The year is nearly over, and as we run out the clock on 2025 I've been looking back over all the work we did here at Tom's Guide and I gotta tell you — we tested an awful lot of laptops.
We couldn't have done it without our dedicated testing lab, where experts run just about every laptop, tablet, phone and TV we review through a gauntlet of tests to gauge their performance. We then take that testing data into consideration when conducting our own hands-on reviews, and now that I'm looking back over 2025 in data I'm impressed at how laptop battery life has improved in the last few years.
I've been reviewing laptops for over a decade, and I can remember when getting 10 hours of use out of a full battery was a real luxury. But in 2025 we reviewed over 100 laptops, and over a dozen lasted 14+ hours on a full charge. Heck, the longest-lasting models could do 18 hours without breaking a sweat.
And while Apple's MacBooks continue to be some of the longest-lasting laptops you can buy, our testing reveals that 14-18 hours of battery life is no longer a privilege reserved for Mac owners. Some of the longest-lasting laptops we tested this year were Windows 11 machines running on Qualcomm's Snapdragon X chips, which have delivered remarkably efficient performance since they started shipping in laptops last year.
But don't count the old guard out—at least one of the top ten longest-lasting laptops we tested this year had Intel inside, so the latest Intel Core Ultra chipsets could be coming for Apple and Qualcomm's lunch. We'll have to wait and see what new heights laptops achieve in 2026!
Longest-lasting laptops of 2025 (that we tested)
Laptop |
Time (HH:mm) |
Asus Zenbook A14 |
18:20 |
14" MacBook Pro M5 |
18:00 |
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 2-in-1 Aura Edition |
17:41 |
Microsoft Surface Laptop |
17:14 |
MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo |
16:52 |
Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x |
16:29 |
Lenovo ThinkPad X9 Aura Edition |
16:23 |
LG Gram 17 |
15:33 |
15" MacBook Air M4 |
15:22 |
Dell 14 Plus 2-in-1 |
15:14 |
I charted the top ten most power-efficient laptops we tested this year in the chart above, and while Apple's brand-new MacBook Pro M5 is near the top it's not actually the longest-lasting laptop we tested this year.
No, that honor goes to the Asus Zenbook A14. This ultra-slim Windows ultraportable is lighter than a MacBook Air yet outlasted the latest MacBook Pro in our battery tests, running for an amazing 18 hours and 20 minutes of continuous use before giving up the ghost.
While we were ultimately a little underwhelmed by the performance you get out of the Asus Zenbook A14 for the price, you can't beat that battery life and the 14-inch OLED display makes everything you do on the laptop look amazing.
But the MacBook Pro M5 wasn't far behind the Zenbook, as it lasted 18 hours on the dot in our battery tests. That's fantastic battery life that seems even more impressive if you forget about the fact that last year's MacBook Pro M4 lasted 31 minutes longer in the same test. Guess that M5 chip is power-hungry!
There are a few other laptops that lasted 16+ hours in our testing lab that I haven't had a chance to review yet, so I won't say much about them other than that they reliably lasted a very long time before running out of juice.
Since we work for a big company with multiple publications our lab team tests products for several brands, which means I can provide you with useful information about these laptops even though we haven't (yet) had a chance to use them ourselves.
One laptop we did review this year that did quite well in terms of battery life is the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x, which I want to shout out here because it's got to be the most affordable laptop on this list.
When we published our Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x review earlier this year the thing sold for $749, but nowadays you can reliably find it on sale for $500 or less.
At that price this ultraportable is a killer value, as it weighs under 4 pounds yet lasted almost 17 hours in our battery tests—so you can count on being able to carry it all day without lugging a charger.
Finally, I wanted to shout out the 2025 LG Gram 17 since it's the only laptop on this list to be powered by an Intel chip. While Intel CPUs have long had a good reputation for performance, they aren't typically lauded for their power efficiency, and I've often seen Intel-driven laptops lasting 8-12 hours in our battery tests before conking out.
Not so with this LG laptop. As you can read about in our LG Gram 17 (2025) review, this Windows 11 ultraportable lasted 15 hours and 31 minutes in our testing, outlasting the 15" MacBook Air M4 by nearly 10 minutes.
That's amazing when you consider that the LG Gram 17 actually weighs a smidge less than a 15" MacBook Air M4 yet sports a bigger 17" display and runs on an Intel Core Ultra 7 256V CPU.
While Intel has struggled to compete with the best laptop silicon coming out of AMD, Apple and Qualcomm, the fact that an Intel-powered LG laptop delivered some of the best battery life of any laptop we tested in 2025 seems like a good sign.
If the new Intel Panther Lake chips we expect to see at CES 2026 are as capable as promised, the year ahead could be a big one for Team Blue. But no matter what happens in the future, here in 2025 I can confidently tell you that laptops last longer than ever—and the Asus Zenbook A14 and MacBook Pro M5 lead the pack!
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