If you had been to take a laptop computer on a airplane or away for a ski weekend, how lengthy wouldn’t it final streaming Netflix earlier than it ran out of battery? It’s a great query, and one which deserves a solution.
I’ve examined Intel’s Core Ultra 200 (Lunar Lake) and Intel’s Core Ultra 300 (Panther Lake) whereas consultant laptops for work, not play. But the streaming query is one which’s nagged at me, for a while, and I used to be decided to reply it. I did, with what I’m calling the “One Piece” benchmark.
One Piece, an anime a few group of pirates in search of a legendary treasure, has actually a whole lot of episodes streaming on Netflix. It was an ideal alternative to tug out the consultant laptops I’d used to check Intel’s Lunar Lake and Panther Lake chips, alongside Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite and AMD’s Ryzen AI 300. Which laptop computer would stream it the longest earlier than conking out? It actually took days to perform, however we arrived at a transparent winner — particularly once we calculated which cell platform was essentially the most power-efficient.
I’m unsure that we’ll add the “One Piece benchmark” to our commonplace repertoire of testing, for causes that I’ll define, under. But it’s additionally true that I don’t suppose that the present crop of battery benchmarks precisely represents real-world battery life, both, and the “One Piece” benchmark tries to ascertain one thing nearer to a real baseline for battery testing. Plus it was form of enjoyable, too!
Let’s speak about testing
If you don’t care why we check, skip right down to the charts under. We’ll provide the particulars on which laptop computer platform has the perfect battery life whereas streaming.
Otherwise, let me nerd out for a bit on our testing philosophy, and why I carried out these exams.
Mark Hachman
For me, lengthy battery life is extra synonymous with a commerce present like CES, the place I’m all the time on the run between conferences, taking notes the place I can, and with nary a wall outlet in sight. That’s why my present exams embrace the UL Procyon productiveness benchmark, which tries to simulate how a person may use Microsoft 365 apps like Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel throughout a marathon work day.
The Procyon exams carry out numerous “work”-like duties; opening paperwork, performing Excel calculations, et cetera. The benchmark additionally pauses for some time, right here and there, to simulate you taking a break. It doesn’t push the laptop computer as arduous as I’d like, but it surely nonetheless presents an honest estimate of how lengthy the laptop computer will final if you happen to had been utilizing it to work.
Cribbing from my Core Ultra 200 (Lunar Lake) review, I got here up with these battery-life outcomes when the Procyon productiveness check was run. Interestingly, Intel’s just-released Panther Lake platform produced a period of 13 hours 12 minutes earlier than expiring, which places it within the midrange of the the cell platforms examined under.
- Intel Lunar Lake: 17 hours, 7 minutes
- Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite: 16 hours, 20 minutes
- AMD Ryzen AI 300: 10 hours, 42 minutes
- Intel Meteor Lake: 10 hours, 35 minutes
That’s productiveness. Our conventional battery-life video check hearkens again to the times by which folks may obtain a number of motion pictures on to their laptop computer, after which watch them throughout a transcontinental flight. Today, we’ve misplaced contact with that way of life: streaming is virtually ubiquitous, and lots of planes embrace energy plugs, too.
Our conventional video playback check is each helpful and outdated. We loop a 4K video till the battery expires. That’s not unsensible, but it surely’s not the best way customers devour video anymore. CPU designers have additionally begun isolating video decoding in sure areas of the CPU, after which turning off the opposite sections of the CPU. There’s nothing flawed with this, clearly! But my intestine says that video decoding has turn into “easier” over time, whereas additionally turning into a extra synthetic check than in years previous. So it was time to attempt one thing new.
check additionally tries to isolate the difficulty at hand, such because the CPU efficiency. But battery-life is clearly dependent upon what you’re doing, the processor, how brilliant the show is, and so forth.
I can and did artificially set the backlight brightness at a hard and fast stage, although many laptops are set (by default) to regulate the brightness relying on content material. But there are numerous different variables: the kind of Wi-Fi adapter getting used, for instance, and the way congested the community is. I attempted to keep away from updates by turning updates off. A streaming service like Netflix or YouTube may subtly regulate the bandwidth and even the decision relying upon the community bandwidth, too. So it’s not an ideal check; there are variables.
Still, streaming Netflix could be very a lot what customers do, and repeating the check a number of occasions can common these points out — which I did, operating every check 3 times. I streamed at 1080p decision, as that’s the decision of the Netflix commonplace plan. Subtitles had been turned on.
Of course, the opposite drawback is simply the time such exams take! Every check took properly over twelve hours to run, repeated thrice, and with every laptop computer. Even sitting within the nook of the workplace, the One Piece benchmark wasn’t one thing that you possibly can simply run on a weekend. I didn’t need to run the exams in parallel, for danger of affecting the streams, and Netflix solely means that you can stream so many streams in parallel, anyway.
The contestants, and the winner
But we do have outcomes! For the needs of this check, I hauled out our check laptops representing all three main processor platforms, plus the older Intel Core Ultra 200 collection (Lunar Lake) for good measure. Note that AMD’s Ryzen AI 400 and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme chips are anticipated quickly; we simply don’t have any platforms to check these simply but.
- Asus Zenbook S16 (AMD Ryzen AI 9 365, 2880 x 1800 show, and 78Wh battery) (Note: Our original platform test used a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 as a substitute.)
- Asus ZenBook Duo (Intel Core Ultra X9 388H, 2880 x 1800 show, and 99Wh battery)
- Asus Zenbook S 14 (Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, 2880×1800 show, and 72Wh battery)
- Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 (Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, 2304×1536 show, and 54Wh battery)
I charged up every laptop computer to a full cost, then let the laptops hold streaming episodes of One Piece, one segueing into the subsequent, till the battery expired.
The outcomes had been fairly clear: Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 (Panther Lake) was nonetheless the king of streaming however Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite was shut on its heels. Put one other manner, Panther Lake lasted 16 hours 33 minutes, adopted by the Snapdragon laptop computer at 15 hours 23 minutes. Intel’s older Lunar Lake platform lasted 14 hours 19 minutes, whereas the laptop computer powered by AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 chip lasted 11 hours 57 minutes.
Mark Hachman / Foundry
But wait! There’s one other variable: the battery. Plonking down a 99Wh battery inside a laptop computer will prolong any laptop computer’s battery life by an infinite quantity. Fortunately, one other variable, the decision of the show, is uniform in three of the laptops. Qualcomm will get a slight benefit right here, nevertheless, because the Surface Laptop is pushing about 60 p.c of the pixels of the others.
Still, if you happen to divide the battery life in minutes by the battery capability in Watt-hours, you find yourself with a greater image of the particular effectivity of every cell laptop computer processor platform. And the outcomes are definitive. The most effective platform by way of battery life is clearly the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and its Arm structure.
Mark Hachman / Foundry
So what have we realized?
The conclusion units my thoughts comfortable: for now, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X1 Elite remains to be the clear winner by way of battery life, even in opposition to Intel’s latest-and best Panther Lake chip. It additionally suggests what would occur if for some purpose a laptop computer maker selected to bundle the identical large 99Wh battery Intel enjoys: you’ll be capable of use it for a number of days. That’s the effectivity of Windows on Arm at work.
For now, in order for you a laptop computer with the longest battery life, make sure that it has a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip inside it. That, or tote round an additional pound of battery connected to an “Intel Inside” emblem.