Dell XPS 14 Breaks 40-Hour Battery Life in Light Browser Test

In another sign that the new Dell XPS 14 has some battery magic going on, HardwareCanucks coaxed over 40 hours of battery life from a single charge by focusing on light web browsing.

It managed 20+ hours of 4K YouTube playback, although gaming was limited to about 2.5 hours, highlighting how little power static on-screen content uses compared with dynamic 3D rendering.

Following the launch of Apple’s M-series laptops in 2020, laptop battery life has improved by leaps and bounds as others rushed to catch up. Today, it’s not uncommon to find laptops with 20+ hours of battery life; Microsoft’s Surface laptops have even managed over 30 hours of 720p video playing in our tests. But the Dell XPS 14 might be in a class of its own.

We Tested Dell’s Revived XPS 14 Laptop, and It’s a Major Comeback

In PCMag’s February test of the XPS 14, we got 20+ hours of video playback with the higher-powered version. However, Hardware Canucks leveraged the display’s variable refresh rate to operate at as low as 1Hz when on-screen elements were entirely static. It achieved 43 hours and three minutes while light web browsing in Chrome, with the screen at 150 nits and HDR turned off. An Apple MacBook Air 15-inch M5 10-core model used for comparison got 14.5 hours in the same scenario with the same settings.

With 4K YouTube Playback, the XPS 14 still managed over 20 hours of battery life; the MacBook Air got 14 hours. A still-impressive result, but a far cry from what the XPS 14 can handle.

In a clear indication that running the display at such a low refresh rate was the reason the XPS 14 lasted so long, gaming at its 120Hz maximum rate dropped battery life to 2.5 hours, while the MacBook Air hung on for 4+ hours.

The major caveat to this comparison, though, is price. Apple has somehow emerged from the global hardware shortage as a value buy, with its MacBook Neo offering an excellent modern computing experience for a mere $600. The MacBook Air in this test is $1,300, while the XPS 14 configured with the Intel Core Ultra 7 355 starts at $1,700.

Still, that battery life is seriously impressive and a major selling point that may be worth the price. The new Dell XPS 14 is one of the first laptops to take advantage of 1Hz refresh rate panel technology. With how impressive these results are, it seems almost certain that we’ll see similarly impressive results from some of Dell’s competitors in the months to come.

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About Our Expert

Jon Martindale

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Experience

Jon Martindale is a tech journalist from the UK, with 20 years of experience covering all manner of PC components and associated gadgets. He’s written for a range of publications, including ExtremeTech, Digital Trends, Forbes, U.S. News & World Report, and Lifewire, among others. When not writing, he’s a big board gamer and reader, with a particular habit of speed-reading through long manga sagas. 

Jon covers the latest PC components, as well as how-to guides on everything from how to take a screenshot to how to set up your cryptocurrency wallet. He particularly enjoys the battles between the top tech giants in CPUs and GPUs, and tries his best not to take sides.

Jon’s gaming PC is built around the iconic 7950X3D CPU, with a 7900XTX backing it up. That’s all the power he needs to play lightweight indie and casual games, as well as more demanding sim titles like Kerbal Space Program. He uses a pair of Jabra Active 8 earbuds and a SteelSeries Arctis Pro wireless headset, and types all day on a Logitech G915 mechanical keyboard.

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