Battery Life - new iPad owners

[Scavenger]

Hi,

Received my iPad today in the UK - loving it so far and posting from the device now

Just wondering how fellow new iPad owners are fairing for battery life.

I'm on 41% now after playing with it pretty much non stop since 12.30 UK time. How about you?

 

[miles01110]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/888748/

 

[poloponies]

Hi,

Received my iPad today in the UK - loving it so far and posting from the device now

Just wondering how fellow new iPad owners are fairing for battery life.

I'm on 41% now after playing with it pretty much non stop since 12.30 UK time. How about you?

For new and veteran owners (those of us who got the iPad back in the old days) the battery life should be pretty consistent with what's advertised; roughly 10 hours without 3G. 8+ with 3G.

Bear in mind that those figures are in US hours, not metric hours.

 

[Noisemaker]

Hi,

Received my iPad today in the UK - loving it so far and posting from the device now

Just wondering how fellow new iPad owners are fairing for battery life.

I'm on 41% now after playing with it pretty much non stop since 12.30 UK time. How about you?

I can easily count on 12+ hours under normal settings. That's with video, web browsing, music, games, etc.

 

[poloponies]

I can easily count on 12+ hours under normal settings. That's with video, web browsing, music, games, etc.

It doesn't matter what you do with it, the only factor affecting battery life is screen brightness. A notebook, with a mechanical hard drive and optical drive will very obviously lose juice if those devices are accessed frequently. The iPad has no moving parts.

 

[rockafella]

I'm on 36% right now. Got mine at 10.45 am and I've spent over 6 hours surfing the web, playing games and watching tv series using air video.

iPad's battery life is unbelievable!

 

[DannySmurf]

It doesn't matter what you do with it, the only factor affecting battery life is screen brightness.

Um, no. Usage matters as much as it does with an iPhone. Extra services and gadgets turned on/off does have an impact. Maybe not as much as it does on a phone, but still there.

 

[poloponies]

Um, no. Usage matters as much as it does with an iPhone. Extra services and gadgets turned on/off does have an impact. Maybe not as much as it does on a phone, but still there.

I have 2 posts on this thread. The first indicating that 3G use does deplete the battery differently. Aside from that, viewing a video, reading a book, typing a letter or playing a game tax the battery equally. And sure, adding external gadgets will obviously effect it, but on a basis of standalone usage there is no usage difference in what you're doing with the iPad.

 

[RexySF]

I completely ran down my battery the other day to get an accurate run time. It took about 12 hours of streaming netflix over wifi to completely kill the battery!

 

[McMack]

I got a US iPad a week after launch. Over a month later and I've still only had to charge the thing a few times. The battery just keeps going and going. I browsed for twenty minutes and then watched an hour-long show on BBC iPlayer last night with the battery at 19% and it's on 11% now this morning. You wouldn't even try to do things like that on the iPhone or most other devices.

Whatever the iPad is packing, we need to see more of it in other stuff.

 

[Sarkar]

been using on & off since delivered on thursday 10am, about 8 hours of casual use, internet, videos, photos, drawing apps, reading & etc, still showing 45%
that is amazing.

 

[Locker]

Aside from that, viewing a video, reading a book, typing a letter or playing a game tax the battery equally.

That's not true at all. Typing a letter isn't going to be as taxing on the CPU as playing a game or video, and thus, not as taxing on the battery either. There's loads of factors which vary during use and affect the battery life, how often it writes to disk for example.

 

[Gymgenius]

Mine is down to about 36% after coming out of the box, and only being connected to iTunes to initialise it, so no time to charge.

I used it straight for six and a half hours when I got home.
I love the staying power of this beauty!

 

[WytRaven]

Gonna have to run mine down to nil and recharge from scratch I think as mine seems to be draining way too fast. I just suspect that it is confused. If it's still draining after that then i'll have to exchange it but im trying to avoid that as I really don't want to be without it

Absolutely loving this thing. Thanks

 

[mattyuk]

Great device, even better battery I was on it from about 6pm till 1am last night. Only a bit peed off coz It wont charge via USB.

 

[m1n1s]

my usage yesterday was about the same 5.30pm til midnight and the charge went from 98% to 60% , surfing the web, watching movies and music videos etc........

 

[poloponies]

That's not true at all. Typing a letter isn't going to be as taxing on the CPU as playing a game or video, and thus, not as taxing on the battery either. There's loads of factors which vary during use and affect the battery life, how often it writes to disk for example.

The processor draws relatively little power compared to the display and the variance in usage isn't great. There are obvious usage exceptions where battery life will be extended, for example, Apple says you can get 140 hours f battery life for music playback with the display off. But the fact that you're taxing the processor more by playing a game or watching a movie will yield less of a differential than bumping your display brightness to 100%. So, all things being equal with the display settings, you might get more than 10 hours with typing only or just less than 10 with video, but it's not going to a huge swing.


As for "writes to disk" you lost me there. Transfer to/from flash is infinitessimally small as far as usage goes (see: 140 hours of battery life in music-only mode).

 

[Powierski]

Great device, even better battery I was on it from about 6pm till 1am last night. Only a bit peed off coz It wont charge via USB.

I can charge off USB with my MBP?

 

[pfft]

For new and veteran owners (those of us who got the iPad back in the old days) the battery life should be pretty consistent with what's advertised; roughly 10 hours without 3G. 8+ with 3G.

Bear in mind that those figures are in US hours, not metric hours.

Ummmm, I read that comment about metric hours and had a little giggle thinking it was a joke. It was a joke right?

 

[diabolic]

I can charge off USB with my MBP?

You can, but it's significantly slower than using the wall charger.

 

[Powierski]

You can, but it's significantly slower than using the wall charger.

Agreed I find the same with my iPhone too.

 

[alecgold]

Agreed I find the same with my iPhone too.

Did notice it with the ipad, but the iphone charges pretty normal from my observations. It's just very hard to charge when using TomTom navigator.
That program really chews at my battery like a hungry lion.

 

[gazwas]

Location Services

Anyone noticed any difference by leaving the location services on/off?

I understand this feature can dramatically effect the battery performance of the iPhone and wondered if it was the same with the iPad?

 

[dundonald]

I got mine about 4.30 yesterday and tried to run the b***er down to zero,
but I literally had to loop a video for another 5 hours to kill it! I should explain
2 hours syncing. So charging up to about 90%.
2 hours daughter playing with the adobe sketch programme
4 hours of intensive web, streaming action and app downloading
5 hours of constant video via air video
iPad death
Discover wall charger is DOA
Spend 4 hours charging from Macbook Pro to just reach 60%!

Can't take it anymore and go to pub where I have to show and tell.
Forget conditioning batteries. Mine's a pint of Hoegarden!

 

[ferritt]

I have the brightness set to just below half with auto set. Location services are on. Wifi on (wifi only) and Bluetooth off. Not watched any vids yet just browsing and games but I can't see me getting 8/10 hours on this thing. Ran it down to 5% last night then full charged it over night. Been on all morning and already down to 80%. An hour of angry birds nearly took 10% of the battery. I'm gonna run it dead then fully charge it and see what happens.

Cheers