What is the Battery Drain & Browsing Speed experience on your 5th Gen. iPad after updating from iPadOS 15.5 to 16.2?

[davekro]

This morning I decided to try to improve my 5th generation iPad’s browsing speed. Because I read a post on MR that one person’s browsing speed improved ~ 30%, but on a newer iPad model, I decided to do the update -and- increase available storage.
- Storage used WAS 29 of 32 GB, ouch. I Deleted unused apps larger than ~200mb. Now 18 of 32 Gb used. 👍
- Downloaded & installed iPadOS 16.2.
- Wi-if signal strength is strong.

Oye, now I’m reading a number of people w/ 5th gens that updated to 16.2 are having significantly increased battery drain, even while asleep!

What is your 5th Generation iPad’s behavior with regard to battery drain and browsing speed after you updated to iPadOS 16.2? Mention your % of available storage if under say 20%. I don’t actually know a good % to have available for an iPad, 20% is a general rule of thumb for a Mac.

Thanks for any feedback. I will report back my experience after a period using 16.2.

Update 12/18/22: Happy to report there has been no overnight battery drain issue with my own Gen 5 iPad after the 16.2 update. Browsing new page update speed seems better (maybe by about 50%+?? From iPadOS 15.5). I would not call it snappy or fast, but a welcome improvement, nonetheless.

 

[mslilyelise]

I don't have a direct comparison as I'm running an 8th gen hobbled by that same 32GB base storage, oof. But I went from 15.7 to 16.2 a couple days back and everything is nominal. Still getting 10 hours ish of video streaming on a charge, so at least on newer A series silicon, I couldn't tell the difference. Glad your iPad is behaving too!

 

[davekro]

mslily, thanks for the report on your iPad 8 update to 16.2. 👍 You might consider deleting unused apps to gain ‘available’ storage. I deleted never used apps over ~250Gb. Apps we’re the lions share of used storage. I am not sure if my improved browser page load speed was due to 16.2 update, my deleting 11Gb of unneeded apps (went from 10% to 38% storage available), or a combination. Either way, I am pleased with the outcome.

 

[mslilyelise]

mslily, thanks for the report on your iPad 8 update to 16.2. 👍 You might consider deleting unused apps to gain ‘available’ storage. I deleted never used apps over ~250Gb. Apps we’re the lions share of used storage. I am not sure if my improved browser page load speed was due to 16.2 update, my deleting 11Gb of unneeded apps (went from 10% to 38% storage available), or a combination. Either way, I am pleased with the outcome.

I'll give that a shot. My usage case for the iPad doesn't require me to have all the social media and messaging apps installed on it (I have other devices for that) so I imagine that would save a bunch of room. It really only gets used as a second monitor to my MacBook or as a drawing tablet for Procreate, which despite being a couple generations old, it handles really well. Virtually no lag.