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iPad Pro iPad Pro M4 Battery Life

G

Gelam

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 31, 2021
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How is the battery life on your new 11" and 13" iPad Pro M4s?

I have heard mixed reviews:
- Dave2D has them as equal or slightly lower than the M1s and older generations, at 9 hours and 11 minutes
- Toms Guide has the 13" at 13-15 hours (equal to their M3 15" MacBook Air battery life test)
www.tomsguide.com

iPad Pro 2024 benchmarks: Here’s how Apple’s M4 chip performs

We've tested Apple's latest tablets, and the M4 drives the iPad Pro 2024 to new heights
www.tomsguide.com www.tomsguide.com
- Mashable's review has the big boi at an unprecedented whooping 16 hours and 24 minutes runtime
mashable.com

Apple iPad Pro 2024 (13-inch) review: The battery life is bonkers

The iPad Pro, packed with a new M4 chip, delivered a runtime that blew our minds.
mashable.com mashable.com

All these reviews are conflicting, so, what are your experiences?
Seriously hope we get at least 12 hours runtime (screen on time) for light use (internet browsing/videos) at 40-50% brightness.
 
We really need to see more tests with a constant-lumen output across an M2 and M4 equipped iPads, and also separate tests for 11" and 13" tablets.

The M4 tablets have a higher max lumen output (which likely uses more power than the old at the 100% setting despite efficiency gains of OLED), so setting M2 and M4 iPads to max brightness and running identical tests won't be a good apples and apples comparison (no pun intended 😆). And also remember prior to this year's iPad Pros, the screen tech for the 11" and 13" pros were not the same.

Screen brightness will drastically affect battery life, especially with low CPU loads, so that is likely why battery tests so far have been drastically different. My expectation is that real-world tests for many people will show decent battery improvements with the OLED tablets.
 
1 day of use, it drained so fast, i was shocked when I see 10% low battery come up with only 4 hr of use
 
Shocked that Apple didn't do anything to improve the battery life from the m1 and m2 (which have horrible battery life).But thinness is more important!
 
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Need to give it time before you can really assess it; personally my battery life is about what I was getting with my M1 iPP 11 when it was new in 2020 so I have no complaints. It’s what I was expecting given that it’s an iPad and not a MacBook.
 
I’m coming from a 12.9” m1 iPad Pro. The battery life on this new 13” m4 iPad pro seems very, very good by comparison. I haven’t done a run-down test of any kind, but in a normal day of use my old iPad would be drained by the end of day - and I’m still quite a bit above 50% of normal on-and-off usage throughout the day.
 
It’s only a couple of days, but I’m seeing better battery life in 2 days with my 11 inch M4 than the 11 inch M1. Typically the M1 would be down below 20% after an 8 hour day. On the first Charge 2 days later I’m at 55%, that M1 would had been long dead at this point.
 
How is the 11” M4 battery performing? My 11” M2 on MK is not that good, my brightness is on c.25% and low battery mode, c.8 hours.
 
DeepSix said:
Shocked that Apple didn't do anything to improve the battery life from the m1 and m2 (which have horrible battery life).But thinness is more important!
Click to expand...
Thin = light, which is very important.


in my experience the tablet lasts as long if not longer than my M1 when it was new
 
Can anyone please share screenshots and explain a bit of their usage patterns? People don't really share iPad battery life screenshots and it would be interesting to see.

Online reviews are very relative. My M1 iPad Air was severely criticised for its battery life. I'm an efficient user, but with light use and low brightness I get more than 25 hours of SOT, it's absolutely ridiculous.

Tom's Guide puts is at 14h 50 mins, or, so they claim, about 45% better than my iPad Air 5. Would it really be 36 hours? I find that very difficult to believe, even with light use.

They say that the M2 MacBook Air is similar, at about 15 hours. I tested a friend's M2 MacBook Air with an online document in Chrome (arguably heavier usage), with 50% brightness (!!!) and battery life was absolutely ridiculous, at about 16-17 hours of SOT. My 2015 MacBook Pro, as much as I love it and as much as it runs its original OS X version (OS X 10.11 El Cap), is nowhere near, with it getting about 11 hours with Safari (which is infinitely more efficient than the absolute garbage that Chrome and Firefox are), and about 8-9 with Firefox, with low brightness.

36 hours, however (and as accurate as their Mac assessment seems to be), sounds absolutely implausible. Can anyone share a screenshot?
 
FeliApple said:
Can anyone please share screenshots and explain a bit of their usage patterns? People don't really share iPad battery life screenshots and it would be interesting to see.

Online reviews are very relative. My M1 iPad Air was severely criticised for its battery life. I'm an efficient user, but with light use and low brightness I get more than 25 hours of SOT, it's absolutely ridiculous.

Tom's Guide puts is at 14h 50 mins, or, so they claim, about 45% better than my iPad Air 5. Would it really be 36 hours? I find that very difficult to believe, even with light use.

They say that the M2 MacBook Air is similar, at about 15 hours. I tested a friend's M2 MacBook Air with an online document in Chrome (arguably heavier usage), with 50% brightness (!!!) and battery life was absolutely ridiculous, at about 16-17 hours of SOT. My 2015 MacBook Pro, as much as I love it and as much as it runs its original OS X version (OS X 10.11 El Cap), is nowhere near, with it getting about 11 hours with Safari (which is infinitely more efficient than the absolute garbage that Chrome and Firefox are), and about 8-9 with Firefox, with low brightness.

36 hours, however (and as accurate as their Mac assessment seems to be), sounds absolutely implausible. Can anyone share a screenshot?
Click to expand...
Much of my usage is with browsing Safari while watching Netflix in Pip mode with brightness and speaker volume roughly around half, 13 m4 airplane mode Wi-Fi on, bar off, location services off, stage manager off
 

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aakshey said:
Much of my usage is with browsing Safari while watching Netflix in Pip mode with brightness and speaker volume roughly around half, 13 m4 airplane mode Wi-Fi on, bar off, location services off, stage manager off
Click to expand...
For reference
netflix barely uses battery even with speakers reasonably loud which usually drain on iPhones and iPads, Safari does drain normally
 

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One saving grace of the new iPads? Black backgrounds really slow down battery drainage. I had my 13” fully charged before bed. Read in iBooks with a black background for 1.5 hours and it drained 2%
 
aakshey said:
Much of my usage is with browsing Safari while watching Netflix in Pip mode with brightness and speaker volume roughly around half, 13 m4 airplane mode Wi-Fi on, bar off, location services off, stage manager off
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4h 100-75% even with speakers on. Very decent. Looks better than my 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 9. Don’t know about my Air 5 on iPadOS 15 because I don’t use it like that, it’s hard to compare. But definitely better than the Pro.
 
FeliApple said:
4h 100-75% even with speakers on. Very decent. Looks better than my 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 9. Don’t know about my Air 5 on iPadOS 15 because I don’t use it like that, it’s hard to compare. But definitely better than the Pro.
Click to expand...
4h continuous multitasking with video streaming and browsing at the same time would consume 30%+

Video streaming without browsing might consume 20-25% or so
 
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Compared to my M1 11" iPad Pro, the 11" M4 has a slightly better battery life for my specific use case I tested.

I have been watching a movie using the Infuse app with 100% brightness. After 1.5 hours, my battery was at 85%. On the M1, it would be at 78-80%.
 
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My battery life on my 13” M4 has been outstanding! It dropped from 80% to 42% with 10 hours screen on time and 1 hour standby.
 
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FeliApple said:
Sounds too high, screenshot?
Click to expand...
I’m utilizing the 80% charge mode limit. I’m just realizing that the iPad is counting a few hours before I last charged to 80%. So in actuality, I dropped from 80% to 42% in about six hours so my iPad is expected to last at least 12 hours at this rate. Screenshot attached for reference. By the way, should it be counting a few hours before I last charged to 80%?
 

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Lexie7 said:
My battery life on my 13” M4 has been outstanding! It dropped from 80% to 42% with 10 hours screen on time and 1 hour standby.
Click to expand...

Those in your screenshot are 10 hours over the last 24 hours, not just since the last charge. To get a proper reading, tap on "last 5 days" and then tap on today.
 
Definitely expected to hit over 12 hours at this rate. And that’s starting off at 80%. Still outstanding!
 

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