MacBook Pro 16-inch 2023 battery life tested: This is the longest-lasting laptop ever

The MacBook Pro 14-inch (2023) and MacBook Pro 16-inch (2023) are here. Apple’s latest laptops may feature the same design language as their respective predecessors, but based on our testing, they’re the company’s most powerful notebooks yet. Given the laptops’ performance and power efficiency, this is another win for Apple silicon.

Last year, we were blown away by the astonishing battery life of the MacBook Pro 13-inch (M2, 2022). On the Tom's Guide battery test, which involves continuous web surfing at 150 nits of screen brightness, the MacBook Pro 13-inch lasted an epic 18 hours and 20 minutes. At the time, it was the longest-lasting laptop we’d ever reviewed. However, there’s a new battery life champ in town.

Apple sent us a MacBook Pro 16-inch packing the M2 Max chip (12-core CPU, 38-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine), 96GB of unified memory and 4TB of SSD storage. Running this laptop through our battery test, the new Apple notebook clocked in at 18 hours and 56 minutes! This obliterates the battery life of the M2-driven 13-inch MacBook Pro, not to mention every other laptop we’ve ever reviewed and tested. Right now, the new 16-inch MacBook Pro appears to have the longest-lasting battery of any consumer-grade laptop out there.

Below, we’ll compare the 16-inch MacBook Pro’s battery life against some of the best Windows laptops and the best MacBooks. Note that while Tom’s Guide has reviewed some of the notebooks listed, we used sibling-site Laptop Mag’s laptops with the best battery life piece as a primary source — especially since both sites employ the same testing methods.

Also, keep in mind that we’re not comparing rugged laptops here. Though some of those machines can indeed last well over 24 hours, they’re in a class of their own. With that said, let’s see how other laptops compare to the M2 Max-driven MacBook Pro 16-inch.

MacBook Pro 16-inch 2023 battery life vs competing laptops 

MacBook Pro 16-inch 2023: Which laptops come close? 

As stated up top, last year’s MacBook Pro 13-inch reigned supreme with its impressive 18 hours and 20 minutes of battery life. The MacBook Pro 16-inch we tested lasts 36 minutes longer. That might not sound like much, but if you’re out and about working on something important and there’s no wall outlet in sight, those 36 minutes could be crucial.

The 15-inch Dell Latitude 9510 is another laptop that’s in the same battery life league with its impressive 18 hours and 17 minutes. That’s just three minutes shy of 2022’s MacBook Pro, which makes the two laptops fairly evenly matched. With that said, Dell’s notebook has a lower-res 1080p display.

We see the gap widen after that. Laptops like the Dell Latitude 9410 2-in-1 (16:54) and Asus ExpertBook B9450 (16:42) have what is effectively all-day battery life. The entry-level MacBook Pro 14-inch 2023 with an M2 Pro chip sporting 10 CPU cores and 16 GPU cores clocks in at 16:37, which is also phenomenal. Let’s not forget the still impressive M1-powered MacBook Pro, which lasted for 16 hours and 32 minutes in our testing. Rounding out 16-hour laptops is the HP Elite Folio at 16 hours and 21 minutes.

The HP EliteBook x360 1040 G7 and Samsung Galaxy Book Flex 15 stay within the 15-hour range. The MacBook Air with M1 (14:41), MacBook Pro 14-inch (2021) (14:08), MacBook Air 2022 (14:02) and the new MacBook Pro 14-inch (14:02) provide less battery life, but anything above 14 hours is great. 

MacBook Pro 16-inch 2023: The new champ 

We wondered if 2023’s MacBook Pros would either match or exceed the 13-inch MacBook Pro’s epic battery life. We now have our answer, and we’re justifiably blown away. While this laptop costs an eye-watering $5,299 as configured, its incredible battery life can’t be denied. 

It’s hard to see another laptop achieving such a lofty battery life this year, though anything is possible. I don’t know about you, but I’m now even more curious to see what future iterations of the Apple M-series processor can deliver.