Common readers of PCMag know all about our Editors’ Selection award, our mark of worth and excellence that we bestow on the very best merchandise that come by way of our labs. However right here within the spring of 2026, we simply minted a brand new honor: the PCMag Lab Awards, for merchandise that obtain excellence in lab testing—and, extra particularly, people who set a brand new efficiency benchmark. All the merchandise that we tag with our new Lab Awards badge have achieved a field-leading technical distinction of some type—one which issues to our readers after they go to purchase.
Laptops, after all, are an enormous focus of PCMag’s protection. (PCs are our namesake, in spite of everything!) So it is becoming that our first laptop-related Lab Award focuses on an important side of any machine: its battery life. How lengthy does it run on a cost? That is a thorny query, however one any laptop computer shopper retains front-of-mind. And we’re uniquely suited that can assist you consider that.
PC Labs checks greater than 100 laptops a 12 months, and we’re protecting tempo in 2026; we’re closing on 200 new fashions in our database since this time in 2024. We take a look at a lot of machines—a wholesome chunk of the sphere—and have been testing PCs of all sizes and styles because the very first ones. And we simply noticed a laptop computer whose numbers shot out of our spreadsheets like a rocket: MSI’s Status Flip 14 AI+ lasted greater than 40 hours in our take a look at of most battery life.
We’ll get into the nuances of our battery testing in a second. However backside line: For those who journey rather a lot, have an extended commute, or compute in school, battery longevity’s a large deal. It is also getting extra slippery to check, as we’ll clarify, however one factor’s stable: Nonetheless you utilize your laptop computer, this MSI mannequin is a dream machine for those who are likely to neglect your charger frequently. On condition that consumers today favor sensible options over vainness upgrades, a laptop computer that will not simply die often is the final tech flex.
The 2026 Trendline: Laptop computer Battery Life Is on an Upswing
Till lately, our battery-life testing had plateaued for a while. We noticed per-charge operating occasions settle right into a predictable vary. A lot of the longest-lasting Home windows machines would land at round 20 hours on our take a look at. A number of of Apple’s MacBooks went properly past that mark, with a pair topping a (then) eye-popping 30 hours.
During the last couple of years, nonetheless, we’ve seen the trendlines in battery life going up and to the precise. The introduction of Qualcomm’s environment friendly Snapdragon X chips and Intel’s Core 200V (“Lunar Lake”) and Core Collection 3 (“Panther Lake”) processor households has resulted in a rash of 25-hour-plus outcomes, with 30 hours not a unicorn. In our 2024-to-2026 take a look at set, we have logged six machines with greater than 30 hours of operating time, and in our present battery-life high 10 (extra on these machines in a second), the shortest consequence was simply shy of 28 hours.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
However 40 hours? That brings us to our first Lab Awards winner for Greatest Laptop computer Battery Life. MSI’s Status 14 Flip AI+ is a 2-in-1 convertible laptop computer, and it set a brand new high-water mark for battery life in our video rundown take a look at, with a operating time of 42 hours and 6 minutes. The Status 14 Flip AI+ we examined is constructed round an Intel Core Extremely 3 Collection processor, the Intel Core Extremely X7 358H. (See our full assessment of the Status 14 Flip AI+, which additionally landed our Editors’ Selection Award.)
The Status 14 Flip AI+ and its 40-plus-hour battery life displaying might properly get bypassed earlier than lengthy, given the now-steady circulation of environment friendly Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 and Intel Core Extremely 3 Collection laptops passing by way of PC Labs. (Not lengthy earlier than we launched our awards, we registered a lusty near-35 hours from the HP OmniBook 5 14, based mostly on a Snapdragon X Plus processor.) However this MSI mannequin’s spectacular consequence will take some effort to high.
The Rundown: PC Labs’ Battery Testing Course of, Defined
What goes into measuring battery life, and underneath what situations did our winner obtain this consequence? Extra so than lots of our different checks, measuring battery life is a tough, difficult enterprise. It’s simply as a lot about technicalities as about philosophies.
There are numerous methods you may drain a laptop computer’s battery all through the day, and nobody methodology precisely displays how all of us compute in the actual world. Everybody engages in their very own mixture of shopping, knowledge processing, media modifying, gaming, and idling. Plus, everybody’s particular combine varies from each day.
Some artificial benchmarks intention to approximate a mixture of idle time, simulated traces (work resembling utility exercise), and different battery-rundown techniques. That may be a affordable strategy that simulates a typical day within the life with a given laptop computer. That stated, some laptops will carry out sure duties extra effectively than others resulting from their CPU and GPU make-up, supported firmware, and different elements. With so many processes contributing to the rundown in an artificial take a look at, it may be unattainable to unbake that battery-life cake and pinpoint why a laptop computer will get a superb or unhealthy consequence.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
The essential battery take a look at we have run for a few years is a full video-playback battery rundown. To check a laptop computer, we guarantee it’s absolutely charged and concentrate on particular settings. We flip off any keyboard backlighting; we make sure that the display screen by no means goes to sleep, or modifications brightness by time of day or after we step away (disabling any ambient-light modes or “presence detection”); and we restrict any vendor-specific, bespoke battery-management settings to scale back variables.
The precise take a look at consists of taking part in again a video (the Blender demo movie Tears of Metal). We run this quick film on a loop as a customized 24-hour-long video file, with Wi-Fi turned off, the audio quantity set to 100%, and the show’s brightness set to 50% on the laptop computer’s brightness slider.
The battery begins at 100% cost. We disconnect the laptop computer from the charger and instantly begin the playback loop, operating it till the laptop computer hibernates with 5% battery remaining. (We designate that 5% mark within the OS’s energy settings throughout setup.)
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
With at present’s excessive battery runtimes, we are able to’t regulate a given laptop computer at each second throughout its playback; generally the battery dies in the course of the night time! (As of late, we set our 24-hour video file to loop when it reaches the top, provided that some laptops run for longer than a full day.) As soon as the battery hits 5% and the laptop computer shuts down, we plug it again in, boot it again up, and test the video participant to see what number of hours and minutes had elapsed when the video stopped. This determine is our battery rundown time.
How the Subject Breaks Down: Our Battery Prime 10
So, how did this MSI mannequin carry out in contrast with the latest area? This is a spec breakout of the highest 10 finishers in our battery life take a look at since mid-2024…
…and this is how they positioned. Notice the daylight between MSI’s Flip and the following contender, from HP’s OmniBook household.
Additionally, discover the wealth of machines with Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors, in addition to comparatively low-resolution (1080p or 1200p) panels; extra on each in a second. However it’s additionally value heeding that three of our high 10 are utilizing Intel Core Extremely 3 Collection Panther Lake processors, and people chips have been available on the market for just a few months. Count on to see extra of them rising within the rankings. Laptops with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 laptop computer processors are additionally imminent, so this shall be a energetic area to look at because the 12 months progresses.
Battery-Life Nuances to Know (and There Are Loads)
Working a video for greater than 40 hours on a cost is extraordinarily spectacular, indicative of how far the business has come when it comes to effectivity and battery life. In a area of more and more enduring laptops, the MSI Status flew previous the opposite contenders. As famous, HP’s OmniBook 5 14 was a robust runner-up, and we’ve had numerous 30-hour finishers, however this MSI mannequin made this award a no-contest deal.
This beautiful consequence does include some caveats, as do all battery checks. No battery take a look at is ideal, and likewise, each laptop computer has its mitigating elements. First off, take into account the very nature of our battery take a look at: Few customers will play a single video for this lengthy, notably with Wi-Fi off. You would possibly equate our take a look at with the expertise of being on an extended flight, disconnected from a charger and off the web. However today, your airplane will run out of gas lengthy earlier than a well-chosen laptop computer, used only for video playback, will!
Really helpful by Our Editors
Most customers topic their laptops to duties which are way more draining than this, and your battery’s operating time shall be shorter when crunching by way of, say, processor-intensive modifying duties, streaming motion pictures, or taking part in PC video games off the charger. As a result of how individuals use their laptops varies a lot, take a look at our battery take a look at as a measure of relative battery potential between fashions, not an absolute of what you’re assured to get in on a regular basis use. You gained’t hit 40 hours with this MSI for those who use it for a mixture of workplace work, informal video games, and Netflix. However it ought to last more, in a tough, relative sense, than every other laptop computer used proportionally in the identical means.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
The show is a second large think about any laptop computer battery take a look at. Peak display screen brightness varies throughout laptops, so the precise nit rely at 50% brightness varies, too. (Nits, additionally known as candelas per sq. meter, are a regular measure of display screen brightness.) The MSI Status’s show is an OLED, however it’s not particularly shiny, so (all else being equal) its decrease nit rely means it’s expending much less power; different fashions could also be brighter at their very own 50% mark. As a result of our testing confirmed the MSI Status’s display screen to be a little bit dim, in apply, some individuals would possibly elevate the brightness, which might drain extra energy. All of it depends upon the place you utilize the machine, the ambient lighting in that location…and your eyesight.
One other variable: In our expertise, laptop computer display screen brightness doesn’t at all times scale linearly to 100% throughout the laptop computer’s brightness controls. What can we imply by that? The “50%” brightness setting in a laptop computer’s management panel, in apply, just isn’t at all times a mathematical 50% of a laptop computer’s most brightness studying in nits. So why can we use the 50% brightness-slider setting relatively than busting out a lightweight meter? As a result of most customers won’t ever look at or measure a panel’s nits stage, nor use an instrument on it. They’ll simply twiddle with the slider’s preset phases and eyeball it. We simulate that by at all times utilizing the 50% mark.
One other display screen issue is the panel’s native decision. We at all times take a look at the battery on the display screen’s native decision, since laptop computer customers seldom dial that down in most day-to-day situations. What does that imply for battery life, although? All else being equal (brightness settings, display screen expertise, and so forth), a higher-resolution display screen (say, a 4K panel) with extra pixels to push will drain your battery sooner than a lower-resolution one (say, 1080p). Like with brightness, you may’t unbake this issue from a given laptop computer. And once more, as a result of most consumers will use a laptop computer as designed and supplied, that’s how we measure. After all, that may put a laptop computer with a lower-res display screen when it comes to battery life versus a higher-res one.
Lastly, as we hinted at above, processor energy consumption and up to date tendencies in CPU design play large roles. Most of the newest laptop computer processors have included so-called “effectivity” and “very low energy” cores, and these newer chips relegate less-demanding duties to these power-sipping, purpose-built cores, conserving the battery. Video playback is, in lots of instances, a primary candidate for shunting to these cores. In distinction, multitasking-heavy productiveness work and gaming will hit these cores much less typically and depend on the full-power ones, drawing extra juice. So once more: Consider our battery take a look at as a relative best-case state of affairs for comparisons, not an absolute.
Hitting 40: Even With Caveats, This Take a look at Consequence Is a Milestone
Nonetheless, we’ve discovered our battery-rundown take a look at to be a more-than-effective device for measuring battery life, and have run it on laptops for years to standardize our outcomes. An important factor about any testing routine is being constant in your methodology, in order that outcomes are 1:1 comparable throughout units. Maintaining to that methodology for years enables you to see the trendlines, too. With sufficient knowledge, a long-lasting laptop computer is simple to differentiate from one with low stamina.
Certainly, some producers, in their very own specs, report their battery projections as “video rundown” occasions, as we do. When producers present them, our outcomes usually align with these scores. Their settings might differ barely, however our methodology gives a constant rubric for each the producer and the reviewer.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
Within the coming years, given the developments we’re seeing with low-power cores and different silicon efficiencies, we might have to think about transferring to, or augmenting our testing with, an artificial, user-simulation battery-life take a look at. (One thing, maybe, like UL’s Procyon Battery Life Benchmark.) The video-rundown methodology might result in battery runtimes which are simply too impractically lengthy, or too out of sync with demanding real-world utilization. However these alternate checks have their very own pitfalls, as we famous: No person’s workload is similar, web connectivity can range and have an effect on the take a look at, and these checks say much less in regards to the most battery potential than a straight-through rundown take a look at does.
Briefly, no single battery-testing methodology can fulfill everybody. Regardless, the MSI Status 14 Flip AI+ has set a brand new bar—by hours!—and that’s value celebrating. The celebrities aligned on this machine: a nice-enough OLED display screen that’s not too shiny, a 1080p decision that’s not too battery-demanding, and a cutting-edge Intel chip that stretches the battery taffy so far as anybody has. Maybe one other system will usurp it earlier than lengthy, on this new world of hyper-efficient silicon. However for now, the MSI Status 14 Flip AI+ holds our first Lab Awards battery crown. Hail to the monarch.
About Our Specialists
John Burek
Govt Editor and PC Labs Director
Expertise
I’ve been a expertise journalist for nearly 30 years and have coated nearly each type of laptop gear—from the 386SX to 64-core processors—in my lengthy tenure as an editor, a author, and an recommendation columnist. For nearly a quarter-century, I labored on the seminal, gigantic Laptop Shopper journal (and later, its digital counterpart), aka the telephone e book for PC consumers, and the nemesis of each postal supply individual. I used to be Laptop Shopper’s editor in chief for its closing 9 years, after which a lot of its digital content material was folded into PCMag.com. I additionally served, briefly, because the editor in chief of the well-known hard-core tech web site Tom’s {Hardware}.
Throughout that point, I’ve constructed and torn down sufficient desktop PCs to equip a metropolis block’s value of web cafes. Underneath race situations, I’ve constructed PCs from bare-board to bootup in underneath 5 minutes. I by no means met a screwdriver I did not like.
I used to be additionally a replica chief and a reality checker early in my profession. (Enhancing and sprucing technical content material to make it palatable for shopper audiences is my forte.) I additionally labored as an editor of scholarly science books, and as an editor of “Dummies”-style laptop guidebooks for Brady Books (now, BradyGames). I am a lifetime New Yorker, a graduate of New York College’s journalism program, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
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Matthew Buzzi
Principal Author, {Hardware}
Expertise
I’ve been a shopper PC professional at PCMag for 10 years, and I like PC gaming. I’ve performed video games on my laptop for so long as I can bear in mind, which ultimately (because it does for a lot of) led me to construct and improve my very own desktops to at the present time. By way of my years at PCMag, I’ve examined and reviewed many, many dozens of laptops and desktops, and I’m at all times comfortable to advocate a PC in your wants and price range.
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