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iPad Air Battery Life Bests Other Tablets

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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Apple's iPad Air outperforms competing tablets by a significant margin when it comes to battery life, according to a new test conducted by Which? Test Lab, a consumer test organization in the United Kingdom.

In a battery usage test that covered both Internet and video use, the iPad Air bested both the iPad 2 and the Retina iPad Mini, as well as tablets from competing companies like Amazon, Google, and Samsung.

tabletbatterylife.jpg
With the Internet (web browsing) test, the iPad Air saw 658 minutes of battery life, or nearly 11 hours. The Retina iPad mini came in second place with 614 minutes of battery life, while the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 lasted just 483 minutes and 481 minutes (eight hours), respectively. Apple's iPad 2 also performed well, lasting 590 minutes.

In the video test, the iPad Air lasted quite a bit longer than its competitors at 777 minutes (almost 13 hours). The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 and the Nexus 7 from Google came in second and third, at 714 minutes and 669 minutes, respectively. The Retina iPad mini and the iPad 2 fared decently at 660 and 604 minutes, respectively, while the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 came in dead last with 465 minutes of battery life (7.75 hours).

For the tests, Which? set all of the tablets at a brightness of 200 nits (what it calls a reasonable daytime brightness level) and checked battery life while web browsing over wi-fi (with 3G enabled) and during video playback. The tests may not be entirely reflective of real world usage given variations in browsing and video watching habits, but the experiment does give a clear overall view of the battery life of the iPad Air compared to its competitors.

Article Link: iPad Air Battery Life Bests Other Tablets
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/02/12/ipad-air-battery-life/
N

newagemac

macrumors 68020
Mar 31, 2010
2,091
23
The performance optimization in iOS7 is nuts! This really just shows how far ahead iOS7 is past Android when you compare similar sized devices. It will be interesting to see the battery life of the iPhone once they go with the larger size allowing a similar sized battery as its Android counterparts.

Also looking forward to seeing what iOS7 can do for battery life in something like a watch. Interesting times ahead that's for sure.
 
casperes1996

casperes1996

macrumors 604
Jan 26, 2014
7,416
5,502
Horsens, Denmark
On top op that...

On top of that, the iPad Air is powerful (2300 GeekBench roughly), has more pixels than the others (1536x2048), and runs iOS, which is just generally a good thing... I.E. iPad is the only real tablet worth buying...
 
W

wikiverse

macrumors 6502a
Sep 13, 2012
689
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What constitutes 'web browsing'? Were the exact same sites and functions on those sites used for similar durations? Is it using dedicated apps or just the default browser?

What other features were turned on/off. Bluetooth? LTE? Location services? etc.

Were other apps running? Were background apps and processes disabled on all devices?

All of these can dramatically affect battery life. I don't want to make assumptions about what was/wasn't enabled, but I am usually skeptical of results like these - particularly since they don't reflect real world usage.
 
P

Paradoxally

macrumors 68000
Feb 4, 2011
1,964
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Apple is light years ahead in the tablet market: battery life, and app variety/quality come out on top.
 
Zellio

Zellio

macrumors 65816
Feb 7, 2012
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Highly unfair (fanboy?) test. A 10" tablet versus 7-8 mostly tablets. Should've been iPad mini retina for this, and the Air versus 10" android/windows tablets.
 
nutmac

nutmac

macrumors 603
Mar 30, 2004
6,052
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MacRumors said:
For the tests, Which? set all of the tablets at a brightness of 200 nits (what it calls a reasonable daytime brightness level) and checked battery life while web browsing over wi-fi (with 3G enabled) and during video playback.
Click to expand...

Although I've seen people using much brighter setting (and auto brightness sometimes goes wacky), 200 nits (or better yet cd/m2) is far beyond "reasonable" for reasonable" indoor use.

Video calibration experts recommend a setting 80 (near complete darkness) to 120 (under very bright indoor lighting) cd/m2. All my iOS devices and Macs are configured at 100 cd/m2.

Of course, iOS device under bright sunlight would necessitate much higher setting.
 
Zellio

Zellio

macrumors 65816
Feb 7, 2012
1,165
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adnbek said:
In case you two didn't notice, the iPad Mini, and other 10" and 9" inch tablets also figured in those charts.
Click to expand...

And if it was the ipad mini versus 7-8 tablets it also wouldn't take the top prize..
 
lincolntran

lincolntran

macrumors 6502a
Jan 18, 2010
843
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Zellio said:
And if it was the ipad mini versus 7-8 tablets it also wouldn't take the top prize..
Click to expand...

Really? Do you seriously believe that? iOS7 is freakishly optimized like you wouldn't believe while android is freakishly unoptimized.

On another note, I do like we browsing on my mini retina and I only need to charge it once a month.
 
Parasprite

Parasprite

macrumors 68000
Mar 5, 2013
1,698
144
wikiverse said:
What constitutes 'web browsing'? Were the exact same sites and functions on those sites used for similar durations? Is it using dedicated apps or just the default browser?

What other features were turned on/off. Bluetooth? LTE? Location services? etc.

Were other apps running? Were background apps and processes disabled on all devices?

All of these can dramatically affect battery life. I don't want to make assumptions about what was/wasn't enabled, but I am usually skeptical of results like these - particularly since they don't reflect real world usage.
Click to expand...

I don't know about any of the other tablets, but 10-11 hours on the iPad Air seems to match my own experience. I usually get over 16 hours or so before I need to charge, granted I'm not using the internet the entire time.

Considering that...

1. They state "Internet use".
2. Hiring someone to sit there for 12 hours straight browsing the net for each tablet would be expensive and prone to significant error and deviation.
3. Creating a program that would automate the loading off the internet of a specific set of HTML pages or downloads/uploads a constant rate of junk data (think speed testing) would be incredibly easy and cheap.
4. The tablets are likely to be factory reset for their own simplicity (I don't know of manufacturer that includes something like Bluetooth but doesn't turn it on by default)

I doubt they vary that significantly in setup.

Background services wouldn't matter because this is likely to be trying to show a "Factory reset out-of-box experience" and poorly optimized out-of-box still would reflect poorly on the tablet itself. If you want to know what is enabled by default I would check the individual tablets out yourself.

----------
lincolntran said:
Really? Do you seriously believe that? iOS7 is freakishly optimized like you wouldn't believe while android is freakishly unoptimized.

On another note, I do like we browsing on my mini retina and I only need to charge it once a month.
Click to expand...

Everyone knows that iOS 7 battery optimization is literally tailored to each individual user based on algorithms calculated during the last week of usage. How could Android ever top a device that is literally written by magic and built with powdered unicorn horns?
 
Last edited:
A

Aniseedvan

macrumors 65816
May 14, 2012
1,251
402
UK
This lists what they get up to:

http://www.which.co.uk/technology/computing/guides/how-we-test-tablets/

When I lived in MK, I had many happy experiences of testing items as a volunteer - not tech, but walking boots, pushchairs, knives, evaluating photo processing labs, even garden hedge clippers - MK parks trust let us loose on some shrubbery up near Campbell park.


Some tests were in the Which? lab, some were longer term home trials (like the walking boots), with a bonus of keeping some of the goods afterwards. Never did tech though!
 
T

the-msa

macrumors 6502
Oct 24, 2013
425
210
lincolntran said:
On another note, I do like we browsing on my mini retina and I only need to charge it once a month.
Click to expand...

how come i need to charge my mini retina every 2, maybe 3 days? and i only use it for occasional web browsing when i'm in the bed. i even turn if off over night.

the battery life of the mini retina is ok. is it fantastic? far from it. personally, i cant confirm the 10 hour battery life for browsing.

as usual for bechmarks, they arent too realistic.
 
D

Dreamer2go

macrumors 6502a
Jun 23, 2007
679
303
the-msa said:
how come i need to charge my mini retina every 2, maybe 3 days? and i only use it for occasional web browsing when i'm in the bed. i even turn if off over night.

the battery life of the mini retina is ok. is it fantastic? far from it. personally, i cant confirm the 10 hour battery life for browsing.

as usual for bechmarks, they arent too realistic.
Click to expand...

is it a wifi version?
If it's not, your ipad might constantly finds the best radio waves, using more power.
 
I

iLLUMI

macrumors 6502a
Aug 1, 2012
567
281
I wonder if the iPad 2 they used for the comparison is the original iPad 2 or the refreshed model iPad 2,4 which has 11.7 hours (702 minutes) of claimed battery life.
Interesting that Video use hours is great than Internet use hours. I would have thought they would have been the other way around considering video would use more power??
 
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