Battery Life

[ParishM]

just got this today and charged it up to 100%.
watched 2 movies about 4.5hrs and the battery is
down to 35% i hope it gets better after a few cycles !

 

[b0blndsy]

Your battery life is OK nothing to worry. Latest apple specification says the new battery life is upto 10 hours.

 

[Stealthipad]

just got this today and charged it up to 100%.
watched 2 movies about 4.5hrs and the battery is
down to 35% i hope it gets better after a few cycles !

Just what are you expecting?

What other device allows you to watch 2 movies taking 4.5 hours and STILL have 35% battery???

Hold you new iPad up and turn it around and look at carefully. Would you rather it be one inch THICK?

Some are hard to please.

Playing movies uses a good bit of processing which uses more battery, you SHOULD be happy.

 

[Merthyrboy]

Yeah thats pretty normal but also depends on your brightness and other factors. I usually get around 10 hours using my iPad and it is like the greatest battery ever.

 

[Matthew9559]

That sounds normal. Try turning your brightness down, and turn off both Wifi and 3G. That will make your device last longer. It's constantly doing a lot of unnecessary things if you leave the internet on for when you're watching a movie.

 

[Piggie]

You raise a good point.

It's shame we don't have any means to see how power hungry something is.

Perhaps for example the iPad's basic video playback, playing back a video converted to the iPads native format using far less power than say a 3rd party app playing back some other format.

I just don't know.

 

[BrennerM]

I can virtually guarantee that the native "Videos" app playing back an M4V/MP4 video will be easier on battery life than a third party app playing back some other video format. The third party app has to use the CPU much more intensively to decode the video for display. Even if it transcodes on the fly to native format, you still have that layer of transcoding happening which will eat battery for sure.

And of course streaming video will be even worse because it is heavily using the WiFi or 3G module/antenna to stream the data.

Your ultimate best battery option for video watching will be:
- native video sized exactly to 1024X768 (thus no scaling required)
- turn brightness down as much as possible
- use headphones and turn volume down as much as possible
- airplane mode (no antennas active)

This may not be practical (esp the 1024X768 video size) but is probably going to yield maximum battery life.

 

[maturola]

just got this today and charged it up to 100%.
watched 2 movies about 4.5hrs and the battery is
down to 35% i hope it gets better after a few cycles !

4.5hrs of Video Playback and 35% battery left on a mobile device seen pretty good to me

 

[NebulaClash]

I routinely get 10+ hours of usage on my iPad, including a small amount of movie watching in the process (more like viewing short videos). So yeah, you're seeing the effect of two movies in a row.

Which should handle most airline flights, come to think of it.

 

[ParishM]

i guess i was expecting the 9-10 hours Apple claims.

i watched a 3rd movie and it dropped to 5% before
i put it on charge (6 hours of movies)

2 of the movies were on the iPad and the 3rd i streamed
from Netflix. i will also try lowering the brightness (i had
it maxed) and turning off the WiFi and see how it goes.

so far i'm very impressed overall, it's a very handy
little toy !

 

[maturola]

i guess i was expecting the 9-10 hours Apple claims.

i watched a 3rd movie and it dropped to 5% before
i put it on charge (6 hours of movies)

2 of the movies were on the iPad and the 3rd i streamed
from Netflix. i will also try lowering the brightness (i had
it maxed) and turning off the WiFi and see how it goes.

so far i'm very impressed overall, it's a very handy
little toy !

I am sure that Apple claims is easily achievable, the spec say "video" no "movies", quality of the video, length, source and sounds have a lot to do with Battery life.

 

[BrennerM]

Streaming video (i.e. Netflix) is going to use way more battery than a video played from internal flash storage. Unfortunately that is the reality of WiFi and/or 3G reception - it demands a lot of battery life. And streaming means a constant influx of data over those connections, not just occasional data like surfing the web requires.

iPad still destroys most of the competition on battery life, especially considering how small the battery actually is compared to, say, a laptop battery (which itself will often be almost as heavy as an entire iPad!).

 

[poloponies]

I am sure that Apple claims is easily achievable, the spec say "video" no "movies", quality of the video, length, source and sounds have a lot to do with Battery life.

The display, 3G and Bluetooth are the battery hogs. If you turn off all 3G/wireless/bluetooth and set your display at 50% brightness there won't be an appreciable difference whether you're watching a movie, typing on Pages or reading a book. This is not a computer where you're accessing a hard drive and have a fan kicking in with CPU usage.

 

[ParishM]

The display, 3G and Bluetooth are the battery hogs. If you turn off all 3G/wireless/bluetooth and set your display at 50% brightness there won't be an appreciable difference whether you're watching a movie, typing on Pages or reading a book. This is not a computer where you're accessing a hard drive and have a fan kicking in with CPU usage.

i'm surprised bluetooth and 3G use so much power on the iPad, i leave
bluetooth, wifi, and 3G active on my iPhone4 24/7 and it doesn't
effect the battery at all.

 

[Dr McKay]

That seems pretty good to me.

 

[maturola]

i'm surprised bluetooth and 3G use so much power on the iPad, i leave
bluetooth, wifi, and 3G active on my iPhone4 24/7 and it doesn't
effect the battery at all.

The bottom line is that the battery life you are seing is actually "real good" and if you want to hit the specs of 9 hours you need to do it with the same "testing conditions" that Apple did (which nobody really knows but can guess it was with no other source of power hugging on)

 

[Piggie]

I think the iPad battery is great.

I only have one complaint which is that Notifications being turned on wastes so much power with the iPad just sitting there being unused.

So much so that I have Notifications turned off as for me my iPad lasts a few days more without them on.

I wonder why they use so much?

 

[darngooddesign]

I think the iPad battery is great.

I only have one complaint which is that Notifications being turned on wastes so much power with the iPad just sitting there being unused.

So much so that I have Notifications turned off as for me my iPad lasts a few days more without them on.

I wonder why they use so much?

IRC your iDevice is constantly pinging a server.

 

[poloponies]

i'm surprised bluetooth and 3G use so much power on the iPad, i leave
bluetooth, wifi, and 3G active on my iPhone4 24/7 and it doesn't
effect the battery at all.

It's not the mere fact that they're on, per se, it's that they allow for apps to access the Internet or in the case of Bluetooth, seek peripherals. Shut down the portal and you shut down the portal access.

 

[Piggie]

IRC your iDevice is constantly pinging a server.

Constantly?

I can see, I think between 10% and 15% of battery life get used up without me ever using the iPad with notifications on.

Hence I never turn them on.

Perhaps Apple could give a very quick way to turn them on when you are using the iPad and turn them off when you put it down and not using it?

 

[poloponies]

Constantly?

I can see, I think between 10% and 15% of battery life get used up without me ever using the iPad with notifications on.

Hence I never turn them on.

Perhaps Apple could give a very quick way to turn them on when you are using the iPad and turn them off when you put it down and not using it?

Like perhaps with the little switch above the volume toggle on the side of the iPad case?

 

[Piggie]

Like perhaps with the little switch above the volume toggle on the side of the iPad case?

Actually you make a good point.

In an ideal world, for me, and judging by comments on these forums from others, what would happen would be Apple would make this a soft switch.

In settings there may be like half a dozen different things you could assign to this switch.

Mute, or sort of mute, as we have now.
Rotation lock
Notifications on/off

And perhaps a couple of new things related to iPad2 when it comes.

As no two people are the same, I'm sure many would like a choice.

It's a strange person who would say people should not have a choice as they should all think the same.