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mellofello

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 1, 2011
1,257
556
Last night was the first time I got to spend any quality time with my ipad3. I got home around five, and played with it for two hours or so, went out to dinner, and then used it for two more hours. My battery was already at 10%. This is way worse then I ever got with my iPad 1, which I would charge once every 2 days.

I think that the culprit is the screen. I need to run it near full brightness to see it. Anything below 80-90% is illegible. Anyone else experiencing dim screen, and bad battery life?

I'm going to swing by the apple store tomm and compare my iPad to the display versions to see if I got a defective one.
 

Jessemtz25

macrumors regular
Dec 27, 2011
181
37
Colorado
Last night was the first time I got to spend any quality time with my ipad3. I got home around five, and played with it for two hours or so, went out to dinner, and then used it for two more hours. My battery was already at 10%. This is way worse then I ever got with my iPad 1, which I would charge once every 2 days.

I think that the culprit is the screen. I need to run it near full brightness to see it. Anything below 80-90% is illegible. Anyone else experiencing dim screen, and bad battery life?

I'm going to swing by the apple store tomm and compare my iPad to the display versions to see if I got a defective one.

....that or get a pair of glasses if you can't read below 80% brightness.
 

greytmom

macrumors 68040
Jun 23, 2010
3,566
1,002
No, I'm at about 60% brightness and all is well. Battery life is about the same as my 2.
 

tekchic

macrumors 68020
Apr 19, 2010
2,056
1,763
Phoenix, AZ
Wow, the difference has to be the brightness. I run mine maybe at 55% (ran my iPad 2 at an even 50%) and I'm getting the same battery life that I did with my iPad 2.

I have been making sure to keep LTE and Bluetooth turned off while I'm at home on wifi though. When I go out, then I turn on LTE so I have it when I need it.

Maybe you got a dud? Take it to the Apple store and compare brightness to the store units. 80-90% brightness is pretty blinding (IMO).
 

mellofello

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 1, 2011
1,257
556
I needed sunglasses to use my iPad one at full brightness. But my iPad 3 looks like maybe 70% brightness, when I run it on full.
 

doboy

macrumors 68040
Jul 6, 2007
3,764
2,929
Last night was the first time I got to spend any quality time with my ipad3. I got home around five, and played with it for two hours or so, went out to dinner, and then used it for two more hours. My battery was already at 10%. This is way worse then I ever got with my iPad 1, which I would charge once every 2 days.

I think that the culprit is the screen. I need to run it near full brightness to see it. Anything below 80-90% is illegible. Anyone else experiencing dim screen, and bad battery life?

I'm going to swing by the apple store tomm and compare my iPad to the display versions to see if I got a defective one.

Try turning off auto brightness in the settings to see if it helps.
 

DuckSoup

macrumors 6502a
Mar 7, 2008
589
5
Upstate Central NY
I needed sunglasses to use my iPad one at full brightness. But my iPad 3 looks like maybe 70% brightness, when I run it on full.

Same with me. I was unhappy with the iPad 1st gen brightness, as at night with the brighteness DOWN max it was still too bright for me at times.

The 3rd gen, while I haven't played with it much yet in all lighting conditions, seems more to my liking so far.

Mike
 

UrsaMajor

macrumors regular
Jan 4, 2007
130
0
It does suck.

Using 4g with 80% brightness, the power charger in barely charges the battery. Like 1% 15-20 mins.

Turn off cell use and do wifi if you want more life.
 

phpmaven

macrumors 68040
Jun 12, 2009
3,465
522
San Clemente, CA USA
I have to agree that the battery life is definitely not as good as the iPad 2, regardless what the specs say. I have a pretty consistent pattern of usage every day and the battery is running down much faster than before.
 

Cloysterpeteuk

macrumors member
Jul 2, 2010
59
9
I needed sunglasses to use my iPad one at full brightness. But my iPad 3 looks like maybe 70% brightness, when I run it on full.

Well there's your answer there, your running the battery down quick by having the brightness on max, you do know Apple doesn't run it's battery tests with the thing on full brightness?.

I have mine set to 60-65%, same as my ipad1, if your is substantially dimmer than an ipad1 I'd be replacing it with another unit as that's not right.
 

chukronos

macrumors 6502
Oct 20, 2004
458
186
Colleyville, TX
Last night was the first time I got to spend any quality time with my ipad3. I got home around five, and played with it for two hours or so, went out to dinner, and then used it for two more hours. My battery was already at 10%. This is way worse then I ever got with my iPad 1, which I would charge once every 2 days.

I think that the culprit is the screen. I need to run it near full brightness to see it. Anything below 80-90% is illegible. Anyone else experiencing dim screen, and bad battery life?

I'm going to swing by the apple store tomm and compare my iPad to the display versions to see if I got a defective one.

If you aren't using it, turn off Bluetooth. I notice my battery depletes faster with it on.
 

scupking

macrumors 6502a
Dec 14, 2010
766
355
I'm happy with the battery so far. Still haven't charged it since turning it on out of the box. Got it on Friday around 1:30 PM EST and its now Sunday at 9:05PM EST and I'm at 15% battery. I have used it a lot... I have the screen set to auto brightness. I want to drain it and do a full charge to calibrate it.
 

southerndude39

macrumors member
Mar 17, 2012
63
54
I'm happy with the battery so far. Still haven't charged it since turning it on out of the box. Got it on Friday around 1:30 PM EST and its now Sunday at 9:05PM EST and I'm at 15% battery. I have used it a lot... I have the screen set to auto brightness. I want to drain it and do a full charge to calibrate it.

When I opened mine around noon on Friday it was charged to 92%. I used it all day Friday and most of Saturday. I was amazed that I had to turn up the brightness and just leave it on last night to run it down. I wanted to see how long it'd take for a full charge. It took about 6 hours.

So far I can't complain about the battery life.
 

SteveAbootman

macrumors 6502a
May 12, 2008
618
96
I played Real Racing for about 2 hours.. Modern Combat for an hour... countless hours spent on Websites, and watched a full length movie all before having to charge. (This took place over the course of Fri-Sun, so it was in standby for a while as well)

I'm running around 50-60% brightness right now. Pretty consistent with my iPad 1.
 

busterbluth

macrumors 6502
Jun 14, 2008
309
1
can't use it while plugged in

What is disconcerting to me is that it continues to drain if I am playing a game while it is plugged in. That never happened with my ipad2. Love the screen, but the long charge times is definitely a bit a mistake by apple. Not that anything else could have been done, but maybe wait until battery technology could catch up with the displays needs. Although everyone would have lost their ***** if this iPad didn't have retina. Damned if you do....
 

akdj

macrumors 65816
Mar 10, 2008
1,186
86
62.88°N/-151.28°W
Last night was the first time I got to spend any quality time with my ipad3. I got home around five, and played with it for two hours or so, went out to dinner, and then used it for two more hours. My battery was already at 10%. This is way worse then I ever got with my iPad 1, which I would charge once every 2 days.

I think that the culprit is the screen. I need to run it near full brightness to see it. Anything below 80-90% is illegible. Anyone else experiencing dim screen, and bad battery life?

I'm going to swing by the apple store tomm and compare my iPad to the display versions to see if I got a defective one.

I've owned each of the iPads beginning on launch day. I've still got an iPad 1, two iPad 2's...and picked up my third gen at launch, Wal mart at 12:01am, Friday AM. I spent from noon Friday til about 6:30pm reading and surfing with it...no breaks. It came out of the box with a 92% charge. At about 7pm when I put it on the charger, it had 34% left (Friday evening). Saturday, I spent the entire day watching college hoops and surfing, playing games, messing with settings, etc. It was still holding a 22% charge after a solid 12 hours of playing with it yesterday (Saturday)...with several 15-20 minute breaks. Probably 9 hours of use. WiFi...65-80% brightness. No intense games but a couple of videos/you tube...and Net Flix movies (during blowout games;)).

I also had the opportunity to compare brightness and color temperature settings to my older iPads and my iPhone 4s, as well as my wife's iPhone 4. At max brightness, the iPad (3) is just about exact in comparison to it's older brothers. However, the color is more neutral (some say warmer)...which can create the illusion (without the blue hue) of it being somewhat dimmer at max setting. I actually prefer the warmer, more natural tint of the new iPad. Much more accurate rendition of skin tones on everything from web page shots to HD movie content from iTunes, my own BluRay rips, and pics from both my 5dmkII and 7d Canon DLSRs...as well as several dozen shots I just downloaded today from my Canon s95. I've extremely impressed with this new display...in fact, when doing the temperature and brightness comparisons with the older iPads, the new one's sharpness is absolutely amazing...the clarity, sharpness of text...unbelievable the difference.

Obviously, as an iPhone 4 and 4s owner, I am familiar with the retina 'look'...but the tamer tint on the new iPad coupled with the high rez is jarring how incredible the difference is in comparison to the older models.

I suspect you got a bad apple (no pun)...take it back...it may not be going in to stand by when you put it to sleep (I had an iPad 2 that I returned that did this). It's a simple test at the Apple store that can be done. In my case, I've experienced NO significant difference in battery life vs. our two iPad 2s. As well, charging from low 20's to 100% took a reasonable 3.5 hours for me using the enclosed 10 watt charger from the wall.

Good Luck...you just got a lemon. They'll take care of you as the stock in most places is good at this point.

J
 

drjsway

macrumors 6502a
Jan 8, 2009
936
2
Yes, the brightness of the display makes a huge difference on the new iPad. At max brightness, it does drain very quickly. At minimal brightness (10%), at night in the dark, it seems to last forever, far longer than iPad 2.
 

scottw324

macrumors 6502
Mar 5, 2012
453
1
What is disconcerting to me is that it continues to drain if I am playing a game while it is plugged in. That never happened with my ipad2. Love the screen, but the long charge times is definitely a bit a mistake by apple. Not that anything else could have been done, but maybe wait until battery technology could catch up with the displays needs. Although everyone would have lost their ***** if this iPad didn't have retina. Damned if you do....

So I guess gas stations should increase their technology to compensate for individuals that have gas tanks in their car that take 40+ gallons versus the 4 banger car that has a 12-16 gallon tank, right? Because it is going to take a lot longer to fill the 40+ gallon fuel tank than the 12-16 gallon tank.

It is pretty much the same reason. Apple didn't magically make the same battery in your iPad 2 last longer with LTE, dual bar LED, retina display, 1GB of RAM and more GPU cores in the iPad 3. They made it last longer because they put a bigger battery in the iPad 3. A 70% bigger battery. That extra 70% of capacity doesn't charge up in the same amount of time as a battery that is 70% smaller.

What is needed is a faster charger but that may cause issues as others have stated in other threads with overheating. Just plug your ipad in at night like I do before you go to bed and by the time you wake up in the morning it will probably be fully charged. I was at 40 something percent last night when I stuck it on the charger. This morning it was fully charged at 4:30am.

I never understood why so many people don't charge their devices when they sleep. It is the ideal time to do it. You aren't using it so charge it so it is ready for the next day's usage. My iPhone and iPad are ready to go each day for another day of hard usage. Both hold up without having to be recharged during the day.

My iPad 3:
Screen at 50% brightness, LTE off, WiFi on, blutooth on (for BT keyboard), on these forums in Safari. The numbers below are what I got from my usage
7 mins 13 secs = 1% of power used
14 mins 22 secs = 2% of power used

So figure that is about 14.33 minutes per 2% of power usage.

Now multiply that by 50 (since you are going by 2% at a time (if you use the 7 min 13 sec numbers you would multiply it by 100)) and you get 716.5 mins of usage.

Divide that by 60 (for mins in an hour) and you get 11.94 hours of usage.

Now I don't expect to get almost 12 hrs of usage from it but I am sure that you will get atleast 10+ hrs. That is pretty much what I have been getting on my iPad 3.
 

donnaw

macrumors 65816
Apr 19, 2011
1,134
6
Austin TX
I run my iPad 2 at 50% or so brightness. I noticed my new iPad was a bit darker and had to turn it up to 60% or so to see it well. But I then turned off the auto brightness and that actually helped a lot so I was able to turn it down again.

I've run mine through 2 full cycles to recalibrate the battery. I have found that the battery does drain a bit more quickly, especially when playing a game. But the difference isn't much, maybe 5-10%. It does take longer to charge.

I also tried charging and using it, both while surfing and playing a game. It continues to charge during both activities but while playing the game it certainly charged a lot more slowly. A more graphic intense like Infinity Blade may not allow for a charge at all. (I was playing a hidden object game). I can't say if it would continue to drain or just keep up.

All in all to me it's certainly a trade-off from the iPad. 2. I'm not overwhelmed by the display but the other upgrades (RAM, LTE and dictation) make it worthwhile for me. I suppose I'll just have to change my habits a bit to accommodate the battery differences.

OP, if your screen is that dark I would return it for another.
 
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