Battery Drain in Sleep

[mozman68]

So...your Apple products are "on" (in sleep mode) and checking for email throughout the night and have 0% drain?

Maybe the SP3 is just more honest about how much it is actually using....:winktongue:

My iPad mini loses at least 2% overnight if not plugged in (rare for me...I always keep my devices plugged in next to my bed). Are your Apple products in "do not disturb" mode? Not sure if that really makes a difference other than not "notifying" you if an email/text comes in.

Reading the SP3 manual, it does claim it should come on "instantly" (unless it has moved into the deep sleep mode). I'm going to give MS the benefit of the doubt and will assume it will be improved with enough complaints. That's why I always wait at least two weeks before purchasing items like this.

 

[hopmedic]

This is definitely a place where there is improvement that could be made. But despite that, it always cracks me up when people compare in iPad to a full-fledged computer that happens to fit into a case about the size of an iPad. Sorry, but it just does.

 

[mozman68]

But...from the SP3 manual:

If you don’t use Surface Pro 3 for a few minutes, the screen turns off and it goes into a power-saving sleep state called InstantGo. With InstantGo, your Surface wakes up instantly with your apps and data up to date.
If you don’t use Surface for several hours, it will hibernate. Hibernation saves your work, and then turns off your Surface. When you start up your Surface again, you’re back where you left off though not as fast as InstantGo.

Instantly is "instantly" in my book...if not, they should have said "within 5 seconds" instead.

 

[fersenhalter]

Panos Panay actually said in an interview given to CNET, the SP3 had a stand-by time of a year.
I mean, it is Kind of outrageous, stating such a thing, while the actual stand-by time will probably range between one and three weeks (judging from what you guys wrote).
Do you think Panos was just confusing things, maybe?
Here's the interview, btw: Microsoft's Panos Panay on why the Surface Pro 3 beats your tablet and laptop - YouTube (says it at approximately 2:05)
He also talks about 2,5-3 seconds of boot time from "deep-sleep/hibernmation-mode"

 

[WillysJeepMan]

Panos Panay actually said in an interview given to CNET, the SP3 had a stand-by time of a year.
I mean, it is Kind of outrageous, stating such a thing, while the actual stand-by time will probably range between one and three weeks (judging from what you guys wrote).
Do you think Panos was just confusing things, maybe?
Here's the interview, btw: Microsoft's Panos Panay on why the Surface Pro 3 beats your tablet and laptop - YouTube (says it at approximately 2:05)
He also talks about 2,5-3 seconds of boot time from "deep-sleep/hibernmation-mode"

He has said quite a few things at various Surface events that simply aren't true. Because of that, he has lost credibility with me.

 

[astondg]

It's interesting that with all the work that's gone in to Windows 8 and the Surface hardware to do with power management & efficiency, it's still not as good as an MBA both in terms of sleep performance and usability. I've definitely experienced problems with both the SP1 and S2 in sleeping & resuming that I rarely had with my MBP.

I'd be very keen to see someone get into the details of this, do some analysis of the hardware sleep states entered by an MBP and the SP3 and various times, see how much battery drain an SP3 has in connected standby vs hibernate (i.e. up to 4hrs and over 4hrs), try to get some more info about how the MBA comes out of extended sleep so quickly and what takes the SP3 longer.

I am wondering if maybe the ~4% drop on the SP3 happens in the first 4 hours and then there's very little drop after that, which could make Panos Panay's claim a little less ridiculous (although still hard to see how it would ever be correct).

 

[mozman68]

Maybe its the MBP's lack of touchscreen. :evil:

 

[jnjroach]

The SP3 uses a customized version of connected standby, it remains in S0iX for around 4 hours this will allow the instant on, then moves into hibernation for up to an additional 8 hours, this is 2 to 3 seconds on resume, then will go into deep hibernation that will equate to the 1 year battery life that Panos talked about, this looks akin to traditional hibernation (S4 Power State).

 

[Patric.Z]

But...from the SP3 manual:

If you don?t use Surface Pro 3 for a few minutes, the screen turns off and it goes into a power-saving sleep state called InstantGo. With InstantGo, your Surface wakes up instantly with your apps and data up to date.
If you don?t use Surface for several hours, it will hibernate. Hibernation saves your work, and then turns off your Surface. When you start up your Surface again, you?re back where you left off though not as fast as InstantGo.

Instantly is "instantly" in my book...if not, they should have said "within 5 seconds" instead.

But surface pro 3 does turn on instantly if it's in the InstantGo mode just like the what manual says.

 

[mozman68]

But surface pro 3 does turn on instantly if it's in the InstantGo mode just like the what manual says.

Read all of the complaints of it NOT doing that on the first page of this thread.

 

[Patric.Z]

Ok...quick update on battery drain. Last night was my 3rd night with the Surface Pro 3. I still have connected standby on and, surprisingly, overnight I did not lose even 1% of power. It stayed at 100% all night in sleep mode for 8 hours. Maybe the first night or two it had lots of catching up to do? Time will tell but it's a good sign for sure.

Only disappointment is that wake-up is not as seamless as an iPad or even a MacBook Air which you just open after any number of hours of sleep and it turns on, literally, immediately. With the Surface 3, you have to open it, press the power button, wait for it to spring to life, input a password (no way to disable that even though I have password on wake disabled) and then it fires up. Sort of ridiculous if you ask me.

Microsoft really needs to improve this wake-up process because it makes using the Surface less like a tablet that you can just pick up anytime and go and more like a pretty slow and laborious laptop to fire back up.

Sort of defeats the purpose of having a hybrid tablet, if you ask me.

I think the battery staying at 100% is actually a bug (unless MS does it on purposes), it happened to me this morning, it was in connected stand by for more than 4 hours and I used it for a few minutes, the battery stayed at 100% which I think it's weird, so I checked, battery report showed no battery used at in the last few hours at all. So I started using it for a few more minutes and I noticed that battery dropped by 5%.

I know iPad consumed little battery during sleep, but even MBA doesn't drop 1% in 11 hours of sleep and resumed instantly? I have never used MBA but I find it hard to believe. By saying resume instantly, how fast is that? With connected standby, windows tablets resume in maybe 1 second, in hibernation mode, SP3 probably resumes in 5-10 seconds. So how long does it take a MBA to resume? Also, do you notice quicker drop of battery after long-time sleep with MBA? I am just curious if MBA is really that good at battery management (at the same level as a mobile OS) or it's a trick (I do think OSX is better at power management than Windows).

Also, I know typing a password is annoying but I think there's should be a password when computer resumed especially after long-time sleep as windows 8.1 has too much personal information tied to your account (probably the same as all other mobile OS and I believe both Android and iOS require you to enter passcode after wake up if passcode is set). Using a PIN or a picture password should help ease this a little bit.

 

[Patric.Z]

Read all of the complaints of it NOT doing that on the first page of this thread.

I did, and SP3 does turn on instantly (1 second) if it's in connected standby mode. Like other posters posted above, if you let SP3 sleep for a few more hours, it will enter hibernation mode, and then it will take time to boot just like what the manual said.

 

[mozman68]

I did, and SP3 does turn on instantly (1 second) if it's in connected standby mode. Like other posters posted above, if you let SP3 sleep for a few more hours, it will enter hibernation mode, and then it will take time to boot just like what the manual said.

The complaints listed in this thread reference any time after the cover is closed. I hope it is just a fluke for a few and will be corrected as much as possible.

 

[Cleavitt76]

One thing that should be mentioned is that remaining battery capacity is an estimate. Lithium ion batteries are especially difficult to measure accurately because their voltage doesn't drop in a linear way. This might explain the slight variations in overnight loss or the loss of power in a device that is completely shut down. Rechargeable batteries don't really like to be fully charged. They will lose the top x percent of their power pretty quickly even when disconnected. It's known as "self discharge". After the initial drop the self discharge rate levels off.

It's also quite likely (guaranteed) that Windows, OSX, and iOS have very different ways of calculating battery level estimates. It's not an exact science since rechargeable batteries voltages will fluctuate as the load changes. It wouldn't surprise me if Apple was more aggressive in "hiding" these minor fluctuations from users by applying a curve or heavier smoothing algorithm of some kind to their battery level scale. For example, everything above 95% is displayed as 100% and then a curve down to zero. Another example is that the algorithm could be designed to store the value prior to sleep and then continue with that value on resume for a longer amount of time. Those are just examples, but there are plenty of ways that the algorithm could be smoothing out the inconsistencies, or not. That may sound far fetched, but does anyone remember when one of the iPhones (4 if I'm not mistaken) had an antennae issue and Apple adjusted their "signal strength" algorithm to change the curve to make the number of bars displayed more consistent? They didn't do it to hide the hardware problem and the original algorithm wasn't "wrong", but it was confusing people and confusing the hardware issue so they changed it. The differences in algorithms is the reason that "3 bars" on one phone is not the same as another phone model. These same kind of algorithms exist for rechargeable batteries.

Anyway, the point is that you should probably just enjoy your Surface Pro 3 and stop stressing about a few percentage points of *estimated* battery power. Stop comparing apples to oranges (or Apples to Surfaces) because these numbers are within the margin of error for battery estimates anyway.

 

[Patric.Z]

The complaints listed in this thread reference any time after the cover is closed. I hope it is just a fluke for a few and will be corrected as much as possible.

Once the cover is closed, sp3 enters standby connected mode, same as pressing the power button, so next time you press power button to wake it up, it takes 1 second to resume. One thing I noticed and hopefully MS will fix is when I open the cover, sometimes it does not wake up sp3 unlike surface rt which wake up almost every time.

 

[WillysJeepMan]

I think the battery staying at 100% is actually a bug (unless MS does it on purposes), it happened to me this morning, it was in connected stand by for more than 4 hours and I used it for a few minutes, the battery stayed at 100% which I think it's weird, so I checked, battery report showed no battery used at in the last few hours at all. So I started using it for a few more minutes and I noticed that battery dropped by 5%.

I know iPad consumed little battery during sleep, but even MBA doesn't drop 1% in 11 hours of sleep and resumed instantly? I have never used MBA but I find it hard to believe. By saying resume instantly, how fast is that? With connected standby, windows tablets resume in maybe 1 second, in hibernation mode, SP3 probably resumes in 5-10 seconds. So how long does it take a MBA to resume? Also, do you notice quicker drop of battery after long-time sleep with MBA? I am just curious if MBA is really that good at battery management (at the same level as a mobile OS) or it's a trick (I do think OSX is better at power management than Windows).

I already posted my first hand experience. I have an iPad 4, 11" MBA, and (had) a Surface 2. I said that my MBA dropped 3% in 11 hours of sleep and resumed instantly. That's the truth whether you want to believe it or not. Instantly means instantly... like by the time that the lid is opened to it's usable position it is awake and ready to go.

My iPad 4 gets between 12-14 hours of use on a full battery. That too is the truth.

I also said that I was able to get my Surface 2 down to only draining 3% in 8 hours of sleep. That's somewhat of an accomplishment because connected standby battery drain has been an issue from day 1 of the first gen Surfaces.

You admit you've never used an MBA and yet you can't believe what others are reporting about it. Really!?

Sorry that you're experiencing issues with your SP3 but that is no reason to question the integrity of those of us posting our experiences that don't line up with your expectation.

 

[Patric.Z]

I already posted my first hand experience. I have an iPad 4, 11" MBA, and (had) a Surface 2. I said that my MBA dropped 3% in 11 hours of sleep and resumed instantly. That's the truth whether you want to believe it or not. Instantly means instantly... like by the time that the lid is opened to it's usable position it is awake and ready to go.

My iPad 4 gets between 12-14 hours of use on a full battery. That too is the truth.

I also said that I was able to get my Surface 2 down to only draining 3% in 8 hours of sleep. That's somewhat of an accomplishment because connected standby battery drain has been an issue from day 1 of the first gen Surfaces.

You admit you've never used an MBA and yet you can't believe what others are reporting about it. Really!?

Sorry that you're experiencing issues with your SP3 but that is no reason to question the integrity of those of us posting our experiences that don't line up with your expectation.

I am sorry if you find that's offensive to ask a few questions on products I have never used. (What's the point of asking if I know the products pretty well anyway?) I have to clarify that I did NOT mean to question anyone's credibility or integrity. I said in the beginning I have never used a MBA so I am trying clarify if I am understanding the statements correctly, i.e. little to no battery consumption overnight and instant resume. Again, I am asking because I did not have any experience with the product to verify the statements myself. I didn't know that asking for clarifications = questioning others' credibility or integrity. I said it's hard believe because I think it's normal that battery discharge over time (like any rechargeable battery), and as Cleavitt76 mentioned above (he made it clearer than me), it could be very well due to the different algorithm used in both products to estimate the battery life (like the bug I ran into, battery stayed at 100%, if I did not dig further, I would have believed it didn't used any battery) and I did say that I believe OSX has better power management than Windows does right now. I am not sure which part of my statements questioned your (or any others') integrity.

 

[aversions]

Can you guys help me out lol
I can't figure out why my battery is draining so much
Current estimate of battery life based on all observed drains since OS install
Since OS install 4:51:33
228:50:37
7 % / 16 h 4:40:03
219:48:28
7 % / 16 h
I'm literally getting only up to 5 hours and my brightness is on 1/4

 

[Patric.Z]

Can you guys help me out lol
I can't figure out why my battery is draining so much
Current estimate of battery life based on all observed drains since OS install
Since OS install 4:51:33
228:50:37
7 % / 16 h 4:40:03
219:48:28
7 % / 16 h
I'm literally getting only up to 5 hours and my brightness is on 1/4

Your standby time looks normal. 7% for 16 h is about the same as other windows tablets. Your estimated active use time depends on what you do on it... if you play games or run CPU intensive programs, you may only get 5 hours or less. What do you normally run on the surface?

 

[aversions]

Thanks for the prompt reply! I only use it for browsing and word processing. I was watching video but that was for an hour and knocked me from 70 to 37ish in an hour