AMD Ryzen 4000 APUs promise up to 18 hours of battery life

AMD VP of computing and graphics Rick Bergman claims that with the new 7nm Ryzen 4000 series laptop APUs, it's possible to hit a battery life of up to 18 hours. For many years, AMD has had a bad reputation in the laptop market because its platforms delivered poorer energy efficiency than Intel's solutions, but that is slowly changing.

Bergman promised there will be at least one new AMD-based laptop that can hit 18 hours of runtime. Unfortunately, it's not known how this figure was calculated. For all we know, it could be with the screen brightness turned down, WiFi off, no real usage, and a big device with a massive battery.

Bergman’s statement on Thursday just might change our minds. “We’ve moved all the way up to as much as 18 hours with our new Ryzen product,” Bergman said, among other facts about how fast the chips would be, and how many PC makers are adopting AMD’s new Ryzen mobile chips.

Vendors have largely remained tight-lipped about Ryzen 4000 battery performance. Asus has said its gaming-focused ROG Zephyrus would hit “10 hours.”

The first laptops with AMD Ryzen 4000 series APUs are expected within a couple of months. These Zen 2-based APUs are codenamed "Renoir" and feature Vega-based integrated graphics.