Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Generally every night. Some nights and I forget and it usually dies towards the end of the second day. Both my girlfriend and I use it while watching tv fairly often.
 
Use it daily for work and personal. Plug it in every night never worry about it running out of battery. Its a Lithium battery, it doesn't have a "memory" so it doesn't matter what level it's at when you charge.

While we're on that subject, Li-Ion batteries are extremely forgiving and the iPad is good for 1,000 cycles before you should notice any drop in battery life (Apple says it'll be at 80%). Even if you fully discharged it every day and charged it every night that's still three years. Use it to 50% every day and charge it every night then it "should" be good for 6 years (obviously a 6-year old battery will not give you the same usability as a new one).

Short answer is: it doesn't matter how often or when you charge it.

Read up:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/
 
While we're on that subject, Li-Ion batteries are extremely forgiving and the iPad is good for 1,000 cycles before you should notice any drop in battery life (Apple says it'll be at 80%). Even if you fully discharged it every day and charged it every night that's still three years. Use it to 50% every day and charge it every night then it "should" be good for 6 years (obviously a 6-year old battery will not give you the same usability as a new one).

Short answer is: it doesn't matter how often or when you charge it.

Read up:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/

Link didn't seem to work, however I have read Apples recommended discharge and battery care. The fact for me is I'll never even come close to the max recharges before this iPad is gone and I upgrade to the next greatest gadget anyhow. :)
 
I typically charge my iPad when the battery percentage goes down to 10%. I just did a complete battery drain on Sunday, and I'm still at 94%. Although I really only use it at night to surf the web, use Twitter/Facebook, or read an e-book. This typically equates to me charging my iPad every 5 days or so.
 
Since i carry my ipad with me every where i go and it beening used allmost on a hourly basis at times when iam away from the desktop it gets charge all most daily
 
Im trying to let mine run out today and start from 0. I think it needs a cycle. Its been draining fast lately. I dont know if its the netflixm
Or what. On average how much perdent do you guys lose when watching say an epsiisode of law and order on the pad?

I ran a test recently where I did a full charge cycle and then shut off everything and played movies until the battery ran out. They were movies on my iPad but it lasted well over 10 hours. I think I was close to 14 hours. I was surprised.
 
FYI it's Lithium Polymer (not Lithium Ion)

Lithium Polymer is a lot more durable (and longer lasting and more efficient) than Li-Ion. I don't think it matters very much how far you let it run down. This thread should have been a poll.

I charge every other day unless my kids go on a binge. Sometimes I go on the binge :)
 
I'm a little surprised Apple hasn't updated their 'batteries' page to reflect the change they made to Li-Poly batteries a couple years ago.

Here's my evidence: http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/

*edit*
Well it appears there's some variation in how these are defined, but there from what 5 minutes of googling taught me, Li-Poly is a variant of Li-Ion that uses a gel instead of a liquid and can be manipulated into more shapes/sizes. I haven't seen any direct evidence that it performs or behaves much differently, but Apple can maximize their size so you get larger, longer-lasting and less volatile batteries with Li-Poly which is why Apple has gone that direction.
 
Last edited:
I did some extensive testing. I charged Wednesday and used my iPad for 2 days before it ran out.

Uses included: Watching Netflix, Pandora, AIM, twitter, web surfing, youtube...everything. I'm thoroughly impressed. Not only was it above 10 hours of use, but almost 2 days of standby as well.
 

Attachments

  • photo.PNG
    photo.PNG
    157.8 KB · Views: 88
Usually I charge it every 2 days or so, depending on how much I use it. The battery can last me up to 3 days sometimes though. And I use it a lot, pretty much whenever I'm at home around the house and sometimes I carry it with me out if the house. The battery is very impressive.
 
Usually I charge mine every other day, when I'm with my little sister I charge it almost everyday at night for she keeps on using it :)
 
That is very bad for the battery.

Correction: That is bad for NiCD and NiMH battery, these are LiPO batteries. LiPOS can be discharged completely and recharged, or recharged from 90% over and over again. They aren't susceptible to the same types of issues as batteries previous. Unless they overheat or overcharge, then they explode, like BANG, but whatever.

(I fly R/C planes as a hobby and alot of the electric guys use the LiPOs, day in and day out, sometimes drain them, sometimes lots of little charges, they all agree there is nothing you can do to harm a LiPo except for overcharging or overheating, and I recently heard Leo Laporte telling one of his callers the same is true for Mobile LiPos, which makes sense because it's exactly the same thing, just different voltages and capacities of course.)

The nice thing about Apple using LiPo (note: Not Li-ion, those still have some issues as well), is that they are no-brainer batteries. There is nothing you can do to shorten, or prolong the battery life, except keeping the batteries at a stable room temperature as much as possible. Extreme heat and cold can shorten their lifespan.

Also, what usually happens with the guys planes that use LiPos (by the way, I'm not talking about the stuff you buy off of the shelf, some of these guys fly 100lb + planes off of electric motors and LiPos, THATS why you get 10 hours!!), is that the batteries just quit, it's not gradual, but it's very predictable, happens after the same number of cycles, and it loses almost all of it's charge, all at once. They use big expensive computerized chargers to tell them BEFOREHAND, but I suspect in 2 years or so we will find 10 hours one day, 30 minutes the next.

-John

Edit: This is what happens when you overcharge LiPos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37w8nzgcr9c&feature=related

(By the way in the unlikely event that I have worried someone that their iPad is going to explode, 1- those LiPos in the video are ones used for Model Planes and are MUCH more powerful than the ones in your iPad, 2- your iPad uses a charging circuit to prevent this. These guys hooked it up to a charger and intentionally set it to a too-high setting.)

Edit2: Another good one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DcpANRFrI4&NR=1&feature=fvwp
 
Last edited:
I did some extensive testing. I charged Wednesday and used my iPad for 2 days before it ran out.

Uses included: Watching Netflix, Pandora, AIM, twitter, web surfing, youtube...everything. I'm thoroughly impressed. Not only was it above 10 hours of use, but almost 2 days of standby as well.

Stupid question but, how did you get Usage time to display.

I thought the ipads don't have a general usage/standby time. Only cellular data usage time.
 
Stupid question but, how did you get Usage time to display.

I thought the ipads don't have a general usage/standby time. Only cellular data usage time.

+1 I'd love to see this info, for some reason I love to track my useage on all iDevices and my Mac

I'm guessing it's a jailbreak tweak, from another thread i saw!
 
+1 I'd love to see this info, for some reason I love to track my useage on all iDevices and my Mac

I'm guessing it's a jailbreak tweak, from another thread i saw!


Haha yeah, I'll see if I can upload the files later today. (bedtime). You just have to replace 2 files using cyberduck but u must be jail broken to do it. I love watching my usage time creep up and my battery doesn't even flinch. I have a battery in my 2007 MBP with 45% health so this is my mobile computer when I want to be away from an outlet for more then 45 minutes. Lol.
 
My iPad sits on my night stand so I charge it nightly when I'm home but if I'm on the road, I find I can get away with charging it every several days. The reason I charge it less is I rely more on my iPhone 4 and use my iPad less since getting the iP4. I can't get away with skipping a day's charging the iP4 but the iPad is less critical mainly because I use it less but also because of its excellent battery life when I do use it.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.