I'm wondering what is considered average battery loss per hour? If you're surfing on the internet, sending/receiving emails, checking a few apps here and there, how fast does your battery drop? Mine seems to go about 10% an hour. Is that normal?
Battery Life
- Thread starter Dirigent82
- Start date
Microsoftjunkie
New member
99% of the time mine gets used for fairly consistent but basic web browsing (i.e. not video-heavy sites etc) and I'm getting around 6:30 average life since I purchased the device a month ago - approximately 14-15% per hour.
That's much lower than I was both hoping and expecting, particularly as that's only on 35% brightness.
I'm forced to run only the oldest nvidia driver versions due to the now well-known fault that occurs after a refresh, but can't remember much better when I was on the latest drivers for 3-4 days.
That's much lower than I was both hoping and expecting, particularly as that's only on 35% brightness.
I'm forced to run only the oldest nvidia driver versions due to the now well-known fault that occurs after a refresh, but can't remember much better when I was on the latest drivers for 3-4 days.
thatdennis
New member
Mine started out pretty bad too with 6 hours of light use only. Then after a month or so use, the battery could reach 11-12 hours of light use (browsing, checking e-mails) and 10 hours of use (if watching a video too).
I am in the same boat. So do you guys think your Surface is defective, or re you just accepting the poor battery life and moving on. It was quite annoying for me especially when the tablet is advertised as getting 10 hours of battery life.
Having scoured the internet, it seems that actually my Surface is very much normal, and as such, highly unlikely to be defective.
The issue with comparing battery life on forums such as this is that it is clearly highly dependent on type of use. This seems to be particularly important in the case of the S2.
The reviews vary wildly with claimed battery life, ranging from 7.5 hours to >14 hours.
The Surface is very much optimised for playing full screen non-streaming video because the companion processor core is used. Web browsing seems to be a real killer for the surface 2 battery. If you look at the comments on various forums, most people claiming 6-7 hours are also using it for mostly web-browsing. Those claiming greater are stating "mixed use." When we think of "light use" - for the S2 that is full-screen non-streaming video. Web browsing is therefore not "light use."
When I say "use for web browsing" for example, that is literally constant page-changing web research, not reading a news article for 5 mins or so. So 6.5 hours is not too bad.
If you want to "test" your battery, I'd suggest replicating the engadget video rundown - screen brightness 50%, wifi on and play a non-streaming video through the xbox video app full screen.
Then check actual (not guessed!) drain with the powercfg -batteryreport command prompt utility.
Mine managed over 13 hours.
The issue with comparing battery life on forums such as this is that it is clearly highly dependent on type of use. This seems to be particularly important in the case of the S2.
The reviews vary wildly with claimed battery life, ranging from 7.5 hours to >14 hours.
The Surface is very much optimised for playing full screen non-streaming video because the companion processor core is used. Web browsing seems to be a real killer for the surface 2 battery. If you look at the comments on various forums, most people claiming 6-7 hours are also using it for mostly web-browsing. Those claiming greater are stating "mixed use." When we think of "light use" - for the S2 that is full-screen non-streaming video. Web browsing is therefore not "light use."
When I say "use for web browsing" for example, that is literally constant page-changing web research, not reading a news article for 5 mins or so. So 6.5 hours is not too bad.
If you want to "test" your battery, I'd suggest replicating the engadget video rundown - screen brightness 50%, wifi on and play a non-streaming video through the xbox video app full screen.
Then check actual (not guessed!) drain with the powercfg -batteryreport command prompt utility.
Mine managed over 13 hours.
I think everyone uses their tablet for internet browsing.
This is my 7th Surface 2 (yes, 7th!). I have 8 cycles on this Surface 2. My design capacity is 31,650 at full charge capacity is now 29,678. This is that too much of a drain after 8 cycles? I am averaging 6 hours and 11 minutes.
Aside from the news app, twitter, Facebook and IE, I don't do anything else on this thing. In fact, I still have 16gb space left out of the 32gb capacity.. I have no games, etc.
Am I supposed to assume that this one is defective too? I've just about had it because of the quality control and now battery life.
This is my 7th Surface 2 (yes, 7th!). I have 8 cycles on this Surface 2. My design capacity is 31,650 at full charge capacity is now 29,678. This is that too much of a drain after 8 cycles? I am averaging 6 hours and 11 minutes.
Aside from the news app, twitter, Facebook and IE, I don't do anything else on this thing. In fact, I still have 16gb space left out of the 32gb capacity.. I have no games, etc.
Am I supposed to assume that this one is defective too? I've just about had it because of the quality control and now battery life.
Steve Adams
Banned
I will be using my sp2 for more than internet duties. Cad, photo editing, infrared camera control and reports, full commercial building design etc. I'm one of the few I guess. I hope I get 10hrs out of the battery with powered keyboard.
You need to calm down, you can do things that fix battery, remove some live tiles, close apps, power options etc...
WillysJeepMan
Active member
I've found that live live-tiles chew up battery. So I selectively enable only those tiles that can benefit from live updating.
I'm not 100% satisfied with the standby-time of the S2. Over night it usually consumes 2-4% (about 8-10 hrs no use...it varies). It's okay but not perfect. A few weeks ago I checked my brother's iPad and in the settings it said that it had been in standby for 1 day and 21 hours and active for 45 minutes since last complete charge. It was at 98%!!! I could't believe what I saw. But my brother confirmed the displayed data. He's a "load-to-100%" kinda person and said that he had only watched one documentary in the last two days and the rest was standby which matched with what was displayed in the settings.
Don't get me wrong, I love the S2. I can't picture myself replacing it with an overpriced and boring iPad and I hate comparing it to one but battery wise the iPad seems to be superior. What do you guys think?
Don't get me wrong, I love the S2. I can't picture myself replacing it with an overpriced and boring iPad and I hate comparing it to one but battery wise the iPad seems to be superior. What do you guys think?
WillysJeepMan
Active member
I can confirm the battery life on the iPads. My wife's iPad 2 (was mine before I upgraded) regularly gets 10+ hours even though it is over 2 years old. My nearly year old iPad 4 gets between 12-14+ hours on a full charge. That is with wifi and bluetooth enabled and used. It's insane.
My Surface RT gets about 8-9 hours.
As for the iPad being boring, it depends upon what you do with it. If all you do is swipe from one screen of icons to the next, then yeah, that's boring. Or if one simply uses "apps" to browse website content, yeah boring.
Otherwise, I'm still finding the iPad more versatile even though the hardware connectivity options are more limited. I know anti-Apple bigots like to claim that iOS apps are nothing more than a web browser for a particular site, but there are so many sophisticated apps that really take advantage of a tablet form-factor.
Just to clearify this: I don't see myself as an "anti-Apple bigot". I used to own an iPhone 4 and I still own a Macbook Pro (got it for college back in the days and I'm not using it very much but w/e). For me iOS just got very stale and WP seemed to be a new and fresh approach to a mobile OS. I also adopted the Modern UI for Windows 8 pretty much right away. I still enjoy the user experience very much on all my Windows devices. That is just something that iOS (or OSX for that matter) can't give me. Functionality wise iOS was always great, no doubt about that...
Sorry, I guess that was a bit off-topic :grin:
I have found that occasionally draining the battery down to say 15% and then charging back up - in other words, recalibrating it - seems to give some positive results. While MS suggests doing this once a month, last week was only the second time I have done it since I got my Surface 2. I think I will pay a bit more attention to this now.
I also get similar results on my iPad4. However, all I do on it is read ePUBs and PDFs - of course, I am connected to WiFi networks (or it is tethered to my phone), brightness is always at around 40%. Also, I use Mercury Browser and usually have 2 tabs open - though I hate browsing on the iPad.
Nickkk101
New member
Closing apps? So those thumbnails in the app list are not 'tombstoned' as such? I regularly leave my browsing session and apps etc more or less where I am when I exit and close the cover... am I 'doing it wrong'?
I'm seeing 10/15% drop in approx 3 hours of connected standby with no use, after applying some optimisations- its more or less the same at present. Any thoughts on battery drain? I've read of some out there seeing a percent or so an hour on connected stand by, I am NOT seeing this for sure!
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Maybe you are experiencing the same issues that I and others are discussing over here: http://forums.windowscentral.com/microsoft-surface-2/269245-fix-wake-issue-not-working.html
Especially since you said you just "close the cover". Have you used the battery report to check if the S2 really goes into connected standby in the first place? Because mine and those of others don't! During my tests the S2 lost about 6% in 2 hrs with closed cover (this is reproducable) so your 10-15% in 5 hrs make sense...
matthoms
New member
I had 80% last night when I went to bed. I woke up, and my S2 has 25% left. This is the 3rd time in a week this has happened while sitting idle. I don't know if there is something wrong with my tablet, but I've done soft and hard resets and set the brightness down to 40%. It's getting really old considering I NEED my surface for my colleges class to take notes and write papers. I'm not getting what I need out of my surface. It is my laptop, so if it doesn't have the battery life to last me a day ( I get 6-7 hours with light use) then I don't think I can keep it. I love it, but I might just buy and actual laptop.
Did you have a TypeCover or TouchCover attached when this happened? If so, you also might want to look into this thread: http://forums.windowscentral.com/mi...5-fix-wake-issue-not-working.html#post2405630
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