Scaling function iPad Pro

[Hergesheimer]

Hello all,

Just got my iPad Pro in. While checking it out I came across setting which I was not familiar with: The scaling option in the display settings.

My question is now: Does this function have any negative impact on the device’s performance? Many thanks.

 

[RLRabb]

I don’t think so. If it does, it must be so minimal as to be unnoticeable. I’ve been using it for months with no issues, as have others here.

 

[Hergesheimer]

Thanks a lot for the info. Will keep the setting.

 

[OlesyaPetrova]

Hello all,

Just got my iPad Pro in. While checking it out I came across setting which I was not familiar with: The scaling option in the display settings.

My question is now: Does this function have any negative impact on the device’s performance? Many thanks.

Hi. I don't think so. This setting is for the ease of use of the device.

 

[floral]

Yeah, basically all it does is adjust the proportions as if you were using a 12.9" if you have an 11", and a (hypothetical) 14-15" if you have a 12.9". It's pretty nice - too small for me but some really appreciate it. I can see using it for multitasking but the resolution default is perfect for me :3

 

[Hergesheimer]

Using it now for a couple of days. Very nice feature. No grafic glitches whatsoever. Thanks for the replies.

 

[Populus]

I’m actually testing it back and forth on my M2 iPad Pro, because I enabled it for a couple of days and the battery life, instead of reaching 14 hours of screen on time, it gave me a little more than 10h with this new scaled setting. And for those that are going to say that 10h is within the expected battery life, I know, but if I’m having 4 more hours with the default resolution, I will keep the default setting.

Today I started the day with 100% and still plugged, I set the resolution back to the default one, and today I’m going to see if I reach the 14h again, doing the same tasks. I’ll report back with my conclusions.

 

[Hergesheimer]

I’m actually testing it back and forth on my M2 iPad Pro, because I enabled it for a couple of days and the battery life, instead of reaching 14 hours of screen on time, it gave me a little more than 10h with this new scaled setting. And for those that are going to say that 10h is within the expected battery life, I know, but if I’m having 4 more hours with the default resolution, I will keep the default setting.

Today I started the day with 100% and still plugged, I set the resolution back to the default one, and today I’m going to see if I reach the 14h again, doing the same tasks. I’ll report back with my conclusions.

Thanks for the info. Very interesting indee. Haven’t really paid attention to the battery stats when using the scaling. if that feature is really eating so much battery life, I will stop using it.

 

[Populus]

Thanks for the info. Very interesting indee. Haven’t really paid attention to the battery stats when using the scaling. if that feature is really eating so much battery life, I will stop using it.

Ok, this are the preliminary results when back to regular scaling -the standard option-

As you can see, with 6h of a variety of usage (mostly YouTube videos and web searches, a bit of Apollo and a bit of other apps) I’ve reached 49%. So… if 6h are needed to drain 50% of the battery, then 12h will get the whole battery.

Also, if we take into account that it takes an extra time to drain from 100% to 99% (because my battery is pretty new), then that 51% could indeed be roughly 55% of the battery. If that assumption is accurate, the total battery life with this usage would be of 10.9h, which would match the battery life I’ve had this past days with the “more space” option.

So, with my experience from today, with just half of the battery being used with the “standard” visualization, the results are pretty similar to the couple of days I’ve been using the “more space” option. Maybe a tiny bit better but that could be attributed to variations in screen brightness or apps used, although I’ve tried to keep the usage as similar as possible.

Tomorrow I will end the battery of this cycle and share the amount of hours obtained. If it sits on the 11h, then the visualization/scale has barely influence on battery life. If I get 12 hours, it will be slightly better than using the “more space“ option, but nothing to obsess about.

The 14 hours mark was with a very light use, that could be the explanation why I got better battery life at first with the “standard” visualization.

Hope this helps, I’ll keep updating this test.

 

[Populus]

Update: the battery has died at 4 AM after, exactly, 10 hours and 20 minutes of activity. Tomorrow I will update this with the screenshot.

This is with the standard visualization, so my conclusion is that we cannot conclude that there is a significant difference between the power consumption of each mode. That means that I’ll activate the “more space” visualization option again and keep using it without too much worry.

EDIT: graph

As you can see, on an M2 iPad Pro, the screen on time for the standard configuration is not that good as I initially thought when watching videos and doing “medium intensity” tasks, so that’s why I perceived a different battery life between both visualization modes. Hope this helps, I’m going back to “more space” configuration On my 11” M2 iPad Pro.

 

[floral]

Update: the battery has died at 4 AM after, exactly, 10 hours and 20 minutes of activity. Tomorrow I will update this with the screenshot.

Weird, whenever I use the scaling my battery doesn't drain at all. It always goes around -1% every 7 minutes or so.

 

[Populus]

Weird, whenever I use the scaling my battery doesn't drain at all. It always goes around -1% every 7 minutes or so.

Which matches, more or less, with the 10% per hour, and the 10 hours per cycle I’m reporting.

If you read carefully what I explained, I reached to the conclusion that scaling isn’t changing in any noticeable way my battery life. Not at least in a conclusive way, maybe there’s a slight variation that I’m unable to measure.

 

[floral]

Which matches, more or less, with the 10% per hour, and the 10 hours per cycle I’m reporting.

If you read carefully what I explained, I reached to the conclusion that scaling isn’t changing in any noticeable way my battery life. Not at least in a conclusive way, maybe there’s a slight variation that I’m unable to measure.

Yeah, but the battery is the same with default scaling. And yea, I did see that part but you mentioned a clear 4 hour difference in battery life.

 

[Populus]

Yeah, but the battery is the same with default scaling. And yea, I did see that part but you mentioned a clear 4 hour difference in battery life.

Yep, on my first message of this post I mentioned a 4h difference, before making a more in-depth analysis, and it made me suspicious.

That 4h difference was caused, most probably, due to the tasks I had done. Doing the same tasks and using the same apps on both configurations (on the test that you can read on later messages), gave me the conclusion that scaling doesn’t affect my battery life.

So I’ve decided to not think much more about it, and just use it in scaled mode, because I like it more that way. Allows me to focus better on the content, even tho I have to enlarge a bit the text size of the operating system and the web fonts.

 

[floral]

Yep, on my first message of this post I mentioned a 4h difference, before making a more in-depth analysis, and it made me suspicious.

That 4h difference was caused, most probably, due to the tasks I had done. Doing the same tasks and using the same apps on both configurations (on the test that you can read on later messages), gave me the conclusion that scaling doesn’t affect my battery life.

So I’ve decided to not think much more about it, and just use it in scaled mode, because I like it more that way. Allows me to focus better on the content, even tho I have to enlarge a bit the text size of the operating system and the web fonts.

Cool

 

[Populus]

Just to leave this case closed, I’m having an amazing battery life in scaled mode as well, so no, I don’t think it has any noticeable impact on battery life, at least on my M2 iPad Pro running iPadOS 16.3

As an example, I’ve been using my iPad for 5h and I’ve barely used 30% of the battery, which is pretty good.