How long can they last? | ULTIMATE BATTERY TEST

Summary

In this video, the creator tests the battery efficiency of new X Elite and X+ laptops, comparing them with other models like the Samsung Book 4 Edge, Surface Laptop 7, and Dell XPS 13. The test involves an automated script simulating a developer's workflow, including coding, compiling, and web browsing. The Surface Laptop 7 with the X+ chip emerges as the most efficient, outlasting others in both intensive and realistic usage scenarios, showcasing its impressive battery life and performance.

Takeaways

• 💻 The script discusses testing the battery efficiency of new X Elite and X+ laptops, claiming to be the longest-lasting Windows laptops.
• 🔋 The test involved a self-created automated program simulating realistic use by developers, including writing and running code, browsing documentation, and playing music.
• 🛍️ The laptops were purchased by the author, and the video is sponsored by channel members, ensuring no bias in the test results.
• 🖥️ A variety of laptops were tested, including Samsung Book 4 Edge, Surface Laptop 7, Dell XPS 13, Asus Vivo book S15, and others, alongside MacBook models for comparison.
• 🔬 The test aimed to be more realistic than standard battery rundown tests, which often involve either watching videos for extended periods or running intensive programs continuously.
• 📉 The results showed a linear battery drain for most models, with some, like the MacBook Pro with Intel Core i9, depleting very quickly.
• 📊 Efficiency was measured by comparing work performed versus battery drain, revealing significant differences among the tested models.
• 🔋 The MacBook Air 2017 with Core i5 outperformed the MacBook Air M1 in terms of battery life, despite doing less work per minute.
• 🔍 The script emphasizes the importance of accurate battery capacity measurements, using tools like powercfg on Windows to determine the actual capacity compared to the advertised one.
• 🏆 The most efficient laptop in terms of battery life and work done was the MacBook Air with the M3 chip, followed by the MacBook Air with the M2 chip.
• 🌐 In the automated realistic use test, the Surface Laptop 7 with the X+ chip lasted the longest, outperforming other models including the MacBook Air and Dell XPS 13.

Q & A

What is the main purpose of the video?

The main purpose of the video is to test the battery life and efficiency of the new X Elite and X+ laptops, comparing them with other models including MacBooks and Windows machines.

What claim does the video aim to verify about the X Elite and X+ laptops?

The video aims to verify the claim that the X Elite and X+ laptops are the longest-lasting Windows laptops.

Why did the presenter decide to conduct their own test for battery life?

The presenter decided to conduct their own test because existing battery life tests, such as watching a video for 20 hours or running Cinebench, did not accurately represent how developers use their machines.

What is unique about the test the presenter created for evaluating the laptops?

The test created by the presenter is unique because it is automated and simulates a more realistic usage scenario for developers, including writing and running code, browsing documentation, and having music play in the background.

Which laptops were tested in the video?

The laptops tested in the video include the Samsung Book 4 Edge, Surface Laptop 7, Dell XPS 13, Asus Vivo book S15, Surface Laptop 7 with an X+ chip, and a few MacBook models.

What was the result of the intensive battery life test?

The result of the intensive battery life test showed a linear battery drain for most models, with the MacBook Pro 2019 with an Intel Core i9 having the shortest battery life and the MacBook Air 2017 with a Core i5 outlasting the MacBook Air M1.

How did the presenter measure the efficiency of the laptops?

The presenter measured the efficiency of the laptops by comparing the total work performed (iterations per minute) to the battery drain over time, and then calculating the total capacity of each battery.

What was the most efficient laptop according to the test results?

According to the test results, the MacBook Air with the M3 chip was the most efficient laptop, followed by the MacBook Air with the M2 chip.

How did the X Elite models perform in terms of battery life and efficiency?

The X Elite models performed well in terms of battery life and efficiency, falling in the middle of the pack, with the Asus Vivo book S15 having the biggest battery but being the least efficient among them.

What was the conclusion of the automated test simulating realistic usage?

The conclusion of the automated test was that the Surface Laptop 7 with the X+ chip lasted the longest, outperforming other laptops in the test, including the MacBook Air and the Dell XPS 13 with an Intel Core Ultra.

Outlines

00:00

🔋 Laptop Battery Efficiency Test

The script discusses a personal test conducted to evaluate the battery efficiency of new X Elite and X+ laptops, comparing them to other models. The author clarifies that the laptops were purchased independently and that the video is sponsored by channel members. The test includes various machines like the Samsung Book 4 Edge, Surface Laptop 7, Dell XPS 13, Asus Vivo book S15, and others, including different MacBook models. The author criticizes existing battery life tests for not being realistic to developer usage and introduces an automated test designed to simulate real-world usage more accurately, including writing and running code, web browsing, and music playback.

05:00

📊 Analyzing Battery Drain and Efficiency

This paragraph delves into the results of the intensive battery drain test, showing the MacBook Pro with an Intel Core i9 struggling significantly. The author surprises the audience by revealing that the 2017 MacBook Air with a Core i5 outperformed the M1 MacBook Air. The script then discusses the relationship between work performed and battery drain, highlighting the MacBook Pro with M3 Max as exceptionally efficient. The author also calculates the total battery capacity for each machine and introduces the concept of efficiency, showing that the M2 MacBook Air is the most efficient, while the Core i9 and i5 models are the least.

10:02

🖥️ Real-World Usage Test Results

The final paragraph presents the results of an automated test simulating real-world usage, including having multiple browser tabs open, running note-taking apps, and compiling code. The test aimed to provide a more accurate representation of typical user behavior. The Surface Laptop 7 with the X+ chip emerged as the winner, outlasting all other laptops in the test. The author also discusses the efficiency of the laptops during this test, with the MacBook Air and Surface Laptop 7 with the X+ showing the best performance. The paragraph ends with a teaser for a follow-up video that will present the full results and footage of the test.

Keywords

💡X Elite

The 'X Elite' refers to a series of high-performance laptops that are being tested in the video for their efficiency and battery life. These laptops are central to the video's theme as they are the subjects of the rigorous battery and performance tests conducted by the presenter. The script mentions the X Elite in the context of comparing its efficiency with other laptops.

💡Battery Efficiency

Battery Efficiency is a measure of how well a device can perform tasks while consuming the least amount of battery power. In the video, the presenter is particularly interested in testing the battery efficiency of the X Elite and other laptops. The script uses this concept to compare the performance of different laptops under various workloads.

💡Automated Test

An 'Automated Test' is a method of testing where processes are run without human intervention to simulate real-world usage. The video script describes an automated test created by the presenter to mimic how developers use their machines, which includes writing and running code, browsing documentation, and other tasks.

💡Battery Drain

Battery Drain refers to the rate at which a device's battery depletes over time. The script discusses the battery drain of various laptops, particularly noting how quickly some models lose charge during intensive tasks, which is a key aspect of the video's exploration of battery performance.

💡Work Performed

In the context of the video, 'Work Performed' is the amount of computational tasks completed by a laptop while its battery is being drained. The script uses this term to analyze the efficiency of the laptops, showing a direct correlation between the work done and the battery life.

💡High-Performance

High-Performance in the script refers to the setting on the laptops that allows them to operate at their maximum capacity, which is important for conducting the tests in the video. The presenter mentions that all tests were done under high-performance mode to ensure the laptops are pushed to their limits.

💡MacBook Pro

The 'MacBook Pro' is a line of high-end laptops from Apple that are used in the video for comparison with the X Elite and other Windows laptops. The script mentions different models of MacBook Pro, including those with M2 Max and M3 chips, to illustrate the performance and efficiency benchmarks against which other laptops are measured.

💡Surface Laptop

The 'Surface Laptop' is a series of laptops from Microsoft that are part of the test in the video. The script discusses the battery life and efficiency of the Surface Laptop 7 with an X+ chip, comparing it to other models and highlighting its performance in the tests.

💡Battery Capacity

Battery Capacity is the maximum amount of energy that a battery can store. The script explains how the presenter calculates the efficiency of the laptops by considering their total battery capacity, which is derived from the manufacturer's specifications or from power reports.

💡Software Engineer

A 'Software Engineer' is a professional who designs, develops, and tests software. The script mentions the presenter's role as a software engineer, which influences the creation of the automated test and the selection of tasks that simulate real-world usage of the laptops by developers.

💡Electron Apps

Electron Apps refer to applications built using the Electron framework, which allows for the creation of cross-platform desktop apps with web technologies. The script mentions Electron apps like Notion and Todoist running during the automated test, which adds to the realism of simulating a developer's typical usage of a laptop.

Highlights

The X Elite and X+ laptops are claimed to be the longest-lasting Windows laptops, prompting a personal test to verify this claim.

The test involved laptops needing a recharge after being 'killed', indicating a recent battery drain test had been conducted.

The video is sponsored by the channel's members and features a personal purchase of the laptops for the test.

Laptops tested include the Samsung Book 4 Edge, Surface Laptop 7, Dell XPS 13, Asus Vivo book S15, and Surface Laptop 7 with an X+ chip.

Additional models tested with different Intel chips and a comparison with the M3 MacBook Air and M2 Max MacBook Pro.

Critique of existing battery life tests as not being representative of how developers use their machines.

Development of an automated, realistic test simulating a developer's workflow to assess laptop efficiency.

The test includes writing and running Python code, net build compilation, browsing documentation, and playing music.

A comparison of battery drain over time by model, showing a linear trend for most models.

Surprising results where the 2017 MacBook Air with a Core i5 outlasted the M1 MacBook Air.

Analysis of work performed versus battery drain, revealing the efficiency of different models.

The MacBook Pro 16in with M3 Max showed an impressively high number of iterations per minute.

Efficiency calculations based on total battery capacity, showing the MacBook Air M2 as the most efficient.

The X Elite models placed in the middle of the efficiency rankings, with the Asus Vivo book S15 having the largest battery.

The automated test setup with 15 Chrome tabs, notion, todoist, and music playing to simulate a realistic usage scenario.

Results from the automated test showing the Surface Laptop 7 with the X+ chip as the longest-lasting.

Final efficiency rankings with the MacBook Air M3 and M2 models at the top, and the X Elite models in the middle.

The video concludes with a demonstration of how to set up high-performance settings for these machines.

Transcripts

these are some of the new X Elite and X+

laptops and they're supposed to be

efficient which means they last a long

time at least the longest lasting

Windows laptop or so the claim says so I

wanted to put that to the test myself

now they were all sleeping just recently

because yes I did actually end up

killing them I did it they're all dead

but they just need a recharge it's okay

don't feel bad for them the test

recently just finished and I want to see

the results I haven't seen them yet so

I'm really excited to take a look at

them by the way just a disclaimer I

bought these machines myself nobody sent

them to me and nobody paid me for this

video this video is partially sponsored

by the members of the channel if you'd

like to join there's a button right down

below for the X Elite machines I've got

the Samsung book 4 Edge surface laptop 7

Dell XPS 13 Asus Vivo book S15 and

finally the surface laptop 7 with an X+

chip in it I also tested the xps13 with

an Intel Core 7

155h and a surface lab laptop 6 with a

core Ultra 7

165h those names and I threw in my M3

magbook air and my daily driver M2 Max

MacBook Pro I saw a bunch of reports on

battery life on these new machines and I

didn't think it was enough to represent

how us developers use machines there's

battery rundown tests where people are

just watching a video for 20 hours not

realistic there's rundown tests where

people are running cine bench for 2

hours or however long the battery lasts

under such high stress also also not

realistic there's articles like this

from Laptop Mag the results from our

intensive battery life tests highlight

one area where co-pilot PCS shine they

don't mention at all what this intensive

test is they don't they don't even say

but based on these numbers I'm going to

guess it's just playing a video and

that's why as a software engineer I

decided to write my own test which is

going to be an automated more realistic

example of how we use our machines it

took me a few days and a few nights to

write this code and then run it but I

think this provides a good Baseline for

how I'm going to be testing my maches

going forward in the future as well this

program automatically opens up some apps

like todoist notion copies files

automatically writes code and then runs

that code that's python code so there's

an interpreter there's also compilation

step that does a net build the code

browses documentation and it even plays

music while you're working now before we

get into those results I wanted to get

some measurements using a test that I've

already done before in the channel

namely running a highly intensive

program that really pegs the cores why

well because based on the wat hours of

the batteries that are in these machines

and the rundown times while we're

pegging the cores to the max we'll be

able to tell how efficient these

machines are this is the battery drain

overtime by model they all started at

about 100 and some of them fell off

pretty quickly like the MacBook Pro from

2019 with a Intel Core i 9oo that one

could not take it for long it lasted

only half an hour and that one I bought

on Amazon used so the battery might not

be in the best of shapes I think we just

ignore ignore that one but all the rest

of the models look like they have a

pretty linear drain of battery and I was

really surprised to see that the MacBook

Air from 2017 with the core i5 got up to

190 minutes longer even than the MacBook

Air M1 now this right here shows the

work performed versus battery drain and

you'll see why the MacBook Air 2017 with

a core i5 lasted a while because it's

barely doing any work as the battery was

being drained the work done was

somewhere in the range of 20 20 25

iterations per minute how many times it

can execute that script in a minute on

the right side we've got the MacBook Pro

16in with the M3 Max doing over 400

iterations per minute that is an insane

amount of work that it did and the fact

that this chart is pretty linear going

straight up and down means that the work

done does not change based on how much

battery is left in that particular model

there are some outliers here like the

MacBook Pro 16in with the M2 Max I ran

that test twice by the way this is my

control I did that back in January and I

just did it now you can see that the two

runs for that machine are pretty much

aligned and I'm going to add the exites

into here as well to figure out

efficiency we need the total capacity of

each battery now the total capacity

might not be exactly the same as what

the manufacturers say so on a Windows

machine to get that you use power CFG

battery report and then you can output

that to a file it's going to be an HTML

format and Alex has to spell battery

correctly there we go this is the

Samsung and you can see that the design

capacity is 605,000 M hours and the full

charge capacity this is a brand new

machine so we've got a little bit less

than the design capacity but that's

pretty close you can also see the power

usage here which You' think oh I might

be able to calculate all the charts that

I need from here but no this is not

accurate enough this just reports the

remaining capacity on certain events and

not necessarily on a regular time

increment but as the machine ages you

can come here and check to see what the

full capacity is and figure that into

your calculation and also this can tell

us what the advertised capacity is

versus the actual capacity of all these

machines overall because they're brand

new machines I'd say we're pretty close

now from this we can calculate

efficiency and you can see that the

magbook air 13in M2 is the most

efficient machine out of all these in

other words it did the most amount of

work lasted the longest and only sipped

on that battery the core I9 and the core

i5 are the two least efficient machines

surprise surprise and we've got the

magbook pro 14in M3 Pro being the second

most efficient another 14 in over here

is the MacBook Pro M3 that's the base

model also pretty efficient there my

daily driver is somewhere in the middle

right here the M2 Max MacBook Pro that's

the machine I'm on right now now let's

take a look at all the new X Elite

laptops plus a couple of other

intel-based ones like the core ultas

this has all the previous MacBook

results but it also shows that the ex

Elite models are right there right in

the middle so they last a pretty good

time under this amount of load not as

much as the MacBook airs M2 or M3 or

even the MacBook Air M1 all the magbook

airs are doing really well over here for

battery drain much better than the ex

Elites except for the Asus Vivo book S15

which actually has the biggest battery

it's got a 70 KW hour battery in there

now in the battery drain versus work

done things get a little bit interesting

that MacBook Air M3 line is dipping a

little bit so that means the work done

initially was higher and then it dipped

a little bit but not too much a much

bigger dip was in the galaxy book 4 edge

with the X Elite we went from almost 200

down to almost 150 in the top 20% of the

battery the surface laptop 7 with the X

Elite also showed a very similar curve

although it didn't go down quite as much

and the Asus Vivo book with the X Elite

jumped down quite a lot look at this it

started around 175 and as the battery

reached about 80% the work done per

iteration went down to about 75 my

control was the M2 Max MacBook Pro 16 in

that stayed pretty constant in both runs

from January and from yesterday now

looking at the efficiency MacBook Air

with the M3 chip this time being the

most efficient followed by the magbook

air with the M2 Chip then the magbook

pro 14 M3 the X Elites are falling in

the Middle with the Asus Vivo book being

the worst and the two surface laptop

sevens being the best X Plus surface

laptop edging out to the exolite surface

laptop just by a tiny bit those surface

laptops did way better than the MacBook

Pro 16in with the M2 Max MacBook Air M1

and of course better than the Intel Core

Ultras and the Intel cores you can see

the two Dells at the top too with the X

Elite getting much higher efficiency

score than the otherwise identical core

Ultra 7 model so now we're going to

switch to the automated test which is

going to be a more realistic example of

how you would use your machine and I set

this up exactly the same way on all the

machines I had 15 tabs open in Chrome I

know I know some of us have 30 or 40

tabs don't brag don't brag about it I

know 15 I thought was enough I had

notion running that's a note taking app

built with electron I had two doist

which is another electron app those are

a little bit different by the way in

that todoist was built for arm but

notion hasn't been built for arm yet so

we're going to see a couple of apps that

are x64 based running through prism

translation on these new windows for our

machine I also kicked off a track right

at the beginning of this test to have

music running so that uh you know we're

vibing nicely while we're coding

speaking of coding I had an automated

workflow to write automated code and

then after finished writing the code it

ran the code it was that same manle BR

test the python intense test but I did

it in short burst to kind of simulate a

realistic scenario of what you would go

through you write some code you build

some code you write some code you run

some code yes I didn't only do python

which needs an interp to run I also did

a compilation a net compilation as part

of this as well and of course what day

will be complete without watching a few

YouTube videos now a lot of tests out

there that drain the battery focus on

just playing a video for 8 or 12 or 20

hours I don't think that's very

representative of how we use our

machines just like I don't think it's

really representative to have a balls to

thewall test like I did earlier that's

why I wrote this each iteration was a

half an hour long and I kept track of

how many iterations were completed for

example Le on this surface laptop with

the X+ chip you started with 100% of

battery just like on all of them and the

last iteration that was logged had 8% at

almost 4: in the morning and it did 12

iterations I'm going to clean this up

put the footage together and then I'll

share the

results all right let's see they're all

working surface laptop 6 is the first

one to go that's the Intel Core 7 165h

Delux PS 13 with the Intel Core Ultra 7

is next no surprise there everybody's

still in the competition MacBooks versus

ex Elites and my M2 Max MacBook dies now

I've been using that machine for over a

year now it's not a brand new battery

and it's got an 87% capacity so I'm just

making excuses for it I know galaxy book

four dies next and that's surprising

because it's the second biggest battery

from the new ex lead batch almost 62 wat

hours on that one very close to the Asus

Viva book which has a 708 W hour Capac

capacity oh the vi book dies so the

three largest laptops died next even

though they had big batteries they also

have the biggest screens oh the surface

laptop 7 with the exite dies next that's

surprising M3 MacBook Air Dell X Elite

and surface with the X+ are holding on

and the Dell X Elite dies next MacBook

Air and surface 7 with the X+ we have a

winner the surface laptop 7 with the X+

chip lasted the longest out of all these

laptops let's check out the actual

numbers here the two Intel cores drop

off pretty quickly and I don't need to

tell you but the MacBook Air and the

surface laptop 7 with the X+ last the

longest now as for efficiency since this

particular Loop was one iteration per

half an hour then the efficiency chart

is pretty much exactly the same as the

battery usage chart this just gives you

a slightly different visualization than

the other one now all these tests were

done under high performance and if you

want to see how I set up my performance

on these machines check out this video

right over here and this video for a

development environment set up on these

machines as well thanks for watching

folks and I'll see you next time

[Applause]

[Music]