The battery on both my 11” and 13” have been nothing short of excellent. Today, I was working in direct sunlight for ~1 hour with my 11” blasting the OLED at 100% with a white background. The work was a mix of text entry and downloading of financial databases, plus some assorted tasks in the background like music streaming to a nearby AirPlay speaker. After 45 minutes, the battery went from 100% to 92%, which I was shocked by given how bright the screen was running.
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iPad Pro iPad Pro M4 Battery Life
- Thread starter Gelam
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Battery is better but could even last longer if the M4 wasn’t thinner. Everything’s a trade off
I understand that, but the intense summer sun and the limited 500 nits of the Air 5 mean that even indoors I need to keep the brightness pretty high to avoid straining my eyes. If I watch something like the TV+ show Dark Matter where half the scenes are super dark then even 100% is barely enough - indoors. Outside in the hot summer don't even get the 100% anyways as the iPad heats up and starts dimming.
It was just about usable when it was new but now with the slowly degrading battery and 1000 nits displays becoming more common this older Air is almost useless. It's not like I have a choice to reduce the brightness. But back when I bought it there wasn't any better choice anyways for the 11" size. Now with the OLED 11" that has finally changed.
Yeah, I distinctly recall somebody who had purchased the 1st-gen 12.9-inch iPad Pro back when it was new on iOS 9 and they complained because they were getting three hours. They said they lived in a greenhouse and had to keep brightness at 100%.
I’m not saying don’t keep brightness high. I’m saying manage your expectations. No device will have good battery life at full brightness. As long as people who use it at full brightness accept that, it’s fine.
I agree, but Apple does have a choice in how thin they want to make an iPad and what battery size they put in. It seems with the 11" M4 they didn't decrease battery size and with the heavier 13" they did, fair enough. I did get 4-6 hours on 1000 nits with my 14" MBP when it was brand new though. I consider that very good. So it's possible to have good battery life at high brightness, but then these Macbooks are pretty heavy too.
Agree, but these new iPads have great battery life, even with decreased capacity.
I used my 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 9 outdoors once, to play a game at high brightness and it surprised me. It got 14 hours with light use, but that time I used it for two hours and it still had 75% remaining.
I guess it’s a matter of expectations, for me 4 hours is horrible (without context), but if you tell me that it was at full brightness then it’s to be expected. I’m a light, efficient user who typically keeps brightness low and never updates iOS, so I’m used to ridiculously good numbers even with old devices (my iPhone 6s on iOS 10 gives me 8 hours of SOT today, original battery of course). I get 18 hours on my iPhone Xʀ on iOS 12, over 25 on my iPad Air 5 on iPadOS 15.
My view is skewed. I used my iPhone Xʀ with very heavy usage once (high brightness, Cellular, camera use), and it extrapolated to about 7-8 hours. I found that to be abhorrent, but then again, my expectations are high because my usage is light.
But you see, I’m okay with high brightness usage in your case due to one factor and one factor only: you have realistic expectations. You say “I’m going to use my iPhone, my Mac, my iPad - even if on original iOS versions - and I’m going to get 5 hours and it’s okay for me”. You don’t say “I expect 12 hours”. I think that’s the important part of this.
You need to compare Wh, as comparing mAh could give a wrong picture if voltage isn't the same. Doing that, it's the other way around.
The 11" iPad Pro has a 31.29 Wh battery, while the 13" MacBook Air has a 52.6 Wh battery. It's also a much bigger device.
80% <> 57%
Since enabling the 80% rule on my M4, mine only goes to 57% even after plugging in for 12 hours.
Since enabling the 80% rule on my M4, mine only goes to 57% even after plugging in for 12 hours.
You always mention testing heavy usage patterns, I tested the heaviest ever: an extremely heavy sports streaming app at full brightness with sound also at max (through speakers). It was... well, completely ridiculous.
I tested it on my 9.7-inch iPad Pro. It’s on iOS 12. Regular battery life is 10-11 hours with my light usage, down from 14 hours on iOS 9 (I didn’t update it willingly, Apple forced it out).
After 10 minutes, it had dropped to... 85%!!!!! I think that tells me everything I need to know so I plugged it back in. I did try it with Netflix once and I think it was at 77% after one hour, so the typical 3-4-5 hour battery life at full brightness that every iPad gets.
I just wanted to describe the most ridiculous usage pattern I’ve ever seen. Sports apps are inefficient, the Quad Speakers on the small 9.7-inch iPad Pro are ridiculously draining, and three major updates (forced) don’t help, but I wanted to try.
The battery on my old M1 was always weird, it would randomly die at 10% then turn back on and drain rapidly again. I device firmware updated and it would be resolved for a couple weeks then come back. All that to say the M4 doesn’t have that issue so it’s been wonderful.
Yup, I think it is a bug. I power off and powered back on and now it is charging back to 100% again. I suspect it is something with the 80% rule in iOS. I plan to test this theory. But submitting a bug report will be useless if true.
Low brightness, web browsing, netflix, YouTube. Headphones always. That gets me 10-11 hours of SOT.
I would disable the 80% charging for a while and if the device charges normally then you can be relatively sure it's merely a bug.
But that's apparently how Apple intends its Pro experience to look like. Whenever I see Apple's ads I just know they did these things once, just once, for advertising. When they showed a short movie or something filmed on a Lightning iPhone in ProRes years ago I just wondered how they got the footage off the iPhone. Film an hour, then wait an hour to copy at USB2.0 speeds? Bet they had a bucket of those iPhones ready so they could keep filming without interruption.
That sounds like how I use mine pretty much. Always outdoors 100% brightness, always heavy multitasking and heavy workloads with Stage Manager, and sometimes an external display connected. 1.5 hours is the average battery life. I will often work in bursts of 40-60 minutes, fast-charge for an hour in between, go back to working for 45 minutes, back to the charger... meanwhile the iPad heats up to concerning levels and starts dimming the display to protect itself.
But that's apparently how Apple intends its Pro experience to look like. Whenever I see Apple's ads I just know they did these things once, just once, for advertising. When they showed a short movie or something filmed on a Lightning iPhone in ProRes years ago I just wondered how they got the footage off the iPhone. Film an hour, then wait an hour to copy at USB2.0 speeds? Bet they had a bucket of those iPhones ready so they could keep filming without interruption.
Let’s try a more balanced load? 50% brightness, speaker volume on 75%, Netflix in PiP mode, in parallel browsing Safari in parallel
That's what I do a lot when inside, medium brightness, PiP mode, browsing, though I have a couple more apps in the other Stage Manager workspaces for checking e-mail and such. Gives me about 4-6 hours on the M1. I still consider that bad as my Mac would last 8-10 hours but that's ok for a tiny device like the 11" iPad. But I can feel the M1 heating up the iPad so it's apparently not all that trivial to play media and keep a dozen browser tabs in memory.
I was a little surprised, because I never use it like that. I genuinely expected about three hours, not one. That’s probably the heaviest workload I can think of.
Just for reference, my almost 8-year-old iPhone 6s on iOS 10 gives me about three hours of full brightness, LTE, heavy camera use. And that wasn’t a test, I had to use it like that because I was shooting outdoors and I need those settings like that.
1.5 hours sounds too heavy, and it’s not part of my usage pattern. I’m not a heavy iPad user.
Better iPhones are decent when using them moderately heavily, my iPhone Xʀ on iOS 12 gives me about 7-8 hours of high brightness (not 100%, but say, 70%) of mixed usage with significant camera use.
I guess I always knew that it was possible to kill an iOS device on any iOS version that quickly (I don’t think it would fare significantly better on iOS 9, honestly), but it was a little weird to see.
I have always stated (and this proves it, I don’t even need Stage Manager or any fancy feature) that it was possible to kill an iOS device extremely quickly if usage is heavy enough on any iOS version, which is why I disregard those who question my never updating strategy with “well, but even if you have it on an original iOS version, you can kill it fast”. Yes, I know that, and? For me, what’s important is light to moderate usage. That workload has to give me a good battery life.
That iPhone 6s on iOS 10 give some 7-8 hours of light Wi-Fi use, 6 on Cellular. The iPhone 6s that was forced out of iOS 9 into iOS 13, comparatively, gives me about 4-5 hours on Wi-Fi, and about 3-4 on cellular, with the same usage. That’s garbage. Can I kill the iOS 10 6s in, say, two hours? Yeah, probably, but where’s the relevance in doing that? You can kill anything that quickly if usage is heavy enough. For me, what matters is light to moderate usage. And a device that’s on its original iOS version will always be good enough.
See what happens with the M4 iPads! Just the same thing. Extremely heavy usage blurs everything together. My iPad Air 5 on iPadOS 15 is significantly better than my 9.7-inch iPad Pro in terms of battery life (about 2.5 times better). Heavy enough usage would blur that together, so in my opinion it’s not relevant as a testing condition. Hell, heavy enough usage would blur older iPhones like the 6s with ridiculously good iPads like the Air 5 or the M4 iPads with light use.
Reviews (and some users) called the iPad Air 5 poor in terms of battery life, but they always tested them with full brightness. Come on, you’re a user that’s old and experienced enough by now, and you’re a reviewer writing articles, don’t write garbage. Are you really going to say it’s poor based on a 100% brightness 100% speakers test? Don’t expect ridiculous results and you won’t be disappointed. If your usage pattern is like that it’s okay, but don’t expect 14 hours with that usage and criticise the devices throughout a review when they aren’t even close.
There’s a gigantic difference between “moderately heavy” use (high brightness but not max, 70%, no speakers, camera, efficient settings) and “the heaviest usage pattern ever” (the one you and I described). The former is probably over four times better, and we aren’t even talking about extreme efficiency.
I tested this and it was about 3-4 hours. It’s still not relevant for me as a use case, I use either Netflix or Safari, with lower brightness, no PiP.
The speakers kill it. They’re too draining. That’s why I use headphones if unplugged.
Then mine is better and I’m underestimating it, but I don’t think I’ll try that usage pattern, sorry.
I’m curious about why you find this pattern so interesting.
Speakers are the most ridiculously draining factor, I reckon they’re even worse than brightness and/or cellular. I’ve used my iPhones to play music with speakers when I had no Bluetooth speaker at hand and battery life was worse than the one I got with light, on-screen usage (that was maybe two or three times, ever). The iPhone was in Airplane and standby mode, playing downloaded music. There’s nothing more efficient than this. Using headphones gives me a battery life of something like 50 hours. Using speakers at full volume probably gets me three (Whilst changing nothing else!!!). Where’s the point in using this usage pattern? I just don’t see one.
It’s an issue that’s so easy to circumvent (Bluetooth speakers or headphones) and so utterly draining that I never use speakers in real life. Just by plugging in headphones or using Bluetooth I reckon I’d get four times as much (or even more) battery life, so this usage pattern just kills it fast and has no benefit.