Watch: Nineteen Seconds That Started It All

Before video became one of the heaviest loads a browser puts on a laptop battery, there was this: nineteen seconds at the San Diego Zoo, the first video ever uploaded to YouTube, posted in April 2005. No chapters, no 4K, no autoplay queue: just a man in front of the elephants and a remark about their trunks.

Even a clip this short wakes a laptop's video decoder, keeps its display busy and pulls data over its network radio, which is why a realistic battery benchmark always includes some video. The numbers behind that are in our long-form feature. If you'd prefer them in table form, see What Drains a Laptop Battery, Ranked.

After watching, head to our News Hub for the latest developments in laptop power efficiency, including recent coverage of LPDDR6 memory controllers and a first look at the next generation of display backlights targeting sub-1W idle draw.

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