Terrible battery life of surface pro 4 - do you agree?

[enmotio]

I have the M3 Surface Pro and absolutely love it. But there are some quirky battery life issues. MS Edge and Chrome will decimate the battery. Not sure if this new Threshold update will do anything to alleviate, (I haven't received it yet), but MS Edge and Chrome are not friendly to Windows 10 and the Surface Pro 4.

I charge my device overnight to 100%. When I disconnect power in the morning, the device wakes up. I make sure to put it back to sleep. When I bring it to work (40 minute commute), battery is still at 100%. Previously, when I just let the screen timeout after it awakens, I lost battery life in my bag during the commute. My guess is it never goes properly back to sleep.

At work I connect it to an external display and disable the Surface display. I basically use it for browsing 10 - 15 tabs, 2 -3 separate windows, using IE. With this set up, and fairly constant use, starting from 9:30am to 6:00pm, battery will deplete to 40% - 50%. Not bad (obviously not running the Surface display itself helps). I don't bring the charger to work. Then at home I can use it until I go to bed. Lots of sketching with Autodesk and a couple hours of Netflix before I get the battery warning.

Sorry long winded post, but basically, say no to Edge and Chrome for now, until some kind of software fix is provided, and make sure the device goes to sleep before transporting it around.

Other than that, and the occasional damned video driver crash (for me about once or twice a day, depending on the website) I am completely in love with this device.

The M3 is the little processor that can. Photoshop and even 720p video work with Sony Vegas 13 is no issue. Rendering times are a bit long, but hey, it's a fanless little beastie.

 

[boltman2013]

I have the M3 Surface Pro and absolutely love it. But there are some quirky battery life issues. MS Edge and Chrome will decimate the battery. Not sure if this new Threshold update will do anything to alleviate, (I haven't received it yet), but MS Edge and Chrome are not friendly to Windows 10 and the Surface Pro 4.

I charge my device overnight to 100%. When I disconnect power in the morning, the device wakes up. I make sure to put it back to sleep. When I bring it to work (40 minute commute), battery is still at 100%. Previously, when I just let the screen timeout after it awakens, I lost battery life in my bag during the commute. My guess is it never goes properly back to sleep.

At work I connect it to an external display and disable the Surface display. I basically use it for browsing 10 - 15 tabs, 2 -3 separate windows, using IE. With this set up, and fairly constant use, starting from 9:30am to 6:00pm, battery will deplete to 40% - 50%. Not bad (obviously not running the Surface display itself helps). I don't bring the charger to work. Then at home I can use it until I go to bed. Lots of sketching with Autodesk and a couple hours of Netflix before I get the battery warning.

Sorry long winded post, but basically, say no to Edge and Chrome for now, until some kind of software fix is provided, and make sure the device goes to sleep before transporting it around.

Other than that, and the occasional damned video driver crash (for me about once or twice a day, depending on the website) I am completely in love with this device.

The M3 is the little processor that can. Photoshop and even 720p video work with Sony Vegas 13 is no issue. Rendering times are a bit long, but hey, it's a fanless little beastie.

Love my M3 too the cpu has yet to let me down, and fan-less is divine

 

[apoc527]

I have noticed that the battery life is nowhere near what was promised. But I also find the device so amazing that I don't care. I'm sure battery life will continue to improve with updates. As it is, I'm rarely more than 5 hours away from a power source anyway.

 

[dkp23]

so set up my sp4 yesterday didint use that much so not sure how it is.

So I also did experience the battery drain while sleep mode. I left in sleep to try it out when i left the house this morning. I left the house probably around 1030 am and returned around 130pm, i left it in sleep mode turned it on and it dropped from 75% to 66%. I dont have windows hello on, i dont even hav ea camera for it so it isn't on my sp4 at this point.

Only thing i installed was chrome, that is it. Came home saw the drop, i thought maybe it was just me and my memory was off on the % when i left. So i put it in sleep again for about 30 minutes, turned it on, dropped from 66 to 63%.

Now i understand a drop if it sleep mode for the entire day or days, but not 30 minutes and not 1% for 10 minutes.

THat is inexcusable.

 

[smanmit2]

As great as sp4 is, if I have to charge after 4/5 hours having paid CANADIAN $1800 I rather now switch to MacBook Air that gives 12 hours of battery. For sure I will miss the pen and 2-1 form but if cannot trade off with poor battery life.

 

[ttsoldier]

As great as sp4 is, if I have to charge after 4/5 hours having paid CANADIAN $1800 I rather now switch to MacBook Air that gives 12 hours of battery. For sure I will miss the pen and 2-1 form but if cannot trade off with poor battery life.

Ok bye now.

 

[Michael Muscat]

As great as sp4 is, if I have to charge after 4/5 hours having paid CANADIAN $1800 I rather now switch to MacBook Air that gives 12 hours of battery. For sure I will miss the pen and 2-1 form but if cannot trade off with poor battery life.

Ok. You'll be paying almost the same for a slower laptop with a smaller 1440x900 16:10 display with no pen or touch input. If you install windows on it the battery life won't be that much better either, especially if you plan to do actual work on it.

 

[Michael Muscat]

Here's my battery life on the i7 SP3 since I bought it a year ago. I get 6 hours on average and this is primarily used for web browsing, web development work and note taking at meetings. I usually keep screen brightness at 25-50% for web browsing and 100% for taking notes. If you want an accurate picture of your battery life you can check this yourself by running powercfg /batteryreport from the command line. The SP4 has a slightly smaller battery, but this is offset by the heatplate reducing the power needed to cool the cpu. Plus you won't get throttling issues like the SP3 has.

 

[dkp23]

Left the house again. Put to sleep decreased from 62% to 53% in4 hours. Sad

 

[ricrocks12]

I have the M3 Surface Pro and absolutely love it. But there are some quirky battery life issues. MS Edge and Chrome will decimate the battery. Not sure if this new Threshold update will do anything to alleviate, (I haven't received it yet), but MS Edge and Chrome are not friendly to Windows 10 and the Surface Pro 4.

I charge my device overnight to 100%. When I disconnect power in the morning, the device wakes up. I make sure to put it back to sleep. When I bring it to work (40 minute commute), battery is still at 100%. Previously, when I just let the screen timeout after it awakens, I lost battery life in my bag during the commute. My guess is it never goes properly back to sleep.

At work I connect it to an external display and disable the Surface display. I basically use it for browsing 10 - 15 tabs, 2 -3 separate windows, using IE. With this set up, and fairly constant use, starting from 9:30am to 6:00pm, battery will deplete to 40% - 50%. Not bad (obviously not running the Surface display itself helps). I don't bring the charger to work. Then at home I can use it until I go to bed. Lots of sketching with Autodesk and a couple hours of Netflix before I get the battery warning.

Sorry long winded post, but basically, say no to Edge and Chrome for now, until some kind of software fix is provided, and make sure the device goes to sleep before transporting it around.

Other than that, and the occasional damned video driver crash (for me about once or twice a day, depending on the website) I am completely in love with this device.

The M3 is the little processor that can. Photoshop and even 720p video work with Sony Vegas 13 is no issue. Rendering times are a bit long, but hey, it's a fanless little beastie.

Try disabling hardware acceleration in any browser you use. Solved my display driver crashes

 

[ttsoldier]

Left the house again. Put to sleep decreased from 62% to 53% in4 hours. Sad

Then disable instant go... Let it hibernate.

 

[dkp23]

Then disable instant go... Let it hibernate.

Finding an alternative is not the point, the piont is that type of drain in sleep mode should not happen..

 

[Hardcore1973]

My sleep drain is only 1% per hour now after all he updates. I used to have terrible sleep drain loss, but not anymore. i5/128GB SP4 setup.

 

[ttsoldier]

Finding an alternative is not the point, the piont is that type of drain in sleep mode should not happen..

Well this whole "Connected Standby / Instant go" is a whole new thing to me. My older laptop did not have this sleep mode.

I see no benefits of this "connected standby/instant go"

 

[GatsbyGlen]

Well this whole "Connected Standby / Instant go" is a whole new thing to me. My older laptop did not have this sleep mode.

I see no benefits of this "connected standby/instant go"

It's supposed to be similar to a phone, where you can get updates, notifications, etc., while it's in a low power state. However, I don't think it works very well. Or maybe I should not care so much about the drain loss rate. Your hibernation approach is probably better

 

[snakebitten]

I took a bit of a sermon on this forum for embracing Hibernation over Sleep, but I still have no regrets.
In my opinion the SP4 is an excellent candidate for this approach because of 2 factors.
1 It boots up dramatically fast even from an "off" state. So the minor difference in boot time between hibernation vs sleep is hardly consequential.
2. It is a Beast of a computer for running on a battery, regardless of which cpu it has. That amazing display can be a burden. So the additional battery life from choosing hibernation might be a worthy gain.

 

[ttsoldier]

It's supposed to be similar to a phone, where you can get updates, notifications, etc., while it's in a low power state. However, I don't think it works very well. Or maybe I should not care so much about the drain loss rate. Your hibernation approach is probably better

And this is what I don't get... If i close my surface pro and leave the house... Or heck, even leave it upstairs while I am downstairs.. Why do I need to be receiving notifications?

More than likely, whatever I am receiving notifications for, I will get from the app on my phone as well.. and even if I am not.. I am not AT my surface pro 4 .. so how can i check these notifications that i am receiving? :/

It does not justify the battery drain... and with a 5-10 second start time... Hibernate is the obvious answer.

 

[Hardcore1973]

And this is what I don't get... If i close my surface pro and leave the house... Or heck, even leave it upstairs while I am downstairs.. Why do I need to be receiving notifications?

More than likely, whatever I am receiving notifications for, I will get from the app on my phone as well.. and even if I am not.. I am not AT my surface pro 4 .. so how can i check these notifications that i am receiving? :/

It does not justify the battery drain... and with a 5-10 second start time... Hibernate is the obvious answer.

I have it turn off Wifi when I am not using it to save even more battery.

 

[dkp23]

It's supposed to be similar to a phone, where you can get updates, notifications, etc., while it's in a low power state. However, I don't think it works very well. Or maybe I should not care so much about the drain loss rate. Your hibernation approach is probably better

A phone is connect to either wifi and/or cellular, yet phones dont drain that much while in sleep mode.

I put my sp4 with wifi off when in sleep mode so nothing should be connecting, also removed app background usage. Yet it still drains, it is a legitimate issue that should be addressed and resolved.

A 10% decline in battery over 3-4 hours in sleep mode is not something that can be overlooked. If this much drain happens in sleep mode, it is worst when using the device.

 

[snakebitten]

In all fairness, comparing cell phone demand on battery vs a Surface demand on battery is not apples to apples.
Not even close, really. It's true that we can do a lot of things with our phones more energy-efficiently than we can with the much larger and powerful form factor of the surface.

But even saying that, if you were to crank up that phone and hook a mouse\keyboard to it and keep the screen alive with continuous use, you might be surprised how fast that battery drains.