5 Windows Laptops With Amazing Battery Life

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Lately, the MacBook has consistently been recommended as one of the best laptops in terms of battery life and efficiency. That being said, the Windows space no longer has the terrible reputation of laptops that give you battery anxiety. Improvements in hardware selection and the switch to ARM-based chips means that there are a few solid contenders that deliver on exceptional battery life.

There still may be several reasons to switch from Windows to Mac, especially if you already own other Apple products and cherish a seamless ecosystem. However, for many, completely transitioning over to a whole new operating system is not a viable option. Windows machines still reign supreme in aspects like customizability, upgradability, choice, and overall affordability. 

Battery life is a metric quite difficult to universalize across different products, given how certain laptops are built for handling different kinds of workloads. Many laptop manufacturers, including Apple, tout numbers like 18 hours of battery life. In real-world use, this will vary dramatically. As someone who uses resource-intensive apps like Photoshop and Premiere Pro with a bunch of Chrome tabs in the background, anywhere from 8-10 hours of uninterrupted battery life is what I consider extremely solid.

Based on expert reviews, here are five of the best Windows laptops with high battery endurance that you can buy currently. You can find out more about our selection criteria for this list at the end of this read.

Laptops like the MacBook Air, while amazing in the battery department, don't come cheap. To those looking for a laptop on a tight budget that just gets day-to-day low to medium intensity tasks done, the Acer Aspire 3 is a solid pick. The laptop retails at $349.99 on Amazon, and has over 4,500 ratings and a 4.2-star score.

Owing to its budget-friendly price tag, this laptop is not going to impress you tons in the performance department. It still packs in an AMD Ryzen 3 7320U chip, 8GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD. These numbers are as low as one should go when buying a new laptop, but the Aspire 3 covers all the essentials anyway.

It features a 15.8-inch LCD panel but isn't exactly the most lightweight of machines at 3.97 pounds. The laptop has a great variety of connectivity options, though, including a full-sized HDMI port, two USB-A, and one USB-C port. You get an expansive keyboard layout to type on, making this a great option for school or work.

Really where the Aspire 3 shines is in the endurance department — with an advertised battery life of up to 11 hours. PCWorld's review gave the Acer Aspire 3 four stars out of five, highlighting its day-long battery life, full-sized keyboard, and a high-quality webcam that caters to all those online meetings.

Asus' Zenbook Ultrabooks have been serving as great alternatives to the MacBook, given their premium construction and high performance. At $1,069, the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED is powered by the Intel Ultra 7 155H chip, and is backed up by 16GB of RAM and a terabyte of SSD storage. It can get confusing given just how many models the Zenbook series has — a quick and easy way to discern this is by checking the generation of the Intel CPU.

You get a full-sized HDMI and a USB-A port, plus two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports that can be used for charging as well as display output. A standout feature of this machine is its OLED panel, which makes it exceptionally good for content consumption. The Zenbook 14 OLED packs in a 75Wh battery, and this translates into a comfortable day's worth of juice. The presence of USB Power Delivery also makes topping it up convenient and quick via any USB-C cable.

Laptop Mag called it a "nearly perfect ultraportable laptop" in their review, where it earned 4.5/5 stars. The only real criticism the review mentioned was the display's subpar brightness levels. In an endurance test on low brightness, Laptop Mag managed to squeeze nearly 16 hours of battery out of the Zenbook 14 OLED. In terms of performance, I/O, and overall build quality, the Zenbook 14 OLED is one of the finer Windows laptops you can grab.

Most Ultrabooks skip out on dedicated graphics cards, primarily for portability. However, this does reduce the load on the battery by a considerable margin, which is why most battery-efficient laptops you can buy are thin and light. Some of the most powerful gaming laptops will help you play AAA titles at high frame rates with great detail, but a common complaint in this subcategory of laptops is poor battery life.

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is a gaming machine at its core, but also appeals to those who value build quality, aesthetics, portability, and battery. Compared to the other options on this list, the advertised 10 hours of battery life may not be as impressive, but considering the kind of horsepower this laptop is packing, it's a great middle ground for those who want a gaming oriented laptop that can double as an everyday machine.

It's powered by the Ryzen 9 8945HS processor and features the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU. Pair that with 32GB of RAM and a terabyte of fast SSD storage, and the Zephyrus G14 is a highly capable gaming machine. In a detailed review and comparison carried out by PCMag, the ROG Zephyrus G14 outperformed comparable gaming laptops from other brands, hitting nearly 12 hours of battery life. At $1,999, it isn't the most affordable entry into portable gaming, but the Zephyrus handles all other aspects of being a laptop remarkably well.

Microsoft's Surface range of laptops are a quick recommendation to anyone looking for MacBook Air alternatives. You get a similar level of polish on the hardware front and enjoy all that Windows has to offer. The Microsoft Surface Pro 11th Edition is technically a tablet that can snap on a keyboard attachment. This is a great option for anyone looking to buy a laptop that has a touchscreen and support for stylus input.

There are two versions of the device, with the higher-end Surface Pro powered by the Snapdragon X Elite chip, starting with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD storage. Unlike most preconfigured Windows laptops, you can use the customizer on Microsoft's store to build a Surface Pro 2-in-1 that fits your needs. Pricing starts at $999 for the 13-inch model, but this does not include the optional keyboard attachment.

RTINGS rated the Microsoft Surface Pro 11th Edition a 9/10 in the battery department — the convertible ended up hitting 11.5 hours of use with casual web browsing, which is impressive even if you disregard the size of the tablet. This puts the Surface Pro 2-in-1 laptop in the all-day battery life department, making it an excellent option for school or work. When it's time to power up, you can use either of the two USB-C ports for charging, or rely on the proprietary Surface Connect port.

The Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 retails at $1,399 on Amazon and might seem a touch outdated, especially when contrasted against the sleek metallic builds of most modern thin and light machines. However, it's targeted as a business laptop and delivers strongly on the performance and battery front.

It's powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processor, which is partly why it's an endurance beast. You get 32GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage — making it more than capable of handling medium to high intensity office tasks across a suite of programs. Like most current ARM-based laptops, however, the built-in Adreno GPU isn't the best option if you're looking for a laptop that can handle a bit of gaming.

The laptop features a 14-inch 1080p IPS display and offers a decent variety of connectivity options. You get two USB-C ports, a full-sized HDMI port, two more USB-A ports, and a headphone jack. Rest assured, you won't be needing to carry around a dongle with this laptop.

The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 earned a rating of 4/5 stars in a review carried out by Laptop Mag — where it also lasted an impressive 21 hours on a single charge. This makes it one of the top contenders for battery life in the laptop space — Windows and Mac included.

Unlike MacBooks, picking the right Windows laptop is a lot trickier, given the sheer number of options available, each with different generations of processors. This list is by no means definitive, but we've stuck with current-gen Windows laptops that deliver some of the best battery life without compromising on the other aspects.

We took into consideration the different price points, form factors, and the target audience of all options on this list. The Acer Aspire 3 might not go neck and neck against the likes of a MacBook Air, but it does offer an all-day battery on a budget if that's a priority. Similarly, the 2-in-1 Microsoft Surface Pro is a great option for users who want flexibility. Gamers will be drawn to the raw performance that the ROG Zephyrus G14 is capable of, but will also appreciate the comparatively longer lasting battery.

We've referred to expert reviews from trusted publications such as PCMag, RTINGS, Laptop Mag, and PCWorld — where each laptop was thoroughly tested in all departments, including battery life.