Testing shows Dell XPS 16 just hit 27 hours of battery life — meaning it’s the longest-lasting laptop ever

• Dell’s XPS 16 has almost 27 hours of battery life for web browsing on Wi-Fi
• That’s going by independent testing from Notebookcheck.net
• Only two other laptops have ever outdone that result, and both of those had beefier battery capacity than the XPS 16

We all want more battery life from our laptop — it’s universally regarded as one of the most important features of a portable — and Dell‘s new XPS 16 has been shown to really deliver on this front.

We haven’t tested the XPS 16 ourselves yet (or its smaller sibling, the XPS 14), having only gone hands-on with these laptops so far (back at CES). However, Notebookcheck.net has completed a full suite of testing on the larger model (with the LCD screen option, not OLED, and I’ll come back to why that’s important), with results that look very promising.

Dell claims up to 31 hours of battery life, and based on Notebookcheck.net’s testing of web browsing on Wi-Fi, the XPS 16 achieved 26.6 hours of longevity – pretty close to the laptop maker’s boast.

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The site noted: “We’re able to record a runtime of almost 27 hours which is still insanely impressive given that the 70Wh battery capacity is actually on the small side for a 16-inch form factor.”

As noted by The Verge, which flagged up the review, Notebookcheck.net has only ever had two laptops outdo this result.

One of those laptops was very different in that it had two batteries (adding up to 149Wh, so it’s hardly a fair comparison to a single battery device with 70Wh), and the other was a Qualcomm-powered notebook with a Snapdragon X Plus chip – a Lenovo ThinkBook that barely lasted any longer than the Dell notebook.

That Arm silicon is known for its battery life chops, but the ThinkBook in question also had a larger 84Wh battery – it was 20% bigger in capacity than the Dell’s, and yet it actually offered only 1% more longevity.

Apple’s MacBooks were left choking on Dell’s dust here, as were other Arm laptops for that matter, which is seriously impressive.

Of course, battery longevity will vary widely by situation, and you won’t necessarily get 20+ hours of life on the move in real-world usage – it depends heavily on what you’re doing.

Analysis: CPU, VRR trickery, and energy density – a winning combo

As already noted, we really need to test the Dell XPS 16 for ourselves, but this is a remarkable achievement based on this round of independent testing.

What has Dell done to realize this? Firstly, Intel Panther Lake CPUs are a new height in power efficiency for Team Blue, and that’ll definitely help a great deal. On top of that, a neat trick with LG‘s display in the XPS 16 (and 14) means that, for the LCD, the variable refresh rate (VRR) can drop to 1Hz with static on-screen content, saving an appreciable amount of power.

Dell’s new XPS 16 with the LCD idles at the Windows 11 desktop, sipping just 1.5W based on Notebookcheck.net’s measurements. (The OLED can only drop to 20Hz with VRR, and isn’t as power-efficient, it should be noted – but a 1Hz variant is coming from LG Display next year).

Thirdly, Dell has used new battery technology, achieving a new high in energy density (ED) with 900ED cells, which means more power can be packed into a smaller battery. Advances in cooling and overall thermals inside the laptop chassis also help.

It’s a potent combination of factors, by all accounts, and hopefully we’ll be able to put the new Dell XPS models through our own tests, including battery life, soon enough.

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Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel – ‘I Know What You Did Last Supper’ – was published by Hachette UK in 2013).