All iPads Current iPad lineup battery performance

[Isengardtom]

IPad battery life Drain test

interesting YouTube video by Tech Gear Talk with him testing the batteries of the current iPads with a mix of YouTube, gaming, Netflix and video rendering

Spoiler: Results

1st place = iPad 9 - 7h33 min
2nd = iPad pro 11 - 6h38 min
3rd = iPad mini - 6h17 min
4th = iPad Pro 12.9 - 5h51 min
5th = iPad Air 4. - 5h17 min

 

[yitwail]

Not at all what I would have expected. (And neither did the reviewer)

Spoiler: my theory about the results

I wonder if the last place finish for the Air is due to A14 chip, compared to iPad 9's A13 & iPad mini's A15? Anyway, it confirms my decision to skip the Air 4 and choose between Air 5 & Pro 11.

 

[joeblow7777]

Not at all what I would have expected. (And neither did the reviewer)

Spoiler: my theory about the results

I wonder if the last place finish for the Air is due to A14 chip, compared to iPad 9's A13 & iPad mini's A15? Anyway, it confirms my decision to skip the Air 4 and choose between Air 5 & Pro 11.

I don’t think these results are a good reason to skip the Air 4.
All of these devices have great battery life. Even the worst among them lasts over 5 hours on demanding tasks.

Under what I would call more normal usage, every iPad I’ve ever had, including my Air 4, lasts multiple days between charges.

I happen to use both an Air 4 and iPad 9 daily and I don’t notice any practical difference in their battery lives.

 

[rui no onna]

Spoiler: Results

1st place = iPad 9 - 7h33 min
2nd = iPad pro 11 - 6h38 min
3rd = iPad mini - 6h17 min
4th = iPad Pro 12.9 - 5h51 min
5th = iPad Air 4. - 5h17 min

I have all 5. Can't say I've noticed a huge difference among the 10-13" iPads. However, with my usage and settings (mostly web browsing and reading), the mini 6 has the worst battery life of the lot.

 

[xxray]

I think it just depends on your usage, though these types of tests can be helpful to an extent. I held off on getting a 2021 12.9 Pro after I heard quite a few reports of the battery life being worse than the 2020 models and being shorter than I expected. Now that I‘ve owned one for almost a month, I’m getting down to 50% with anywhere from 5-7 hours of screen-on time. This means, theoretically, I should be able to get 10-14 hours of screen-on time before the battery dies completely. This is way better than I was expecting.

On weekdays, I use my iPad 2-4 hours a day and I could easily go 3 days comfortably without charging. Even using the Apple Pencil, which used to drain my 10.5 iPad unbelievably to the point where I was disabling ProMotion while using it, seems to have minimal effects on battery life for me compared to other tasks.

 

[1BadManVan]

I just picked up a 9th gen for my mom for Christmas to replace her 5th gen. She uses that as her main computing device, im happy with the upgrades they did this year and I’m sure she will love the long battery life out of it.