Apple says its new MacBook Air has a 15-hour battery life – CNET [CNET]

This story is part of Apple Event, our full coverage of the latest news from Apple headquarters.

Gone are the days when a laptop charge would only last a few hours. Apple said its new MacBook Air will have a 15 hours of wireless web browsing battery life. For video playback, the battery will last 18 hours. And the battery life on video calls will be twice the rate on current MacBook Air computers.

The tech giant made the announcement on Tuesday during a virtual event centered on its computers. The focus was on the new chips integrated into Apple’s Macs and PCs. The big difference is these chips are designed by Apple, rather than the company’s previous supplier Intel. Apple says these chips are more power efficient, allow for slimmer designs and longer battery life.

“M1 delivers significantly higher performance at every possible level,” Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technologies, said in reference to the company’s new M1 chip. “This is a big deal.”

Apple has been working on these chips for more than a decade. They’re already in iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch products, but this is the company’s first foray of adding the chips to its Mac lineup. By combining all its devices under the same chips and common code, Apple aims to offer the same experience across all of its products.