3g ipad battery life doesn't seem up to par

swy05 said:

Since I got it, I completely discharged it once and completely filled it up.

To do a rough test, I started browsing Safari and browsed various sites and noticed that it would lose 1% of battery roughly every 6 minutes. I noticed that the top half of the ipad was ever so slightly warm.

Just wondering if this is the norm? It seems rather low?


The only thing I have on is Wifi constantly. Push/BT/location services are all set to off. Brightness is about 35% and auto-brightness turned off.

I wish there was a usage/standby info like how the iphone has it.

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This does not seem normal.. I have an iPad 3G and it still seems to live up to, and past, the 9-10 hr bar apple has set for it AND mine is jail broken which is suppose to lower battery life.. Just a few minutes ago was the first time I have ever run it down 100% until it shut off and that was after 3 days of very heavy wifi and 3G use. (as a matter of fact on a side note, probably the most I have used the 3G service thus far.) and no I'm not trying to brag, but something doesn't seem right in your case. Also the heating issue seems odd. Never had any problems with mine getting hot?.. Take it to an apple store while you can.

1% every 6 minutes = 600 minutes for 100% = 10 hours battery life.

Isn't this what they promised?

You and my mother are the only two people I've heard complain about this.

The iPad uses about 10% per hour, which is consistent with what your experience has been so far. Yes, sometimes you'll get a little more, but there is NOTHING WRONG if you are getting 10 hours on one charge.

I've had it run down in significantly less time than 10 hours.

If it's not enough for you you're welcome to take it back. What sort of battery life would please you?

swy05 said:

But then again, everyone is posting up 10+ hours of battery life?

Also, just from simple web-browsing? Watching a movie or playing a game, I can see the battery drain. But 1% drain every 6 minutes from just web-browsing?

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That's why apple said 10 hours. YMMV. If you get better, lucky you. If not.. too bad. Still better than your average netbook.

Webbrowsing could certainly drain your battery more. Not because of the CPU-power needed, but the wifi-connection. If your connection is unstable, it needs to "re-do" the data transfer every time.

games and video are optimized for the ipad, these are actually much less CPU-intensive. (ipad has it's own dedicated video-decoderchip and such as it only needs to deal with one codec)

swy05 said:

But then again, everyone is posting up 10+ hours of battery life?

Also, just from simple web-browsing? Watching a movie or playing a game, I can see the battery drain. But 1% drain every 6 minutes from just web-browsing?

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This might be a stupid question but is this web browsing over 3G or Wi-Fi? Because Apple only state 9 hours when surfing on 3G not 10...

I've found the Ipad battery life to be extremely good, due partly to its large batteries (2 in serial) inside it. Apple could have made them slightly larger by expanding the width of the battery to fill just up to the endge of the frame - horizontally - as shown in this pic: http://s1.guide-images.ifixit.com/igi/mWlZDTXrEvrnqiNJ.huge

smiddlehurst said:

This might be a stupid question but is this web browsing over 3G or Wi-Fi? Because Apple only state 9 hours when surfing on 3G not 10...

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WiFi uses at 2.4GHz frequency compared to 3G here in Australia using 850Mhz, so it would seem wireless would use more power due to its larger bandwith and higher frequency.

I have found the battery last long enough for me to never have to worry about it running out.

This comes at the cost of it taking So damn long to recharge from 0%.

RobBookPro said:

I have found the battery last long enough for me to never have to worry about it running out. This comes at the cost of it taking So damn long to recharge from 0%.

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The iPad does take longer to charge than most apple devices (excluding Macbook's etc) due to the large dual batteries to power the beast. The IPS display uses most of the power, something that could have been resolved by using an OLED display which has no backlight. But Alas, the screen quality and contrast and viewing angle of the IPS display is siimply amazing.

I generally see 8-9 hours, but then i always use max brightness, and its always using either WiFi or 3G, i only have one or the other turned on though. Still, quite content with that.

Streethawk said:

I generally see 8-9 hours, but then i always use max brightness, and its always using either WiFi or 3G, i only have one or the other turned on though. Still, quite content with that.

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So, you literally toggle the difference in the settings every time you move from Wi-Fi to 3G and back?

I only have brightness set at 50% with the automatic option disabled.

superflush said:

So, you literally toggle the difference in the settings every time you move from Wi-Fi to 3G and back?

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Yep, exactly.

Streethawk said:

I generally see 8-9 hours, but then i always use max brightness, and its always using either WiFi or 3G, i only have one or the other turned on though. Still, quite content with that.

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'kin ell do you use sunglasses when using it or something! Max brightness really is bloody bright, well for me anyway!

As for my battery, with consistant usage I can get a full day's worth. With erratic use I can get several days. I worried about it at first but quickly realised that my device is operating at the levels that it should be.