I totally understand the Chromebook appeal. They have a clean, minimalist interface, less susceptible to malware, typically budget-friendly, and perfect for users who are interwoven into the Google ecosystem. Most importantly, Chromebooks usually have decent battery life.
Best Chromebooks in 2022 What is a Chromebook and should you buy one? How to check your Chromebook’s battery health
We’ve tested a cornucopia of Chromebooks and have the scoop on which Chrome OS devices lasted the longest. We’ll also make sure the Chromebooks on this list offer the total package. After all, what good is a long-lasting Chromebook if it operates like an old, dilapidated clunker, right?
Which Chromebook has the best battery life?
The Chromebook with the best battery life is the Acer Chromebook 514. It lasted a shocking 14 hours and 8 minutes, according to our in-house battery testing. To give you some perspective, the average Chromebook lasts 9 hours and 58 minutes. Not only does the Chromebook 514 climb to the top with its stellar battery life, but it also has decent performance and surprisingly good speakers. As a cherry on top, it has a sub-$500 price tag. The Chromebook sitting on the throne with the second-longest battery runtime is the Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook. It lasted 13 hours and 31 minutes. The 13.3-inch Duet is a 2-in-1. It’s a tablet that can be transformed into clamshell mode via a detachable keyboard and a kickstand cover, which are included in the package. On top of its portable and compact form factor, we absolutely loved its bright, vivid OLED display. Streaming movies and TV shows on the Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook is an absolute dream.
Chromebooks with the best battery life
To say we were shocked about the Acer Chromebook 514’s battery runtime is an understatement! On the Laptop Mag battery test, which involves the laptop web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness until it dies, the Chromebook 514 lasted a shocking 14 hours and 8 minutes on a single charge! The average Chromebook lasts about 9 or 10 hours, so imagine our surprise when we saw the Chromebook 514’s results. On top of stellar battery life, the Acer Chromebook 514 has surprisingly good speakers, so you can enjoy Spotify, Netflix, and other entertainment apps with smooth-sounding audio. Its chassis has a simple, pleasant aesthetic, it has decent performance, and best of all, it’s inexpensive. See our Acer Chromebook 514 review. This Chromebook blew our mind! The Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook (also called the Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5 Chromebook) is a successor to the super popular Lenovo Chromebook Duet. It nearly 14 hours, 13 hours and 31 minutes to be exact, on the Laptop Mag battery test. That’s madness! On top of that, when we reviewed the Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook, we were impressed by its versatile, detachable 2-in-1 design; it comes with a fabric rear case and a keyboard cover. We were also impressed with its bright, vivid OLED display. As such, when you’re watching Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, or any other streaming platform, you’ll get to enjoy visual eye candy at any time of day. The only downside we can think of is that a stylus isn’t included with the Lenovo Duet Chromebook, but you can always purchase the Lenovo USI Pen (opens in new tab) separately. See our full Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook review. The Lenovo Chromebook Duet (not to be confused with the Duet 5 Chromebook), lasted 12 hours and 46 minutes, according to the Laptop Mag battery test. The Duet sports a 10.1-inch display and comes with a kickstand cover and a detachable keyboard. You can use the Duet as a tablet or you can attach it to the keyboard when you’re ready to type away. The configuration we reviewed comes with a 2-GHz MediaTek Helio P60T octa-core processor, an ARM G72 MP3 GPU, 4GB of RAM and 64GB eMMC flash storage. Weighing only two pounds and sporting 0.7 inches of thickness, the Duet has an ultra-portable form factor. There is one downside of the Duet’s small footprint, though: the keyboard is cramped. It may not be ideal for users with heavy workloads. Still, the Duet reminds us of the much-loved Microsoft Surface Go, but Lenovo’s version has a far more palatable sub-$300 price tag than the $500 Surface Go. See our full Lenovo Chromebook Duet review. The Acer Chromebook Spin 713 lasts nearly 12 hours — almost half of the day — before the battery drains out. On top of that, the Chromebook Spin 713 is one of our favorite Chrome OS devices, garnering an Editor’s Choice badge and an impressive 4.5-star rating. Aside from its long battery life, the Chromebook Spin 713 also impressed us with its bright, 13.5-inch display. The average Chromebook emits 274 nits of brightness, but according to our testing, the Chromebook Spin 713 is far from average with its 445-nit screen. Packed with an Intel Core i5-10210U CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD, the Chromebook Spin 713 whizzed past its fellow Chrome OS rivals, including the Google Pixelbook Go, on performance tests such as Geekbench 5.0 and Jetstream 2.0. Like the Chromebook x360 14 G1 and the Duet, the Chromebook Spin 713 is a 2-in-1 (yes, Chromebook convertibles are totally killing it in the battery-life game). If you love tablets, but still want access to a keyboard, the Chromebook Spin 713 is the ideal laptop for you. With its speedy performance, bright display, versatile design and long battery life, the Chromebook Spin 713 is the total package. See our full Acer Chromebook Spin 713 review. As we mentioned in our review, the Asus Chromebook Detachable CM3 is a total beast when it comes to battery life. Although it’s fourth on this list, 11 hours and 41 minutes of battery life is nothing to scoff at. Besides its solid battery runtime, the Asus Chromebook earned a solid 4-star rating for its ultra-slim, lightweight chassis (it only weighs 2 pounds) and durability. Unlike Lenovo’s Chromebook Duet series, the Chromebook Detachable CM3 actually comes with a stylus! This Asus Chromebook is ideal for note takers and digital sketchers who are at their best with a digital pen in hand. Chromebooks are typically dim with an average brightness of 274 nits, but the Pixelbook Go isn’t your run-of-the-mill ChromeOS device. It has a 386-nit, colorful panel that covers a whopping 93.6% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. See our full Asus Chromebook Detachable CM3 review. The Google Pixelbook Go may not want to share its glory with another Chromebook, but it has no choice but to scoot over on its throne and make room for the Dell Latitude 5400. The Latitude 5400 served up the same battery runtime as the Pixelbook Go, lasting 11 hours and 29 minutes. The Latitude 5400 isn’t as sleek and slim as the Pixelbook Go with a weight of 3.4 pounds and a thickness of 0.8 inches, but a little chunkiness never hurt anybody. The sturdy Latitude 5400 passed 17 MIL-STD 810G tests, proving that it can endure shocks, drops and extreme temperatures. Unlike the Pixelbook Go with its stingy port offerings, the Latitude 5400’s thicker body allows for a wider selection of I/O options, including one Type-C port, two Type-A ports and a microSD card reader. The Pixelbook Go could never. The Latitude 5400 won’t turn heads with its design, but that’s expected since it is a business-oriented Chromebook — equipped with Chrome Enterprise — that targets organizations, not your average Joe. The unit we tested features an Intel Core i5-8365U CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. See our full Dell Latitude 5400 Chromebook Enterprise review. The HP Pro C640 Chromebook Enterprise is another business-oriented laptop that aims to catch the attention of organizations that want to arm their employees with productivity-boosting laptops. With the Pro C640, there’s one thing employers don’t have to worry about: battery life. The HP Pro C640 Chrome Enterprise lasted 11 hours and 7 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test. It earned 4 stars in our review for its military-grade durability (it passed a 19 MIL-STD 810G tests), a wide variety of ports, speedy web-browsing score and impressive security features such as its fingerprint scanner and the Chrome Enterprise software. The Pro C640 unit we reviewed came equipped with an Intel Core i5-8365U CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. One downside of this HP laptop, though, is that its display isn’t the brightest, which is par for the course for a Chromebook. However, with the Pro C640 offering more than 11 hours of battery life, some would be willing to bite the bullet with a dim display for an untethered experience. See our full HP Pro C640 Chromebook Enterprise review.
How to choose the best Chromebook with long battery life
Long battery life is a desirable feature in a Chromebook, but you should also make sure that your Chrome OS device fulfills your other needs, too. Are you a student who loves sitting outside and can’t stomach a dim display? Are you a business organization looking for a Chromebook that will produce the highest levels of productivity from your employees? Are you a parent seeking a simple-to-use Chromebook for your little one? These are some of the questions you should ask yourself before committing to buying a Chromebook. Here’s an easy-to-understand, Chromebook guide that will help you make an informed purchase. How much does a Chromebook cost? Chromebooks surged during the 2020 pandemic. This was, in part, due to their budget-friendly price. As work-from-home and remote-learning mandates went into effect, parents scrambled to purchase inexpensive laptops for their children and employees rushed to snag a device that wouldn’t break the bank. As such, Chromebooks were in high demand. Although Chromebooks are typically inexpensive (the HP Chromebook 14 is less than $300), premium Chromebooks exist, too. The Google Pixelbook, for example, is a Chromebook that will set you back more than $1,500. The good news is that, no matter what your budget is, there is a perfect Chromebook out there waiting for you. Are Chromebooks portable? Though most OEMs tend to make ultra-slim, portable Chromebooks, there are some Chrome OS devices that are on the chunky side. As a prospective buyer, make sure to research the screen size, dimensions and weight of your desired Chromebook. Most Chromebooks fall between 11 and 13 inches, so lugging Chromebooks around at school, the office and at home should be a breeze. You can also snag a 2-in-1 Chromebook, which can shape-shift into different modes like the Acer Spin Chromebook 713 and the HP Chromebook x360 14 G1. If you spot phrases such as “Spin” and “x360” in the Chromebook’s name, there’s a good chance that it’s a convertible. Chromebook 2-in-1s are typically inexpensive while many Windows convertibles will show no mercy to your pockets. How well does a Chromebook perform? Chromebooks are lightweight laptops that run as smooth as butter. Chrome OS devices keep it simple: they offer users easy access to their favorite Google productivity apps. Windows, on the other hand, can be a minimalist’s nightmare with its deluge of bloatware apps. If you need additional apps, you can download them from the Google Play store. Because many applications on Chrome OS operate using the cloud, this means more free space for your laptop and speedier performance. However, beware that Chromebooks aren’t offline-friendly laptops — you’ll always need to be connected to the Internet to access your cloud-stored files. Are Chromebooks secure? Chromebooks are ideal for security-minded users. Chrome OS shuts out most traditional entryways for malware. Each web page and Chromebook app is compartmentalized inside its own virtual “sandbox,” which means that other aspects of the Chrome OS device won’t be compromised by a single infected app or page. Chrome OS also installs security updates automatically. Thirdly, whether you set your Chromebook on fire or throw it inside a volcano, your files will still be protected because all of your data is stored online. Lastly, many Chromebooks offer biometric-authentication features such as fingerprint scanners, so you don’t have to worry about infiltrators attempting to access your Chrome OS device behind your back. How we test Chromebooks We test Chromebooks for performance, battery life, display quality, multitasking muscle and more. When a Chromebook is brought into our labs, we use a number of industry-standard benchmarks such as Geekbench 5.0 and Jetstream 2.0, but we also dive into real-world testing so that you, as the buyer, can make an informed decision about which Chromebook is best for you. To measure battery runtime, the Laptop Mag Battery test surfs the web at 150 nits of brightness until the Chromebook runs out of juice. As mentioned, to test the Chromebook’s processing power, we use the Geekbench synthetic test. We also use a colorimeter to measure Chromebooks’ screen brightness and color gamut while another instrument helps us determine its thermal levels while streaming a 15-minute video. Be sure to check out our how we test laptops page for more details on our benchmarking procedures.
