Surface Book 2 Battery Life

[James Falconer]

Anyone know what the battery life is going to be like on the SB2? Curious if they've made improvements over and above the first edition.

 

[orlbuckeye]

MS says 17 hours and 5 hours for the clipboard alone.

 

[anon(5327127)]

No-one knows as it's not even available yet. ?

Once the reviews hit we'll all know the exact figures.

 

[FXi2]

It seems to lose about 7-10%/hour sometimes less if you are using it in a light wifi reading mode

 

[ctballos]

I'm having horrible battery life. Last night I used the clipboard and when I started it was 100% I put battery saver mode on and I surfed the web but mostly played solitaire. The display was set to 25% brightness and after an hour battery power was down to 20%. The screen would occasionally flicker and it went black a couple times. Not to mention Outlook, Google Earth and some apps don't run. I've installed and re-installed office a couple times and still can't get outlook to load. I'm hoping for a software fix real soon.

 

[FXi2]

Was it trying to do updates or scans while you were in clipboard mode? I haven't tested that mode from a battery time angle, but the many reviews I've read where they did try they at least got a few hours out of it. I use outlook (there is a new update for Office 2016 in the last couple days). Also when you first get the SB2 you'll likely get the Fall CU pushed down to you which is a serious system consuming update. Given that you are having software issues is sounds like something was updating or your system needs it if it didn't finish.

Give a lookup of the Command prompt "sfc /scannow" which can check system files for corruption or errors. I will at least tell you that while I uninstalled the presupplied Office and dropped in the 64 bit 2016 Pro 365 subscription, I have not had issues with either Excel or Outlook and I have to use those for work.

Only thing you've spent more time doing is the undocked usage but the flickering and software issues seem to indicate something amiss there.

 

[ctballos]

Hi FXi2, thanks for the response. I have since shut off most items in my startup folder and turned off most of the live tiles as well as most notifications. I've also shut off Wi-Fi and BT when the machine is off. I retested last evening, while watching TV I played Solitaire. My results were better and I got 2.5 hours using the clipboard until the power came down to 10%. A little better. I did the same as you with the pre-installed Office Suite and installed the 64 bit version of Office 365 Home.

I ran the "sfc /scannow" program and it didn't seem to do anything. It just went away so I hoping it's working in the background. The screen flicker is a bother, even though only intermittent, and I'm hoping for a fix It seems to only happen when the clipboard is detached. I'll give it a few weeks to see if anything develops before I contact Microsoft.