows 11 laptop and a result we didn’t expect to see surpassed for some time. However, we’ve just reviewed another Windows laptop that lasts longer than any MacBook or consumer laptop we’ve tested — the new Dell XPS 13 (2024).
We reviewed the $1,299 entry-level Dell XPS 13, which features a 13.4-inch (1,920 x 1,200) IPS non-touch display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 chip, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage. Running this laptop through our battery test — which consists of loading webpages and playing videos at 150 nits of screen brightness — the Dell XPS 13 averaged 19 hours and 41 minutes of battery life. That demolishes the endurance of any consumer-grade laptop we’ve reviewed ever.
In the chart above we compare the Dell XPS 13 to some of the best Windows laptops and best MacBooks we’ve tested and reviewed. Note that we’re not including rugged laptops, which are in a class of their own. Now, let’s see how other laptops compare to the Snapdragon X Elite-powered Dell XPS 13.
Dell XPS 13 (2024) vs MacBooks
Before the Dell XPS 13, the longest-lasting Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon X Elite chips we tested were the HP OmniBook X (16:22) and Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 (15:44). Those results are impressive considering that many Windows laptops we ran through our battery test averaged between 8 to 12 hours (though there were exceptions). Now, we have a Windows laptop that can last for nearly 20 hours under our testing conditions.
The Dell XPS 13 averaged 19 hours and 41 minutes of battery life. That demolishes the endurance of any consumer laptop we’ve reviewed ever.
Both MacBook Air M3 models lasted for a little over 15 hours, which is fantastic. The Omnibook X and Surface Laptop 7 lasted longer, though both couldn't match the MacBook Pro 14-inch M3, which endured for 17 hours and 16 minutes. Of course, the new Dell XPS 13 lasts nearly 2.5 hours longer than that.
I should note that the MacBook Pro 16-inch with the M2 Max chip was previously the longest-lasting laptop we’ve reviewed, lasting 18 hours and 56 minutes. That MacBook isn’t a direct competitor for the Dell XPS 13, but I wanted to reference it to demonstrate the endurance of Dell’s machine.
The new battery life champ
MacBooks packing M-series chips have been the uncontested battery life champions since 2020. That’s no longer the case as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chips are giving Apple’s notebooks serious competition when it comes to endurance. We have a true arms race (pun very much intended) happening, and we’re the beneficiaries.
Apple’s MacBooks might regain their status as the longest-lasting laptops whenever the first batch of M4-driven machines pop up. For now, no MacBook can match the new Dell XPS 13 in battery life.
