MacBook Air 15-inch battery life tested — here’s how it stacks up

The new MacBook Air 15-inch M2 is like the 13-inch MacBook Air M2, only bigger. Sporting a bright 15.3-inch display, the powerful Apple M2 chip, two additional speakers and an ultra-thin chassis that’s 0.45 inches thick, it’s arguably the best 15-inch laptop you can buy, as we found in our MacBook Air 15-inch M2 review. That’s why this machine has earned its spot in our best laptops and best MacBooks lists.

The MacBook Air 15-inch M2 also has spectacular battery life. On the Tom’s Guide battery test, which involves continuous web surfing at 150 nits of screen brightness, the MacBook Air 15-inch lasted for 14 hours and 59 minutes. It’s one of the longest-lasting 15-inch laptops we’ve ever reviewed, but not quite the champ.

How does the 15-inch MacBook Air stack up to other laptops on battery life? Below, we’ll compare the new MacBook Air 15-inch to other long-lasting laptops to see where it stands. Though we’ve reviewed many of these notebooks, we used sibling site Laptop Mag’s laptops with the best battery life guide for additional data. Since both sites use the same testing protocol, we think it’s fair to use their results. 

MacBook Air 15-inch M2 battery life vs competing laptops 

MacBook Air 15-inch M2: How long does it last?  

The MacBook Air 15-inch M2 isn’t the longest-lasting laptop we’ve tested. That honor goes to the MacBook Pro 16-inch 2023. Apple sent us a model packing the M2 Max chip (12-core CPU, 38-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine), 96GB of unified memory and 4TB of SSD storage. In our battery test, this Apple notebook clocked in at 18 hours and 56 minutes! That’s even longer than the M2-driven 13-inch MacBook Pro, which ran for 18 hours and 20 minutes. If you value battery life above all else, those are the Apple laptops to get.

The 15-inch Dell Latitude 9510 is another laptop that’s in the same battery life league as the two MacBook Pros mentioned above, clocking in at an 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.

The new MacBook Pro 14-inch 2023 also delivers exceptional battery life. The $1,999 entry-level model we tested lasted for 16 hours and 37 minutes. We also benchmarked a 16-inch MacBook Pro with an entry-level M2 Max chip (12-core CPU, 19-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine), and found that it lasted for 17 hours and 6 minutes.

As for laptops with battery life closer to the new MacBook Air 15-inch M2, the HP EliteBook x360 1040 G7 (15:45) and Samsung Galaxy Book Flex 15 (15:44) last about 45 minutes longer. The MacBook Air with M1 (14:41), MacBook Pro 14-inch (2021) (14:08), and MacBook Air 2022 (14:02) provide less battery life, but anything above 14 hours is great.

MacBook Air 15-inch battery life: Fantastic value

The MacBook Air 15-inch M2 isn’t the longest-lasting laptop on the market. However, given its near-perfect balance of performance, portability and battery life, it’s arguably the best laptop you can buy for $1,299. We won’t be surprised if this notebook becomes another hit for the Air series.

If you need a laptop that can last all day (and more), the MacBook Air 15-inch M2 is worth considering. But if you want an Apple laptop that lasts longer and packs more power, then either of the new MacBook Pros are great — just expect to pay a premium.