Best laptops for beating stage 6 load-shedding

If you are looking for a laptop with excellent battery life to easily last you through multiple bouts of load-shedding without recharging, then an Apple MacBook is likely your best option.

A charged-up laptop can enable you to keep working or be entertained while the power is out.

However, the battery life of many laptops — even expensive high-performance gaming models —  can vary greatly.

In light of the severe load-shedding in recent months, MyBroadband compiled a list of laptops with the longest battery life.

Various factors can affect laptop battery performance, including software optimisation, internal component power draw, and screen technologies and sizes.

Therefore, using only battery size as a measure would not be the best approach.

The best way to confirm the longest-lasting batteries would be to perform real-world tests.

Fortunately, laptop-focused site Laptop Mag has done precisely this with the laptops it has reviewed.

Its test measured how long a laptop would last when continuously surfing the web with its brightness set at 150 nits, typically suitable for use in indoor environments.

The site then compiled a list of the best-performing consumer laptops on the market.

Apple MacBooks impress in battery tests

Five of the ten laptops with the longest-lasting batteries were MacBooks powered by Apple Silicon — the company’s M-series chips.

The laptop with the best battery life was the Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch with an M2 Max chip. It lasted 18 hours and 56 minutes before its battery died.

That would make it capable of lasting through four and a half 4-hour load-shedding slots without a recharge or just over nine 2-hour load-shedding slots.

However, this particular MacBook Pro 16-inch comes with a very hefty price tag, starting from R73,999 on the iStore.

For a more affordable Apple alternative, the MacBook Air 13-inch with M1 processor is also a respectable machine and offers over 14 hours of battery life despite its slim profile.

It’s priced at R16,000, less than a quarter of the MacBook Pro 16-inch with M2 Max chip.

If you don’t require powerful hardware and perhaps only want to stream some video during load-shedding, a good option is the Acer Chromebook 514.

Despite its relatively low asking price of $398.01 (±R7,320 — Amazon’s landed price in South Africa), it also racked up over 14 hours of use in Laptop Mag’s test.

Below are eight laptops from Laptop Mag’s list that you can buy with the longest-lasting batteries to help you beat load-shedding.

MyBroadband has trimmed the list by two models — one MacBook and a Dell Latitude machine — that were unavailable in South Africa or could not be imported directly with Amazon.com.

Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch M2 Max (2023) — Starting from R73,999

• Laptop Mag tested battery life: 18 hours and 56 minutes

Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch M2 (2022) — Starting from R27,999

• Laptop Mag tested battery life: 18 hours and 20 minutes

HP Elite Folio — $941.32 (R17,313)

• Laptop Mag tested battery life: 16 hours and 21 minutes

HP EliteBook x360 1040 G7 — $1,777.95 (R32,701)

• Laptop Mag tested battery life:

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga G6 — R53,749

• Laptop Mag tested battery life: 14 hours and 45 minutes

Apple MacBook Air M1 — R16,999

• Laptop Mag tested battery life: 14 hours and 41 minutes

Acer Chromebook 514 — $398.01 (R7,320)

• Laptop Mag tested battery life: 14 hours and 8 minutes

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M2 Pro (2023) — Starting from R42,999

• Laptop Mag tested battery life: 14 hours and 2 minutes

Now read: Cheapest tap-to-pay smartwatches in South Africa

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Best laptops for beating stage 6 load-shedding