Apple added the iMessage App Store last September, which made it possible to add stickers and play games within a conversation using the company’s popular chat app. While this is the first iMessages app made by Starbucks, the coffee retailer is no stranger to working with software makers. It teamed up with Microsoft Outlook last year to help easily send a cup of coffee or schedule a meeting at a local Starbucks via the email app.

The update includes new push notifications that will change based on how often you use the app, a mobile ordering review screen with “brand-new look and animations” and new location filtering options so you can find the nearest Starbucks based on what they offer, like when you’re looking for a nitro cold brew or a PSL. Better yet? You don’t have to wait to try it out as all these new features are available now.

There’s been plenty of chatter lately about the new Product Red edition iPhone 7, which finally breaks free from the muted metallic lineup with its brilliantly colored exterior. From what I’ve seen around NYC, though, you’d be well advised to protect any new phone or suffer the all-too-ubiquitous cracked screen. Case and bag maker Speck has just the thing to protect and show off this brightly hued handset, its clear Presidio iPhone 7 case.

This protective shell cleared the 8-foot drop test with honors, offers scratch resistance and its custom-engineered material resists UV yellowing, since many users tend to walk around with their phones out and, you know, beach selfies. Speck has provided us the one of these enviable iPhone 7 handsets and a clear Presidio case to keep it safe for one lucky reader this week. You get up to three chances at winning this prize by entering in the Rafflecopter widget below. Don’t let that stop you from making a purchase, however, the Product Red edition profits go towards raising awareness and fighting HIV/AIDS.

When it comes to laptops, battery life can be a key buying decision. But Which? has discovered that the battery life claimed by laptop manufacturers rarely lives up to reality, with our tests finding it often falls drastically short.

Which? testing has shown that almost all laptop manufacturers overstate their battery claims. In some cases, the battery life estimates were double what we achieved in our lab testing.

Laptop reviews – Read our latest laptop reviews, from brands such as Apple, Dell, HP and Lenovo.

Manufacturer claims vs reality

We’ve compared the stated manufacturer claims against our laptop tests over the past year, comparing 67 models. Overall we found that manufacturers are missing their claims not by minutes, but by hours. The most optimistic laptop manufacturers are overstating their battery life by 50% or more, leaving you searching for the power cable twice as often as you’d expect.

It’s not all bad news, however – our tests found that with Apple MacBooks, you could meet or even exceed the claimed battery life, according to Apple.

Laptop batteries: What we found

We test laptops for battery life while actively browsing the web over wi-fi, running the laptop in this fashion until the battery is fully drained. In the graphic above, we show the average claimed battery life for all the laptops we’ve tested since January 2016, versus the average battery life in our tests. Number of laptops tested: Acer (8); Apple (3), Asus (8), Dell (10), HP (12), Lenovo (20), Toshiba (6).

The Which? battery test

Each laptop we judge goes through our battery tests at least three times. We don’t simply trust battery capacity claims: we actually drain the whole battery from start to finish, several times over, during various tasks. One test involves watching films until the battery finally shuts down, another continually browsing websites over wi-fi.

We believe that that these tests are representative of the real world use that a laptop would get. As the figures we arrived at are often drastically different to the manufacturer claims, we have to wonder how their own estimates are arrived at.

Below are some examples of the sorts of discrepancies our testing unveiled:

Lenovo Yoga 510

• Claimed battery life: 5 hours


• Which? tests: 2 hours, 7 minutes

Apple MacBook Pro 13 

• Claimed battery life: 10 hours


• Which? tests: 12 hours

HP Pavilion 14-al115na

• Claimed battery life: 9 hours


• Which? tests: 4 hours 25 minutes

Dell Inspiron 15 5000

• Claimed battery life: 7 hours


• Which? tests: 3 hours 58 minutes

Acer E15 

• Claimed battery life: 6 hours


• Which? tests: 2 hours 56 minutes

Which? reached out to laptop manufacturers and asked why there were such big differences in their claims and our findings. Dell told us ‘It’s difficult to give a specific battery life expectation that will directly correlate to all customer usage behaviours because every individual uses their PC differently – it’s similar to how different people driving the same car will get different gas mileage depending on how they drive.’

HP said that is battery tests ‘uses real life scripts and runs on real applications like Microsoft office.‘, and that the exact specifications, such as screen resolution, will impact the results for each model.

It’s vital to look past manufacturer claims and dig a little deeper to find out what kind of battery life you can really expect from your laptop. We test like no one else, so check our full laptop reviews for the Which? verdict on laptop battery life.