Is 3-4 hours typical battery life on an iPad Pro 12.9?

[acaciasbearing]

Reviews seem to suggest that 10 hours is a reasonable amount of battery life to expect from an iPad Pro 12.9. I get less than half that.

- using mainly safari most of the time. Maybe a note taking app or two.
- high brightness. Yes, I know high brightness drains faster. I’m usually seated outdoors though. I might expect a 20% additional hit to the battery, not 60%.
- cellular. No tethering, but I am reliant on my cellular connectivity.
- running iOS 16.1, but it’s been like this since I got this iPad with iOS 15 earlier in Jul.
- this was a clean install dating back to Jul 2022. No restore from backup here.

 

[rui no onna]

Reviews seem to suggest that 10 hours is a reasonable amount of battery life to expect from an iPad Pro 12.9. I get less than half that.

- high brightness. Yes, I know high brightness drains faster. I’m usually seated outdoors though. I might expect a 20% additional hit to the battery, not 60%.
- cellular. No tethering, but I am reliant on my cellular connectivity.

Display brightness is kinda one of the biggest battery killers and I believe power draw tends to be logarithmic.

I've found cellular to consume more battery than wi-fi but it's nothing compared to the display.

I get more than 10 hours (12-16, iirc) on the M1 12.9 but that's with 0-25% display brightness (use it mostly indoors).

 

[FeliApple]

High brightness, LTE and FaceTime? Add gaming and it’s the worst possible combo for battery life. You can’t expect good battery life with that use. You can either decrease brightness or “put up with” that battery life. There is nothing you can do to get good battery life with that use.

You said you expected a 20% drop, you’re expecting too much. I distinctly recall a user here with the original 12.9-inch iPad Pro who said they got 4 hours, but they had to use it at full brightness. That has always been the case, high brightness and heavy usage and the battery will disappear.

My iPad Air 5 gets north of 20 hours with low brightness and light usage. If I were to use it like you, I’d get 4 hours, too.

 

[VaruLV]

High brightness will eat the battery quickly, if I used mine on full brigthness it would probably last 4-6h max, depending on tasks.

 

[FeliApple]

Display brightness is kinda one of the biggest battery killers and I believe power draw tends to be logarithmic.

I've found cellular to consume more battery than wi-fi but it's nothing compared to the display.

I get more than 10 hours (12-16, iirc) on the M1 12.9 but that's with 0-25% display brightness (use it mostly indoors).

I’d even go as far as to call it the biggest battery killer. The only other thing that is close is gaming. You can play a heavy game with 0% brightness and battery life will be abhorrent, too. Anything else doesn’t even come close. I don’t know whether some heavy video editing apps could do that as well, but yeah, you get the point. There are two or three things which will destroy battery life regardless of the rest of the factors, and brightness is one of them. Why would I call it the biggest? Because even with very light usage, full brightness will severely worsen battery life.

 

[acaciasbearing]

It seems like I’m under-estimating the impact of high brightness. I knew it might draw power, but didn’t realise it would cut my effective life by so much. Thanks all for chiming in!

 

[Frankfurt]

For the office I do video calls on Teams all day... Eats the battery… hence, I stay mostly connected to power through the charge port on the Magic Keyboard.

 

[ry-guy]

Depending on the website, Safari can be a battery drainer. your mail app says 2 hours running in the background, so maybe change how much the mail app is retrieving or how often it’s refreshing(turn on manual refresh for any non important accounts etc). the constant use of cellular data to download new emails will kill the battery quick also

your messages app also says 2 hours on screen, maybe offload to your phone instead?
The usual suspects:
-turn background app refresh on only for the apps you really need
- turn cellular data off for apps you don’t need to use on cellular
-check location usage as well
-turn off system haptics if you have them on

all in all, i think all the cellular data usage is probably causing the quick drain.

 

[SebCohen]

I’m definitely not getting great battery life and honestly never have (12.9, M1, 512)….

It usually gives way around 5-6 and that’s just surf and Netflix. Nothing heavy.

 

[FeliApple]

I’m definitely not getting great battery life and honestly never have (12.9, M1, 512)….

It usually gives way around 5-6 and that’s just surf and Netflix. Nothing heavy.

Like I asked earlier, is it at full brightness? If it is, that’s the issue.

 

[Illuminated]

I’m pretty impressed by the battery life honestly. I always am near a charger so I’m never worried about dying.

 

[Propine]

Actually browser and Netflix are quite battery drainers too. Whatever you stream online is going to deplete like 20% per hour, especially with full brightness.

 

[FeliApple]

Actually browser and Netflix are quite battery drainers too. Whatever you stream online is going to deplete like 20% per hour, especially with full brightness.

Brightness at 100% is exclusively the issue there. Web browsing and streaming are not heavy tasks. Like I mentioned somewhere, brightness at 100% obliterates battery life regardless of the task.

 

[MBX]

Yeah I’m also not getting the advertised 10hrs. More like half. And screen brightness is usually at half or 60% brightness.

I feel like my new M2 iPad Pro is getting worse battery life than the M1. Could it be because Stage Manager is using more battery?

Overall a bit disappointing it hasn’t improved at all with the M2.

 

[FeliApple]

Yeah I’m also not getting the advertised 10hrs. More like half. And screen brightness is usually at half or 60% brightness.

I feel like my new M2 iPad Pro is getting worse battery life than the M1. Could it be because Stage Manager is using more battery?

Overall a bit disappointing it hasn’t improved at all with the M2.

Depends on what you were doing. At 50-60% brightness, if the task is moderate to heavy, you won’t get 10 hours. Stage Manager could definitely play a part, although I’m not sure about its battery impact - my Air 5 is on iPadOS 15 so I can’t comment.

 

[pdoherty]

Yeah I’m also not getting the advertised 10hrs. More like half. And screen brightness is usually at half or 60% brightness.

I feel like my new M2 iPad Pro is getting worse battery life than the M1. Could it be because Stage Manager is using more battery?

Overall a bit disappointing it hasn’t improved at all with the M2.

You should have Stage Manager on the M1 as well, unless you purposely held off on updating it.

 

[MarkC426]

I generally get about 7 hours (2015 iPad Pro on iPadOS 16) using Safari and TV app.

 

[robydiamond]

my new iPad Pro 12.9 M2 wi-fi + cellular after five hours and 12 minutes of continuous playback of a YouTube video goes from 100% battery level to zero and shuts down. Brightness always at 100% and connected in Wi-Fi. do you think it is normal? Thank you.

 

[acaciasbearing]

my new iPad Pro 12.9 M2 wi-fi + cellular after five hours and 12 minutes of continuous playback of a YouTube video goes from 100% battery level to zero and shuts down. Brightness always at 100% and connected in Wi-Fi. do you think it is normal? Thank you.

From what I’ve learnt from the other posters, that’s about expected for max brightness. The brightness really takes a big toll on the expected battery life.

 

[SebCohen]

Reviews seem to suggest that 10 hours is a reasonable amount of battery life to expect from an iPad Pro 12.9. I get less than half that.

- using mainly safari most of the time. Maybe a note taking app or two.
- high brightness. Yes, I know high brightness drains faster. I’m usually seated outdoors though. I might expect a 20% additional hit to the battery, not 60%.
- cellular. No tethering, but I am reliant on my cellular connectivity.
- running iOS 16.1, but it’s been like this since I got this iPad with iOS 15 earlier in Jul.
- this was a clean install dating back to Jul 2022. No restore from backup here.

I have 12.9 512 M1.

It’s a bit iffy at times and it often varies without any obvious reasons. Sometimes I get 5-7 hrs, say at least 50% of the time. Then it goes to around 4hrs without any noticeable change from me. It does NOT like high brightness, but we know that. (I wish Apple released expected battery times for screen brightness increments).

After an update it’s HORRID for a few days. I’ve had below 3 hrs. It can even drop significantly while screen is off. So clearly some house cleaning is going on, but we don’t know because we’re not allowed to know. Which I think we should.

It’s definitely not a full workday device that’s for sure.

 

[MarkC426]

It’s a bit iffy at times and it often varies without any obvious reasons. Sometimes I get 5-7 hrs, say at least 50% of the time. Then it goes to around 4hrs without any noticeable change from me. It does NOT like high brightness, but we know that. (I wish Apple released expected battery times for screen brightness increments).

I have never had my ipp over about 40% brightness.
Maybe because I live in the UK, so not much sun.....😎