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Is my battery life bad enough to bring it back to Apple?

T

teege

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 31, 2010
48
0
Watched 25 mins of ABC video, took 12%. That's on pace to get under 4 hours.

Other web stuff seems to take 3% every 15 minutes. That's 12% per hour, which means I'd get around 8 hrs. I think this is the high range of what I've been getting

So web only I'm getting 8 hours. Everything else I'm getting way less. Ugh.

The weird thing is, the very first time I used the iPad everything I did was on pace for ~12 hours. No changed settings since then

What to do? It seems like maybe one of the batteries went bad?
 
Follow-up questions:

Will they give me a lot of grief to exchange (try to convince me to keep it, etc)?

And will they give me new one (I don't think they have refurb ones yet, do they?)
 
I'm sure they can determine if there is in fact a problem with the unit when you take it to an Apple store and have it looked at. I can't imagine they wouldn't replace it asap is there is a battery problem.
 
One of the first things I did when I got mine was to turn off the display of battery percentage. I was obssessing over it too much. I suggest that you do the same, turn off location services if you are not using it, turn down the display brightness and just use it all day until you get the low battery warning.
 
They'd give you a new one. Honestly though I don't know how you're going to make the case that your battery life is poor. Maybe the genius can run some tests? Not too sure how it works.

Anyway I just wanted to chime in that my battery life is amazing. Then again all I'm doing mainly is safari browsing. I've been using safari for 20 minutes and my battery still says 100%.
 
jrboddie said:
One of the first things I did when I got mine was to turn off the display of battery percentage. I was obssessing over it too much. I suggest that you do the same, turn off location services if you are not using it, turn down the display brightness and just use it all day until you get the low battery warning.
Click to expand...

Thanks -- I'd agree with you but I also want to make sure that I don't have a real problem with my iPad. If I'm getting half the battery life as everyone else I want to have that fixed.
 
What is your screen brightness set to as well as volume level ? If its all the way up you will kill your battery much much faster. I read a review and the reporter, when testing the batter life, cranked both all the way up and ran constant video, surfing, etc and got about 5 hrs maybe 6 I believe. Then when he turned the brightness down to half way, still more than adequate and turned the volume down and used headphones the battery life was about 11 hrs.
 
jrboddie said:
One of the first things I did when I got mine was to turn off the display of battery percentage. I was obssessing over it too much. I suggest that you do the same, turn off location services if you are not using it, turn down the display brightness and just use it all day until you get the low battery warning.
Click to expand...

I might do that. Despite using it for 2-3 hours, I'll look at the battery and think "Oh crap, I'm down to 75%, I should plug it in!" :D
 
Have you ever restarted the unit?

My friend was getting what seemed to be much worse batt. life than me, but he hadn't restarted it since getting it. After he did he got much better results. Maybe some runaway process?

(I realize 'restart it' is kind of lame, but hey, if it helps...)
 
I'm not sure you should expect more than 4-5 hours watching streaming video over a wifi connection, even as good as the iPad battery seems to be.
 
gwynne said:
Have you ever restarted the unit?

My friend was getting what seemed to be much worse batt. life than me, but he hadn't restarted it since getting it. After he did he got much better results. Maybe some runaway process?

(I realize 'restart it' is kind of lame, but hey, if it helps...)
Click to expand...

I'm not exactly sure what restarting is. I did do this though -- held down the sleep button until a power off option came up. I did that, powered back on 10 minutes later. Pretty sure I was getting about the same battery life.
 
diabolic said:
I'm not sure you should expect more than 4-5 hours watching streaming video over a wifi connection, even as good as the iPad battery seems to be.
Click to expand...

I'm getting around 4 hrs streaming via ABC and getting 7 hrs web browsing. That seems like it's around 1/2 to 2/3 what most people are getting, no?
 
diabolic said:
I'm not sure you should expect more than 4-5 hours watching streaming video over a wifi connection, even as good as the iPad battery seems to be.
Click to expand...


Why can we not expect more? :apple:

Check the topics...MOST, but not all, owners are getting atleast the specified battery life. Some are getting more...it's obvious his is not...and that he should take it to Apple to be replaced. Why would he settle for less? :rolleyes:

And if 'most' people report water is wet...would some people say it 'seems dry' :confused:
 
teege said:
Watched 25 mins of ABC video, took 12%. That's on pace to get under 4 hours.

Other web stuff seems to take 3% every 15 minutes. That's 12% per hour, which means I'd get around 8 hrs. I think this is the high range of what I've been getting

So web only I'm getting 8 hours. Everything else I'm getting way less. Ugh.

The weird thing is, the very first time I used the iPad everything I did was on pace for ~12 hours. No changed settings since then

What to do? It seems like maybe one of the batteries went bad?
Click to expand...

I would do a series of test before I take it back. if you continue to see your issue then take it to an Apple Store.
 
So because the battery indicator shows that it went down a few percent after 15 minutes and 25 minutes you thing it's bad?

I'm not sure, but what you often see on the iPhone and iPod Touch is that the battery indicator is decreasing faster when it's almost full. It should decrease less when there's less power left.

So the onliest thing you can check this is to put a movie on for as long as possible. You can just put a movie on and get back 5 or 6 hours later. If there's like 20% you set up a camera for 'just in case' (so if it's turned off when you come back later, you can see when it happened).

I'm sure you will get to the 10 hours. You are concluding your battery life is bad from what you've seen in 15 minutes. You can't be sure at all!
 
I would assume the genuis bar could run tests to check the battery life on your iPad just like they do for MacBooks and determine if a repair or replacement needs to be done.
 
teege said:
I'm getting around 4 hrs streaming via ABC and getting 7 hrs web browsing. That seems like it's around 1/2 to 2/3 what most people are getting, no?
Click to expand...

Teege,

Sounds like you off by about a third.

Check your settings..
(For example)
I have my location servies on, my email on (hour push), wifi on (mostly N), my screen is at 50% brightness.

Have you ran it down and recharged it yet? (didn't specifically state you did..just assuming). When you charge it does it get to 100%?

Last resort is to turn everything down and watch a movies (no wifi, no bluetooth, no location services, email to manual, brightness at 50% or less) if you watch two 1-1/2 movies..you should see 20%-25% (WAG here). Even using the battery 'gauge' you can tell (not the percent gauge).

Or..you could just take it to Apple (my reccomendation).
 
Just take it to the store and they'll give you a new one. I doubt they'll run any tests.


My iPad will go for 10 hours at the default brightness setting (halfway), and that is using it lots.
 
Have you left it to recharge to 100% overnight?

My battery life seemed to be draining a little quickly when I first got my ipad, but after leaving it to fully recharge overnight, it seems to be have leveled off and gets great battery life now.
 
Bodhi395 said:
Have you left it to recharge to 100% overnight?

My battery life seemed to be draining a little quickly when I first got my ipad, but after leaving it to fully recharge overnight, it seems to be have leveled off and gets great battery life now.
Click to expand...

Yes. When I first got the iPad, worked well. I ran it down to 0% and it took a good 10-12 hours.

I charged it up completely. Then I noticed it began to lose power a lot faster this time around.
 
Your battery does not sound bad and you will be taking a chance of getting a bad one. Apple in not warranting that your battery will last for 10 hours, as it depends on what you are doing.

You will not find a device now or the near future that will get near the life of the iPad. Like the other user said turn off the % display and try to just enjoy your device. If you can't enjoy this one, you will not the next!:eek:
 
diabolic said:
I'm not sure you should expect more than 4-5 hours watching streaming video over a WiFi connection, even as good as the iPad battery seems to be.
Click to expand...

I agree.

Also people claiming to get 14-20 hours on a charge are simply not telling the truth and make "some" feel like their iPad is defective if it does not get the same.

I would be happy to get 6 hours of use for a device this thin. The iPad was not warranted to do 12 hours of streaming! The times are for a "mixture" of uses including not having WiFi on at all!
 
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