What Tom's Guide actually measured
Tom's Guide's test is continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi with the display at 150 nits. The 14-inch PROLED MacBook Pro lasted 16 hours 56 minutes, and the 16-inch model lasted 21 hours 24 minutes. The tested 16-inch unit has the M5 Max chip. The 14-inch unit has the M5 Pro.
Two caveats come from Tom's Guide itself:
- It normally runs three battery tests and averages them. For this review it could run only one in time. Treat the numbers as a single-run result.
- A separate Tom's Guide battery table lists the 14-inch model at 16:52, not 16:56. That table also lists the 16-inch at 21:24. The honest summary is "about 16 hours 50 minutes" for the smaller machine.
The Windows comparison, with the full table
The headline comparison uses three Windows laptops:
| Windows laptop | Silicon | Runtime |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra (15-inch) | Nvidia RTX Spark | 10:35 |
| Lenovo Yoga 9n Spark | Nvidia RTX Spark | 10:32 |
| Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | 10:26 |
Tom's Guide's fuller table also includes two other Windows machines. The Asus Zenbook Duo with Intel Core Ultra X9 388H ran 14:23, and the Asus ProArt GoPro Edition (PX13) with Ryzen AI Max 395+ ran 11:12. The Tom's Guide table shows the 16-inch PROLED leading the Zenbook Duo by about 7 hours (-7:01). That is a much smaller margin than the 10-plus hours over the Surface, Yoga and Zenbook A16.
Tom's Guide's Dell XPS 16 (2026) result was 13:02. The Dell is a tandem OLED Windows laptop. So the claim that Windows laptops last about half as long fits the RTX Spark and Snapdragon machines, not every Windows machine.
The arithmetic
These are my own calculations from the published times:
- The 16-inch MacBook Pro leads the Surface Laptop Ultra by 10:49, the Yoga 9n by 10:52, and the Zenbook A16 by 10:58. That is roughly twice the runtime.
- The 14-inch model (at 16:56) leads the same three by 6:21 to 6:30, or about 60 percent more runtime.
- The 16-inch outlasted the 14-inch by about 4½ hours.
Because of the single run and the four-minute discrepancy, round these figures rather than quoting them to the minute.
Why the 16-inch lasts longer
I can fill in a gap here. A battery-capacity listing from Macworld shows the 14-inch PROLED models at 72.6Wh and the 16-inch PROLED models at 99.6Wh. The 14-inch M5 Pro PROLED is listed at 72.6Wh, and the 16-inch M5 Pro and M5 Max PROLED models are listed at 99.6Wh. That is a gap of about 37 percent in capacity. It is a plausible explanation for the longer runtime. It is still an inference, not something Tom's Guide tested.
Apple's claim and the other reviews
MacRumors reports the PROLED models still offer up to 24 hours of battery life despite the OLED panel and touch. Apple's own press release carries the same "up to 24 hours" figure. Its footnote says testing was done in September 2026 and that battery life varies by use and configuration. Apple's announcement doesn't spell out the workload behind the 24-hour figure, so the Tom's Guide result isn't a like-for-like check of it.
Other outlets measured less. Tom's Hardware's test also uses 150 nits, and it mixes web browsing, OpenGL tests and video streaming. It found the 16-inch PROLED MacBook Pro lasted 15 hours 57 minutes. That was well ahead of the Lenovo Pro 9n at 10:30 and the Dell XPS 16 at 13:03. Its result is about 5½ hours shorter than Tom's Guide's for the same display and size class. The difference is probably down to the heavier test mix. That is my inference, not Tom's Hardware's conclusion.
Notebookcheck tested the 14-inch PROLED with a Wi-Fi runtime test at 150 nits. It ran for about 16.5 hours, which is over an hour longer than the mini-LED model.
The takeaway is consistent across outlets. The PROLED MacBook Pro leads the RTX Spark and Snapdragon laptops by a wide margin. Absolute hours vary a lot with the test method. Tom's Guide's 21:24 is the most generous figure of the three.
Limits of the result
- Light workload only. Web surfing doesn't stress the GPU or CPU. These numbers don't predict battery life during compiling, rendering, gaming or local AI work.
- 150 nits. The panel is rated by Apple for up to 2,000 nits peak. Runtimes at higher brightness will be shorter. Tom's Guide's lab measured about 550 nits SDR on the PROLED models.
- Not all of Windows. The test compares three named machines, plus two or three more in the fuller table.
- Not the M6 model. Apple's separate 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6, from $1,999, wasn't in this test.
Cost context
Tom's Guide lists starting prices of $2,899 for the 14-inch M5 Pro and $3,399 for the 16-inch. The review units cost much more. The tested 14-inch was valued at $3,699 as configured. The tested 16-inch M5 Max, with 128GB of RAM and a 4TB SSD, was valued at $8,549. Battery life in this test comes from the top-end hardware. A buyer of a base model shouldn't assume a 21-hour result.
What this means for Windows buyers
If unplugged web use matters most, the RTX Spark and Snapdragon X2 laptops in this test trail the MacBook Pro by a wide margin. The Surface Laptop Ultra and its rivals may win on other things, such as graphics, software compatibility or price. This test doesn't measure those.
Before buying, check the test conditions and the exact configuration of any laptop you compare. Look at brightness, the workload, and whether the reviewer ran multiple trials. Then match that to how you actually work.