How is your surface battery life?

[ken800]

I charged my to 100% last night and then rebooted. I took it off the charger and went to sleep. By morning, it was at 68%. Bluetooth was off, wifi was on. No other apps running.

I am draining about 4% per hour when the unit is idle with nothing running other than the push email software that came with it.

Battery didn't last the day yesterday - no videos and moderate use.

This doesn't seem to compare to the reviews online. I talked with support and they told me to take it to the store to be checked...

 

[VagrantWade]

Mine is ridiculously good. Like far better than I was expecting.

 

[power5]

All updates for apps and windows done?

 

[mane3215]

I am very surprised at the battery life I have been getting on mine.

 

[inteller]

mine is fantastic. I streamed music all day at work and the battery meter barely moved.

 

[apoc527]

I, too, have gotten phenomenal battery life.

 

[ken800]

All updates for apps and windows done?

Yes, I have checked both windows update and market update for apps. There isn't anything left to download...

As I sit here, I pulled my surface off the charger about midnight. It's at 48% and I haven't used it other than to turn it and check the battery level.... That doesn't seem right.

I have an ipad sitting right next to it. Same thing - pulled off charger last night and it's sitting at 93% with basically no use other than a few battery checks.

Something clearly isn't right. It's going back to the store after I decide to swap it for another or return it altogether.

 

[badMojo69]

My battery rocks! I did a good solid 4 hours of web surfing while playing video and about an hour of gaming and the battery was not even 1/2 way depleted.

 

[GB330033]

I actually had to exchange the one I got on Friday morning yesterday at the store due to bad battery life. It went from 73% to 11% in about 4 hours with little to no activity. They swapped it out no problem.

 

[Oldmajor]

Since the hurricane I watched like 4 straight hours of netflix, John Adams and Boardwalk Empire on HBOGo (throught the browser!!!!!! Awesome) set it doen then came back and did some caual browsing. I will say I dont like how the device just shuts off without warning when its battery dies or gets very low

 

[ljkelley]

I had it shut down on me, luckily if you attach the power it boots right back up.

But it is doing good on battery. I'm seeing about a full day of usage. That includes some video, gaming, etc... Today I've been busy on the desktop to install the WP8 SDK etc.. and since I have really used the Surface it is about 90% battery as of right now, took off the charger about noon. Did use it for about 20 min and its been making noise every time I get an email.

So it does sound like something is wrong if your battery is going down that quickly.

 

[TMavC5]

I charged my to 100% last night and then rebooted. I took it off the charger and went to sleep. By morning, it was at 68%. Bluetooth was off, wifi was on. No other apps running.

I am draining about 4% per hour when the unit is idle with nothing running other than the push email software that came with it.

Battery didn't last the day yesterday - no videos and moderate use.

This doesn't seem to compare to the reviews online. I talked with support and they told me to take it to the store to be checked...

Mine runs almost 2 days with a good use of Facebook and web browsing. Maybe two movies from netflix.

 

[ken800]

Thanks, All.

Would at least one of you charge yours to 100% and leave it off the charger while you sleep and check it the next day? I'm curious the drain over time when sleeping.

I'm off to the surface store tomorrow to exchange it. I bought the "Microsoft care" warranty as well so they better darn well not give me any trouble or I'll exercise my 14 day return on the spot...

 

[berty6294]

my battery life is fantastic! My Surface is always on and next to me either playing music, a movie, or just on the internet. Plus the games play every now and then. I have yet to charge mid day, only at night when I am sleeping! incredibly happy!

 

[Daniel0418]

I actually has fairly poor battery life for the first two days. After letting it completely dies last night before fully charging, I sm getting insane battery life. I keep my brightness at 50%. Today I took off the charger at 10am and have about 30% battery life. I've had the screen on during this time for about 6.5 hours. So I'm happy with these results.

 

[Fleon]

I actually has fairly poor battery life for the first two days. After letting it completely dies last night before fully charging, I sm getting insane battery life. I keep my brightness at 50%. Today I took off the charger at 10am and have about 30% battery life. I've had the screen on during this time for about 6.5 hours. So I'm happy with these results.

I was about to recommend this, as well. Sometimes letting a battery drain down will reset the charge counter and give you more accurate battery readouts. The original iPhone was famous for needing this, as was the Nokia 900.

Just put on something streaming, let it run down til it turns itself off, then charge it to full. See if that helps.

For comparison, I'm getting ~10 hours of use a day.

 

[TheJoester09]

mine is fantastic. I streamed music all day at work and the battery meter barely moved.

Seriously??? I've had mine on at work for about 3 hours (plus a little bit of playing around on it earlier in the day) and it's at 65% now. It was at around 85-90% when I started playing the music. I honestly thought that this was pretty decent, but after reading what you said, I'm wondering if I'm not getting all that I could out of it...

 

[migespy]

So what's the answer? I am having the same issue. Having a external HDD or a BT mouse connected seems to drain it faster. I am going to do two test of battery drain with nothing connected and then with everything connected? I am debating whether I need to return my surface.

 

[Jazmac]

Mine is better than expected. I don't pay much attention to percentages. I pay more attention to actual usage. I'll get a video in sometimes and read the **** out of the blogs. I may listen to some music and put it aside my nightstand overnight. Unplugged. The next day I can do more of the same in the morning before going to work and still not feel panicked about finding an outlet. Battery is the least of my issues with my Surface.

 

[Jubei700]

Mine was amazing at first, easily get through a whole 12 hour shift with moderate usage. But already I find it's degraded. I've been surfing and watching video online for less than 40 minutes and I'm already down to 84% from a full charge, which ties in with getting 6-8 hours at work now. If the battery continues to degrade at this rate that'll be pretty useless, although I did wonder if one of the firmware updates affected it?