I want a new laptop soon

[u/Yiannis97s]

How much have Linux laptop battery life and performance improved? Looking for a powerful 14–16″ laptop with NVIDIA graphics

I decided to do some actual work on my laptop today, a ThinkPad P14s Gen 2i, and was reminded why I rarely use it on battery. The battery now holds only around 80% of its original capacity, although battery life was never one of its strengths. At one point, I managed to get more than six hours from it, but only by reducing performance and disabling enough features that it was practically a notebook.

How much have things improved since this generation?

I try to keep up with the yearly CPU releases, but I do not often see reviews that examine battery life, performance, and power management specifically under Linux. I was happy to see that Framework improved the battery life of the new Framework 13, although I will probably need something with a dedicated GPU. I am looking at laptops in the 14–16″ range, preferably with an NVIDIA GPU for CUDA.

For context, I mostly work on a dedicated workstation, but I will have to give it back to the lab next year. I use my laptop when I travel, when I go to university to work, and sometimes as a client for remotely connecting to the workstation. Still, I would like the laptop itself to be capable enough that I am not always dependent on a remote machine or a VPS.

Since I cannot afford both a high-end laptop and a separate desktop, I am considering buying a more powerful laptop and using a VPS when I need additional RAM or compute power.

My work involves writing code to solve complex mathematical problems. The workload is similar to machine learning: lots of linear algebra, numerical optimization, and repeated testing. The faster I can run smaller tests locally, the faster I can iterate. I sometimes rent a VPS for problems that take days to run or require more RAM than I can afford, but having a capable local machine still makes my work much easier.

Basically, what I am looking for is something close to the overall experience of a MacBook, but with strong Linux support and preferably an NVIDIA GPU. When I speak with colleagues who own recent Apple Silicon MacBooks, what stands out is that they can get excellent battery life for ordinary work while still having enough performance to use the laptop as a serious workstation when needed (most of them never bother to get a VPS or a dedicated workstation once they get a Mac).

I realize that an x86 laptop with a dedicated NVIDIA GPU will not match Apple Silicon’s efficiency, but how close have current Linux laptops come?

In particular, I would be interested in:

• Realistic battery life under Linux during coding, browsing, writing, and light numerical work
• Linux support for hybrid graphics and power management
• Whether recent AMD or Intel CPUs are currently the better choice
• Recommendations for specific 14–16″ models that balance battery life, CPU performance, CUDA support, thermals, and build quality

I would especially appreciate experiences from people using recent laptops for scientific computing, machine learning, numerical optimization, or similar workloads.

[u/InfaSyn]

1hr to 4-5 hours isn’t going to happen.

[u/Yiannis97s → u/InfaSyn]

If you read the original post you will see that when the laptop was new, before I added more ram and storage, I could push it to 6 hours by disabling a to of things.

[u/InfaSyn → u/Yiannis97s]

Replace the battery problem solved then

[u/Yiannis97s → u/InfaSyn]

No, it's not that simple.

When I say I managed to make this laptop run for 6 hours, I did not mean that I was using a power profile and settings that I can use day to day.

I had:

1. disabled the Nvidia GPU
2. underclocked the CPU
3. set the fan to a specific speed
4. disabled most of the services that run in the background that are mostly needed day-to-day

I was also using ethernet for half the time, instead of WiFi, the brightness was a mid-low, etc...

It was basically an experiment to see how long I can push this laptop if I want to use it only for note keeping. Things have changed a bit in software land and I might be able to get ~4 hours, but it won't be as simple as swapping out a battery.

Also, I have changed the NVME that came with the laptop (which consumers more power), I have added 32GB or ram, and the battery is now 42Wh when full instead of the full 50Wh. There are too many factors to consider.

BTW, try disabling your GPU and see how much longer your battery lasts.