i7 Surface Pro 4 Battery Life vs Surface Pro 3

[airslap]

I currently have an i7 Surface Pro 3 and have never been able to get decent battery out of it. With the screen at 100% and just browsing the web with a few tabs open the fan will always kick in noticeably and i'll get between 2 and 3hours of battery life. If I turn the screen down to 50% i'm pushing 4 hours.

My question is now that there is a new cooling system in the Surface Pro 4 and I hear that the fan doesn't kick in as often does that mean I am going to be able to get closer to the 7-9hrs that the reviewers are quoting? Has anyone seen any reviews or information that could shed light on this?

If so that would be a reason for me to upgrade, but if the screen and new processers cancel out the fan battery life benefits i should be in the same 2-4hr battery life boat which is a real shame.

 

[ioaniro]

I'd also like to see the battery life comparison between the different models of the SP4 and how they stack up against the SP3. The SP3 with i5 has very decent battery life though as does my trusty SP2. You mention your tests include only few tabs while browsing the web, that seems odd even for the i7. Are you using chrome without the updates? Also are you really set on an i7 if battery life is a major concern (granted 2 hours is no battery life)? I'd go for the i5 configuration and add the ram and the bigger SSD for the money difference between i5 and i7.

 

[airslap]

No using Microsoft Edge, certain websites I visit trigger the fan and eventually it'll calm down, but I can see my battery estimation drop rapidly when it's on. As the fan is on about 70% of the time I assumed it had a lot to do with my battery life issues and was hoping the better cooling systems would go towards increasing my battery life.

I like the i7 because i got the 512gb option and when I do want to push it for video editing or gaming (which is when I do expect rapid battery drain), the extra power is handy. Just interested to know if any other i7 users had the same experience with the SP3 and if anyone has had any hands on time with the i7 SP4 although I doubt that anyone has. Something i'll be keeping my eye on for sure.

 

[anon(5327127)]

if you want max battery life then you're going to have to break into the power options:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power -> set CsEnabled to "0" (set HibernateEnabled to "1" if not already)
* reboot

You now have all the power options returned to you so you can tweak them

Or, you know, we can wait for the i7 reviews. The current i5 is pretty much nearly the same battery life as the Pro 3 so I expect the same for the i7 but ANY statement is invalid at this point

 

[Christopher Senn1]

Waiting for actual benchmarks.
Lots of these reviews dont have consistent and reliable testing done.
Like right now they are saying the batteries are the same. But I wonder if you stress it with gaming, how long will it last. Id figured that SP4 fanless model would easily get 2-3 hours better than the S3 model

 

[DCProjMgr]

Andantech has published their benchmarks for the SP4. They compare them to the SP3, Surface3, and other tablets and laptops.

Generally speaking, Microsoft has used the hardware improvements to boost performance rather than battery life. The average user should see some longer running times, while power users will get significant performance improvements (20% to 40% average) for tasks that push the CPU and disk, without sacrificing the battery life they had with the SP3.

That is my takeaway, but read the article for yourself and identify the measurements that are most meaningful for your use case.

FYI - The tested SP4 Core i5 easily surpassed the SP3 Core i7 in most benchmarks. By a lot.