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43 hours battery life: Dell XPS 14 2026 lasts almost 3x longer vs MacBook Air 15

30 points by akyuu

by dcrazy

2 subcomments

The 40-odd-hour result was only achieved by loading a webpage, lowering the brightness to 150 nits, and doing absolutely nothing else with the device. That’s not reflective of real-world laptop usage, though it is a common trick for devices with always-on displays like phones and smartwatches.
By comparison, if we assume that NotebookCheck’s test protocol attempts to emulate real-world use:
> We measured 16 hours and 45 minutes in our review.
I can’t find any statement of how the 14-inch M5 MBP performed in their own like-for-like tests, despite checking several of the articles linked from their review meta-page: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-14-2025-M5.1...

by lukevp

2 subcomments

Does anyone believe this? Is it real? Windows laptops always claim crazy battery life figures but when I have the latest, nicest windows machine it ends up lasting like 3-4 hours every time, with a normal coding workload. My MacBooks in contrast will last 8+.

by mikestew

1 subcomments

I was expecting the Dell to be some 7 lb. all-battery monster, but no, it weighs in at a claimed 3.4 lbs.
Variable refresh rate obviously plays a role, if you don’t mind reading web pages at 1Hz.

by digitalPhonix

1 subcomments

The XPS build quality (from what I remember) was pretty good and the new one looks like it has a massive trackpad. Maybe a macbook won't be my default next laptop.
Hopefully this is just the start of x86 laptops responding Macbooks. They've been pretty much unchallenged for most use cases (even more now with the Neo) for the past few years.