Ultrabooks with the best battery life?

[bepo]

What are the ulrabooks with the best battery life? I'm looking for something to replace both my laptop and tablet. The only reason I own a tablet is for 10 hour battery life when traveling. I'd like to get close to that with a new laptop. Right now my list only includes the MBA but I'd rather have a windows laptop if an equal was available. I'm hoping that something that fits the bill is available with all the new Haswell ultrabooks coming out.

 

[TheStu]

Sony Vaio Pro is supposed to get pretty ridiculous with the optional slice battery.

 

[IntelUser2000]

The Vaio Duo 13 is an almost fantastic Convertible Ultrabook that meets that 10 hour battery life. Except for one glaring issue, which is WiFi. If they get that fixed, I'd put it on the top of the list. Price is high, but they do seem to give you money's worth. Funny they can't do much about the WiFi.

It's also worth looking at Dell XPS 12 and Lenovo's upcoming Yoga 2 Pro and ThinkPad Yoga.

Looking at these limited lineups its clear why Ultrabooks aren't selling well. Even if you wanted one, its hard to find one, and few that are available have fundamental issues(like WiFi).

 

[bepo]

The Vaio Duo 13 is an almost fantastic Convertible Ultrabook that meets that 10 hour battery life. Except for one glaring issue, which is WiFi. If they get that fixed, I'd put it on the top of the list. Price is high, but they do seem to give you money's worth. Funny they can't do much about the WiFi.

It's also worth looking at Dell XPS 12 and Lenovo's upcoming Yoga 2 Pro and ThinkPad Yoga.

Looking at these limited lineups its clear why Ultrabooks aren't selling well. Even if you wanted one, its hard to find one, and few that are available have fundamental issues(like WiFi).

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll check them out. Price is not an issue as long as it's reasonable.

What's strange to me is that the MBA was released months ago with Haswell and delivered exactly the battery life boost you would expect. Yet Windows ultrabooks are lagging behind by 3+ months and some of the clear favorites haven't even been released yet. Did Apple get priority with the first chips or is there some other reasons for the huge gap in release schedule? They totally missed their chance on the back to school period when a lot of students are buying new laptops...

 

[marcplante]

The upcoming Dell 7000 series reports a 7+ hr battery life (I'd assume with all features and screen brightness cranked down. The Haswell MBA has something like 10-12 hrs battery life. I think the little thinkpads do well, but you have a battery that protrudes out the back of the unit.

 

[Zap]

What's strange to me is that the MBA was released months ago with Haswell and delivered exactly the battery life boost you would expect. Yet Windows ultrabooks are lagging behind by 3+ months and some of the clear favorites haven't even been released yet. Did Apple get priority with the first chips or is there some other reasons for the huge gap in release schedule? They totally missed their chance on the back to school period when a lot of students are buying new laptops...

There are probably a myriad of reasons for this. I'm thinking yes Apple probably does get priority. Also, Apple is probably better able to control supplies in regards to updated products. For Windows PCs, I'm thinking there are just too many older models out there. Heck, I still see clearances of old Sandy Bridge stuff.

To give a related example, in the Celeron 1037U thread elsewhere here, Biostar was contacted about an upcoming motherboard (ITX with CPU soldered on) and they replied saying it is ready but will only be released after stock sells out on the older model that it replaced.

 

[blackened23]

Another part of the equation is Windows 8.1 - a lot of Haswell's best power saving features won't be fully implemented until 8.1 is in the wild - therefore many vendors aren't releasing their "premium" ultrabooks until 8.1 is available. Aside from this - another consideration is that Windows 8 does not have very good DPI scaling, while Windows 8.1 goes a long way towards addressing this with 2.0 increment scaling which is the same as what Apple does in OS X. DPI scaling will be significantly improved in 8.1, allows vendors to finally use high resolution screens (higher than 1080p) on ultrabooks. Long story short, many vendors are holding off on releasing their premium high priced ultrabooks until Windows 8.1 is available, as that will increase battery life and address the shortcomings of Windows DPI scaling (which is fixed in 8.1).

I love Macbooks, but i'm really looking forward to some specific ultrabook/convertible designs that I've seen recently, such as the Lenovo Yoga Pro 2. By the way, the Yoga Pro 2 is supposed to be out at the end of this month and will reportedly have 9+ hours of battery life depending on which model you purchase. This is the ultrabook that i'm keeping my closest eye on, it looks very impressive! And has a 3200*1800 resolution as well (higher than the rMBP). The MS Surface Pro 2 is also worth considering - a lot of folks will pan the Surface Pro because it's MS, but it really is a fantastic machine. The version "2" model goes a long way towards fixing the minor (keyboard docking) complaints with the first model, as well.

 

[s44]

The MBA is 10+ hours for two reasons:
(1) OSX. Or rather the tight tailoring of OSX to maximize its battery. Haswell MBA battery life falls back to the pack on Windows.
(2) Low-res screen. With this generation of Ultrabooks going for 1080p *minimum* and up to Samsung's insane 3200*1800, there's going to be more load on the GPU just to keep everything rendered. MBA is still stuck on 14*9.

Because of this I think 8 is a more realistic target than 10+.

 

[blackened23]

Those are good points. The battery life is definitely related to the size and resolution of the screen - and of course the battery size. Something to keep in mind. There are ultrabooks with excellent battery life, however, they're just harder to find. Yoga Pro 2 should be excellent and advertises 9 hours.

 

[ViviTheMage]

My MBA could only get 5-6 hours with its battery, but my Lenovo X230 gets around 7-9 hours (9 cell battery)...depending what I was doing.

 

[bepo]

Some good points made. I guess I need to wait for 8.1 and the new ultrabooks to make my decision and I also need to decide if 8+ hours is enough. I've been keeping a close eye on the Yoga 2 but I do wonder what the screen res will do to the battery life when its ~4.5x more pixels than the MBA. The screen seems a little excessive for 13" but we'll see what the reviews look like.

 

[ZGR]

I still think it comes down to screen size more than anything. Portability can mean different things to a lot of people. I think Microsoft hit the nail on the head with the Surface and other form factors like it.

But because you have a tablet already, are you looking for a 13" ultrabook? Or a smaller 10-11" one?

 

[jsnell]

The Thinkpad x240 should have awesome battery life, though we won't know for sure until it gets released. (Hadn't thought of the delay having to do with Windows 8.1 -- that would make sense).

It's got a small internal battery for normal use (25Wh). Nothing to write home about, extrapolating from earlier x-series Thinkpads it'll maybe get 4 hours of light use. But it's also got a battery bay for an extra battery. The largest option is reported to add another 72Wh of battery. The two batteries combined should last for way more than 10 hours.

 

[Kallogan]

i was impressed with the Asus zenbook infinity review :

http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Asus-Zenbook-Infinity-UX301LA-Ultrabook.102304.0.html

The battery life does not fall despite the 1440p screen. Maybe it's because of the iris HD 5100, don't know, ulv cores with basic HD 4400 usually have modest battery life in use as soon as the screen is FHD.

 

[dstevod]

I'm waiting for the ThinkPad T440s which is due this month I think. It has a hot-swappable battery to extend run time. Well, I'm waiting for a full notebookcheck review first.

S

 

[Quantos]

I've heard conflicting opinions about the new super high resolution screens found in the Yoga Pro 2 and the more recently announced XPS 15. While the screen itself is very nice, even with the use of scaling in WIN8.1, you're sometimes stuck with desktop applications that are simply not very nice to work with on such a high resolution display on a panel that is limited in size. They also have the effect of lowering battery life quite a bit. I don't remember where I saw this, but I think there's a preview somewhere on which the Yoga Pro 2 got disappointing longevity; something like 5-6 hours IIRC. I guess there might be a sweet spot to hit. The MBA gets awesome battery life at the cost of a crappy screen, whereas these new WIN8.1 laptops are the opposite. Personally, I'd look for a full HD display on a laptop that is able to get between 8-10 hours of life. I'm not sure such a thing exists, though.