All laptop batteries are capped at 100Wh. US legislated that bigger than that and you cannot take such a laptop onto a plane. This is why the biggest batteries that go into laptops usually state the typical capacity as 99.9Wh. Smartphones are similarly capped at 20Wh - but for transportation as hazardous goods.
This cap and efficiency improvements means that we don't even get the newest Si batteries in laptops. A better battery would only improve upon a laptops weight.
Tear-downs of cheaper Chinese laptops even show that they have a lot of empty space inside (like 30%). And if they can still claim 15h runtime with such design then they do not have the incentive to improve.

Quote from: Seeking Answers on October 08, 2025, 17:11:23All this battery innovation in cars and smartphones yet most laptops still have smaller batteries than some of the recently released win pc handhelds.

What happened to battery innovation in laptops?

All the battery innovation has gone into making laptops thinner. Because god forbid you can't cut your cake with your laptop.

Welp... my previous laptop had a battery that lasted 3 hours and just a handful of years later it lasts 3 to 5 minutes.
My current laptop lasts 8 or 9 hours on the same usage, and battery health hasn't moved an inch in a over a year.

Battery tech is advancing a lot. It's just that you've gotten used to very good batteries.

Additionally sometimes there's legislation that's in the middle of bigger batteries. See here:
 https://www.notebookcheck.net/Small-smartphone-batteries-in-Europe-could-be-bigger-if-manufacturers-wanted.1132781.0.html

All this battery innovation in cars and smartphones yet most laptops still have smaller batteries than some of the recently released win pc handhelds.

What happened to battery innovation in laptops?