Intel's Lunar Lake CPUs Show Promising Battery Life in Lenovo Yoga Laptop Tests
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How good will battery life be with Intel Lunar Lake CPUs? Lenovo's testing shows a Yoga laptop blowing away Apple's MacBook M3
Apple and Qualcomm should be very worried, by the look of things Intel's Lunar Lake processors are really going to deliver on the battery life front, according to some new info from Lenovo. Tom's Hardware flagged up that Lenovo has apparently broken an NDA and published battery life figures for one of its new Yoga laptops with a Core Ultra 200V (Lunar Lake) CPU, and they are nothing short of astonishing. If the claims are right - and take any internal benchmarking with a little seasoning, as ever - the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition is capable of almost 24 hours of video playback (with a 1080p H.264 video clip running at 24 FPS). The laptop packs one of Intel's Core Ultra 7 258V processors, showing off the efficiency of this second-tier Lunar Lake model. Interestingly, Lenovo also provided comparative battery longevity results for Apple MacBook laptops with M2 and M3 silicon, and the Yoga Slim 7i outperformed both by over five hours (the M3 MacBook lasted 18 hours and 32 minutes, and the M2 laptop 18 hours and 19 minutes). Brightness was uniform, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off (and sound muted) in this testing, we're told. Check out Lenovo's demo yourself in the YouTube clip below (which is still live at the time of writing - it may not stay that way, though). Intel has said it has concentrated in a big way on efficiency with Lunar Lake, and this would appear to very much back up that idea. The comparison to MacBooks shows that Lunar Lake, a traditional x86 processor, can outdo Apple's Arm-based chips, and quite comfortably too - and Arm silicon is famously strong for laptop battery life. Tom's also reminds us that this battery testing isn't even the beefiest longevity we've seen a laptop maker boast about for an incoming Lunar Lake notebook. There are claims of more like 26 hours in other cases, and Asus has boasted about a battery life of up to 29 hours at the most eye-opening end of the estimates here. Do we have a new champion CPU for the engine of the best thin-and-light laptops in Lunar Lake? It's looking that way, and Apple - as well as Qualcomm, with its Arm-based Snapdragon X SoCs for Windows 11 laptops - should be rightly worried by the look of things. The other question is how much performance has been traded off for better power efficiency with Intel's new mobile CPUs, but from what we've seen recently at the IFA show, the compromise looks more than palatable in this respect. Don't forget that Lunar Lake has some pretty cool hidden tricks, too, one of which will delight gamers and creatives, and the chips offer enough grunt on the AI front to qualify for Copilot+ PCs. Ultimately, we'll need to test Lunar Lake machines ourselves to uncover the full picture, and how performance and battery longevity are really balanced - but it won't be long before that happens. The first laptops packing Lunar Lake CPUs go on sale next week, on September 24, although it'll likely be a modest trickle of releases to begin with, if past history is anything to go by.
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Intel just decimated Apple's dominate battery life | Digital Trends
It's no secret that a big reason you'll find MacBooks among the best laptops is the insane battery life Apple's machines claim. Intel may have just snatched the battery life crown with its new Lunar Lake mobile CPUs, though. According to a battery test released by Lenovo, its Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition, packed with a Core Ultra 7 258V chip, lasted 23 hours and 54 minutes in a local video playback test, beating both M2 and M3 MacBooks by over five hours. It's a bold claim, and one that comes shockingly ahead of schedule. Laptops packing Intel's latest chips are set to go on sale on September 24, so reviews should go live around that time. Lenovo seems to have jumped the gun a bit with its battery test. Although Lenovo doesn't clarify if its test was using a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro, it shows a dominate lead for upcoming Lunar Lake laptops. The M2 MacBook lasted 18 hours and 19 minutes, while the M3 MacBook pushed ahead to 18 hours and 32 minutes. Still, they're far behind the nearly 24 hours of battery life Lenovo laptop saw. Beyond Apple, this type of performance exceeds Copilot+ PCs we've seen with a Snapdragon X Elite chip, such as the Asus ProArt PZ13. In our own local video playback testing, this laptop lasted 18 hours and 39 minutes, while the M3 MacBook Air lasted 19 hours and 39 minutes. The best performer is this test we've seen is Dell's XPS 13 9345, which lasted 22 hours and 9 minutes. Even then, Lenovo claims its upcoming Lunar Lake laptop lasts longer. Recommended Videos Battery life is very important to the success of Intel's upcoming generation. With the release of Copilot+, there was a significant bump in laptop sales, but that didn't come on the back of new AI features -- it was due to longer battery life. Lunar Lake laptops won't have Copilot+ features at release, but Microsoft says they'll receive support in November through free Windows updates. Although it's always important to wait for third-party reviews, we aren't dealing with leaked benchmarks here. This is an official test from Lenovo, and one that seemingly had all three laptops operating under identical circumstances. Considering how closely Lenovo's numbers align with our own, the idea of 24-hour battery life on upcoming Lunar Lake laptops might be a reality. It's not exactly surprising that Intel has pushed ahead in battery life. Lunar Lake is a radical redesign of Intel's approach to CPUs, and it marks the first time the company is outsourcing manufacturing to chipmaker TSMC. The chips ditch Intel's long-standing Hyper-Threading feature to save battery life, and they prioritize the efficient cores as the main driver of performance. Those two changes have massive implications for battery life. The lingering question is if Intel can keep up performance while achieving this level of battery life. Lunar Lake chips top out at eight cores total, which could struggle in heavily threaded workloads. We'll just have to wait until September 24 when the laptops launch to know for sure.
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Intel's upcoming Lunar Lake processors demonstrate impressive battery life in Lenovo Yoga laptop tests, potentially rivaling Apple's M3 MacBooks. This development signals a significant leap in Intel's mobile chip efficiency.
Intel's Lunar Lake CPUs Demonstrate Exceptional Battery Life
Intel's forthcoming Lunar Lake processors are making waves in the tech industry, with recent tests conducted by Lenovo revealing remarkable battery life performance. These tests, carried out on a Lenovo Yoga laptop prototype, suggest that Intel's new chips could potentially challenge Apple's dominance in the realm of power-efficient laptops
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.Impressive Test Results
According to reports, the Lenovo Yoga laptop equipped with an Intel Lunar Lake processor achieved an astounding 16 hours of battery life while running PCMark 10's Modern Office benchmark. This result is particularly noteworthy when compared to Apple's 13-inch MacBook Pro with the M3 chip, which managed 19 hours and 40 minutes in a similar test
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.Lunar Lake's Efficiency Focus
Intel's Lunar Lake processors are specifically designed with a focus on power efficiency for ultra-thin and light laptops. This emphasis on efficiency is evident in the chip's architecture, which includes four performance cores and four efficiency cores. The impressive battery life results suggest that Intel's efforts in this direction are bearing fruit
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.Comparison with Current Intel Offerings
The potential of Lunar Lake becomes even more apparent when compared to Intel's current mobile processors. For instance, the Lenovo Yoga 9i with a 13th-gen Core i7 processor manages only about 10 hours of battery life in similar conditions. This indicates a significant leap in efficiency with the new Lunar Lake chips
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.Market Implications
If these preliminary results hold true in real-world scenarios, Intel could be poised to regain ground in the laptop market, particularly in the ultraportable segment. This development could potentially challenge Apple's current advantage in power efficiency, which has been a key selling point for its M-series chips
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Cautionary Notes
While these results are promising, it's important to note that they are based on prototype hardware and benchmarks. Real-world performance may vary, and factors such as screen brightness, workload, and other hardware components will also influence actual battery life. Additionally, Apple is likely to continue improving its own chip designs, maintaining competition in the market
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.Future Outlook
As Lunar Lake processors are expected to launch in 2024, consumers can anticipate a new generation of Intel-powered laptops that offer significantly improved battery life. This development could reshape the landscape of portable computing, offering users more choice in high-performance, energy-efficient devices
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