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iPad 3 battery drain is insane!

M

MacAttacka

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 23, 2012
376
0
So my iPad 3 was at 95% charge this morning. I played 'Wheres my water?' for 2 hours and its down to 65%! The brightness was on medium. I cannot get my head around this. From my experience Im looking at 6-7hr battery per day, OK that's about enough but my iPad 2 (let's face it, a totally different machine) gave me ~10hrs for the same usage patterns.

So now im going to keep the iPad 3 screen even dimmer and use airplane mode when i dont need the signal. The fact it takes forever to charge doesnt help.

I really hope Apple improve the power management (seriously down clocking the CPU/GPU etc) with the next iOS update.

The retina is nice but we seem to be paying a hell of a price on the battery life. I was not expecting that.
 
Mikekan said:
My battery is the same, if not better, than my ipad2.
Click to expand...

I didnt think simple puzzle games would drain it that fast. The only time where the battery seems to have lasted was when in airplane mode. I might also need to check my wifi signal is strong enough. I realise I was downloading infinity blade in the background so this might have squeezed the battery a little but even so. I'd be ok to put up with one hours drop compared to the iPad 2 but not 3-4hrs. I was planning to use it out and about today but right now its powered off and being mains charged up.
 
MacAttacka said:
So my iPad 3 was at 95% charge this morning. I played 'Wheres my water?' for 2 hours and its down to 65%! The brightness was on medium. I cannot get my head around this. From my experience Im looking at 6-7hr battery per day, OK that's about enough but my iPad 2 (let's face it, a totally different machine) gave me ~10hrs for the same usage patterns.

So now im going to keep the iPad 3 screen even dimmer and use airplane mode when i dont need the signal. The fact it takes forever to charge doesnt help.

I really hope Apple improve the power management (seriously down clocking the CPU/GPU etc) with the next iOS update.

The retina is nice but we seem to be paying a hell of a price on the battery life. I was not expecting that.
Click to expand...

Recalibrate the battery, then if it's still not better then exchange it for a different one. Mine lasts much longer than that.
 
As far as battery drain goes, screen brightness is the biggest culprit, especially on the new iPad.
As much as I love having the screen on 70-80% brightness, I find that having it on 45-50% helps significantly with battery drain.
 
Coming from the original iPad, I see iPad 3 as being much better. You can't expect to play a game and have the battery last the entire 10 hours. It's possible that once where's my water is more updated for the iPad 3 it will make better use of the GPU, etc...
 
SOLLERBOY said:
How many times have you charged it since new? It takes a couple to bed in.
Click to expand...

I leave it plugged into the PC when not in use so the battery is usually topped up. I did a full drain and recharge the other day, stuck it in full brightness with wifi on and it drained in no time. Then I mains charged it over night to 100%. To be honest I regret not doing a few charge cycles in the first two weeks to get a proper feel of the battery life.
 
Pressure said:
Is the game by chance ad-supported?
Click to expand...

No it isnt. Its the paid version.

Right now im waiting for a 100% charge, will put make sure all background apps are off and play something else for an hour or two. It might be a rogue app in the background. A lot of my apps seem to behave differently on my iPad 3 compared to my iPad 2.
 
Ok, so I need to head out so I'll run a little test on the iPad 3 while im gone.

Im going to turn all the background apps off, leave wifi and push on.

The screen is obviously going to be off so it will be interesting to see the power drain in 2-3hrs time. I know my iPad 2 would have had 0-1% drain in that time under the same conditions.

Effectively its doing nothing so there should be next to no drain. No apps are running. I will report back when Im done.
 
The problem here is that Apple literally just added two extra GPU cores and just (any other competitor, would try to put more cores in the same amount of space).

I'd really expect Apple to produce their next chip on a 32nm or 28nm line which would be much more energy-efficient. And perhaps put even more power in, within a smaller surface area.

----------
MacAttacka said:
No it isnt. Its the paid version.

Right now im waiting for a 100% charge, will put make sure all background apps are off and play something else for an hour or two. It might be a rogue app in the background. A lot of my apps seem to behave differently on my iPad 3 compared to my iPad 2.
Click to expand...
It's best to charge it overnight. The iPad continues charging for about an hour after you have reached 100%.
 
I'm routinely getting 10.5-11 hours screen-on use per day with my brightness set to 70% and WiFi only. I get slightly more when disabling WiFi as that burns power even when not being used. Location services disabled as I use my iPhone for navigation. Bluetooth also disabled. Average daily use is 6 hours of Note taking and sketches, 2+ hours Keynote presentations using VGA out, plus maybe 1-2 hours of video use. IBooks seldom used, maybe a few rounds of Words with Friends thrown in there also. Charge is via standard ipad charger overnight.

This exceeds my expectations for the iPad 3.
 
Last edited:
MacAttacka said:
I leave it plugged into the PC when not in use so the battery is usually topped up. I did a full drain and recharge the other day, stuck it in full brightness with wifi on and it drained in no time. Then I mains charged it over night to 100%. To be honest I regret not doing a few charge cycles in the first two weeks to get a proper feel of the battery life.
Click to expand...

First problem sounds like you're using your computer to charge rather than an outlet. Try charging with an outlet and see what happens.
 
Wirelessly posted

I'm not having issues like you are. In fact my battery seems to last 11 or more hours on a full charge. I can go a day or more between charges depending on my use.
I don't play a lot of graphics intensive games and use it for surfing the web, remote desktoping (Jump Desktop), photo stuff, iBooks, numbers, pages and just general use.
I keep my brightness slider about 3/4 of the way on. (Hey how do you guys get an actual percentage number? All I see is a slider and not an actual percentage amount!)
I've turned off location services for most all apps. I clear out my recently used (some say "multi-tasking" or "suspended") apps list frequently.
I did a full battery drain when it was new and will do this once a month per Apple's suggestion. I do NOT charge via PC or car and use only the higher output charger direct to my house current for charging the device. When I charge it's usually overnight to get a full charge. I do not aways see a 100% value for my battery charge and suspect that is due to the manner the charging system works. (Apple recently stated that their iPads charge fully then drain a bit so as to allow for a continual charging while plugged in for long durations. In other words they are always charging and don't reach 100% and then just sit there plugged iand inactive. I think that's why sometimes mine will read 99% of full charge- I unplugged it when it was on the downside of that topping off cycle!)
 
iBighouse said:
I keep my brightness slider about 3/4 of the way on. (Hey how do you guys get an actual percentage number? All I see is a slider and not an actual percentage amount!)
Click to expand...

I think people are just estimating.
 
Turning down your brightness will definitely help extend battery life.

Many have noticed a decrease in battery life and increase in charging time versus the iPad 2. Not surprising given the 4x pixels the 3 is pushing and the 70% larger battery needed to push those pixels. The AnandTech article I believe offered the fairest comparison.

You can take the :( position that this is a downgrade from the iPad 2. Or take the :) position that it's amazing Apple managed to increase pixel density 4x without a more serious hit in battery life/charging.

Enjoy your new iPad!
 
I don't get it either.
I never had to think about charging my iPad 2.
With the 3, it sucks down 10 - 20% in a sitting.
I am using it the same way I used my 2.

I can deal with it taking forever to charge back up, but what happened to the same battery life as 2?

I know it's doing more, but there is also a much bigger battery in there.
 
Well, I just left the device in sleep, connected to wifi and with no apps running in the background. After 3hrs I came back and the drain was 0%. Im not sure why it fell so sharp earlier. The thing is I never had to even think about the drain with my iPad 1 & 2, even 20% meant you could be sure you'd get another 2-3hrs out of it. It was "legendary" in that you knew when other devices said 10% you could be sure they'd conk out in 5 minutes, whereas the iPad really did last as long as it said it would.

I think the trap we might be falling into is using the iPad 3 like we used the iPad 2 and not taking into account how much power the retina and the A5x can draw. We're going to have to make an extra effort to manage power, such as make sure the brightness is kept low and possibly shut down apps we're not using.
 
Battery use is insane

I have had Ipad 1, 2 and now the new Ipad, it spends more time charging, then being used. Yes I am using the supplied AC charger.
Glitch! this gives the product very limited use. Please come up with a fix quick! Tim.
 
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iBighouse said:
Wirelessly posted
I did a full battery drain when it was new and will do this once a month per Apple's suggestion.
Click to expand...

Right on, I wish Apple would include a small note to fully drain battery and charge to 100% on the first use, wouldn't solve every battery issue, but would help.

Also Cellular signal strength is important for people who leave it on, if your not getting full bars your using more power to transmit.

I "always" turn off cellular when I'm on WiFi...Always... in my case it's worth at least 2 hours extra not leaving it on.
 
Flew from USA to Tokyo, about 11 hours, used the entire time above 10k feet, reading, some videos. No seat plug on the flight. Had 47% when I landed.

It's actually better than my iPad 1, but it ought to be after two years of use on the older device.
 
MacAttacka said:
I didnt think simple puzzle games would drain it that fast. The only time where the battery seems to have lasted was when in airplane mode. I might also need to check my wifi signal is strong enough. I realise I was downloading infinity blade in the background so this might have squeezed the battery a little but even so. I'd be ok to put up with one hours drop compared to the iPad 2 but not 3-4hrs. I was planning to use it out and about today but right now its powered off and being mains charged up.
Click to expand...

u r n o t s m a r t
 
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