iPad Air Please report the real battery life you get with Air 5

[nph]

For those who gets the Air 5 today can you please report what the actual battery life is with it?
Is it better than Air 4 which according to most reviews was the worst between it and the 11 pro, mini 6 and regular iPad 9.
I have a M1 MBP and I love it which has unbelievable battery life, easy get 17 hours of light use on one charge!

Thanks

 

[rui no onna]

For those who gets the Air 5 today can you please report what the actual battery life is with it?
Is it better than Air 4 which according to most reviews was the worst between it and the 11 pro, mini 6 and regular iPad 9.
I have a M1 MBP and I love it which has unbelievable battery life, easy get 17 hours of light use on one charge!

I expect majority of Air 4 owners aren't upgrading yet to the Air 5. Might be better off waiting for YouTube reviews.

That said, the MBP has almost double the battery size (58.8Wh vs Air 5 30.8Wh) so don't expect to get similar battery life as the MBP.

 

[boltjames]

I'm in a situation where my iPad Air 4 is only 3 weeks old and I can exchange it for an Air 5, and the only difference between the two that would matter to me is battery life. I decided to stick with my Air 4 because it's battery is definitely better. Some datapoints:

Apple iPad Air (2022) review: A new standard for tablets

The new iPad Air packs M1 power into a thin and light tablet

www.tomsguide.com

"On the Tom's Guide Battery Test, which involves surfing the web over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of screen brightness, the new iPad Air lasted 10 hours and 9 minutes. That's excellent endurance and a bit longer than Apple's claimed 10 hours. The previous iPad Air 4 lasted a slightly longer 10 hours and 29 minutes."

So that's 3% better battery life, an extra 20 minutes.

Apple iPad Air (2022) review: Almost future-proof

Engadget reviews Apple's 2022 iPad Air, which features the company's M1 chip, 5G and a new front-facing camera.

www.engadget.com

"....but the Air 5 lasted a long time while watching movies. I looped a downloaded movie in the Apple TV app for four hours and the battery only dropped to 75 percent."

So I was really happy to have found this, last night I downloaded a movie on Apple TV app, charged up to 100%, and ran it for exactly 4 hours and the iPad Air 4 dropped to 83%. So that's a betterment of 8%.

Lastly, last week I ran another test of my own, trying to compare to my old Air 2. Starting with the Air 4 battery already run down to 58%, with backlight at 30%, volume at 30%, in airplane mode, running a downloaded video on Disney+ the whole time, I got 10 hours of playback before the Air 4 died. Figuring it would have lasted around 17 hours had I started at 100%.

This all makes sense as it is consistent with A14 vs. M1 prior battery tests where ever time Apple comes out with a new and all-powerful chip it makes a small, but noticeable, difference to battery life.

 

[rui no onna]

It's interesting to note that the Air 5 has slightly shorter battery life than the Air 4 when the M1 Pro 11 lasted 13+ hours on Tom's web browsing test.

I guess the ProMotion display likely helps a lot with power saving techniques (e.g. lower refresh rate on static content).

 

[B.A.T]

Mine hasn't arrived yet but I can tell you it is going to be at least 400% better than my iPad Pro 10.5 at this point.

 

[ufgatorvet]

3% ... 20 minutes... , over the course of > 10 hours? ?

I'm not a statistician (I'm sure there is one among us that can set me straight), but I seriously doubt that 20 minutes over the course of 10+ hours is statistically significant, and if the test is performed multiple times, the opposite result may be seen just as often.

Personally, the added upgrades more than make up for a 3% battery loss (at the same cost) IMHO. I would rather have current tech, then tech that is approaching 2 years old now for a 3% battery bump ... maybe that's just me.

 

[rui no onna]

Personally, the added upgrades more than make up for a 3% battery loss (at the same cost) IMHO. I would rather have current tech, then tech that is approaching 2 years old now for a 3% battery bump ... maybe that's just me.

Technically, M1 and A14 are both 2 year old tech. It's just that one is 8-core CPU/8-core GPU/8GB while the other is 6-core CPU/4-core GPU/4GB.

The A14 would perform similar to M1 in most tasks barring gaming, video editing, etc. It's really just the RAM amount that's subpar.

 

[ufgatorvet]

Technically, M1 and A14 are both 2 year old tech. It's just that one is 8-core CPU/8-core GPU/8GB while the other is 6-core CPU/4-core GPU/4GB.

The A14 would perform similar to M1 in most tasks barring gaming, video editing, etc. It's really just the RAM amount that's subpar.

I gotcha.

 

[boltjames]

3% ... 20 minutes... , over the course of > 10 hours? ?

Some of us value battery life over milliseconds of supposedly superior 'performance'. What's 60% of a millisecond? I'll take the 3% of 10 hours, thanks.

I'm not a statistician

Doesn't take one.

Personally, the added upgrades more than make up for a 3% battery loss (at the same cost) IMHO. I would rather have current tech, then tech that is approaching 2 years old now for a 3% battery bump ... maybe that's just me.

That's fine. Some of us don't FaceTime from a tablet or need a darker shade of blue. Some of us use an iPad to read news and watch movies, that's it. So any reduction in battery life is unacceptable.

 

[jdb8167]

Technically, M1 and A14 are both 2 year old tech. It's just that one is 8-core CPU/8-core GPU/8GB while the other is 6-core CPU/4-core GPU/4GB.

Technically they are not 2 years old.

The A14 was introduced 549 days ago and the M1 was introduced 493 days ago. Neither is close to the 730 days in 2 years. The A14 was about 18 months and the M1 was about 16 months ago.

 

[MrSky]

It's interesting to note that the Air 5 has slightly shorter battery life than the Air 4 when the M1 Pro 11 lasted 13+ hours on Tom's web browsing test.

I guess the ProMotion display likely helps a lot with power saving techniques (e.g. lower refresh rate on static content).

But did they redo the same test on both tablet with the same IOS version? they probably did the Air 4 test awhile back around 2020 and just reused those numbers to compare with the ipad Air 5 that is using the current ipadOS. The new ipadOS does seem to drain faster.

 

[uncming]

I traded in my wife’s Air 3 for an Air 5, her complaint was the battery life wasn’t as long as her Air 3. I told her give it a week for all the indexing to wrap up, hopefully that’s the case and not a bum battery

Will say though, I did not restore as “new” but restored from backup. Perhaps if the problem isn’t getting better I can convince to start from scratch

 

[snipr125]

I traded in my wife’s Air 3 for an Air 5, her complaint was the battery life wasn’t as long as her Air 3. I told her give it a week for all the indexing to wrap up, hopefully that’s the case and not a bum battery

Will say though, I did not restore as “new” but restored from backup. Perhaps if the problem isn’t getting better I can convince to start from scratch

I reckon this is normal to be honest. I noticed my Air 3 battery in general lasts longer than my Air 4! My Air 3 is still on IOS 13.3 though, and my 4 is on 14.8. I think the larger screen and stereo speakers sip more juice as well as the higher core ghz of the A14.

 

[Traverse]

I wish you had more configuration options in the iPad line. I want an 11” iPad Pro with an A15/A16 chip. ProMotion is worth the upsell for me, but the power of the M-series chip is wasted on me for what I ultimately decided an iPad is for me and only consumes battery.

 

[N9JIG]

For me the lure of the new iPad Air 5 was the 5G connectivity. I use it in the field often and my Mini5 was much slower at loading pages than my iPhone 13 on cell data. I also am getting older and the small screen on the Mini5 was making TV shows and movies more difficult to watch at home. The better screen resolution and other enhancements are of lesser importance than faster connectivity and a larger screen in my use case.

In addition the battery life on the Mini5 was starting to fade so I figured it was time. The new iPad Air 5 should be here in about 2 weeks if things work out well.

 

[Saturn007]

Old thread but, for those encountering it in the future, as I did, it is important to emphasize that a single test or comparison of battery life proves virtually nothing!

Also, Apple's battery gauge is notoriously off in many cases, on many models, and under many conditions. That’s why battery life estimates based upon battery % and partial discharge are incredibly unreliable.

Starting from 100% and running until shut down is crucial.

Also, for a valid test, it's necessary to ensure that the devices are at the exact same brightness level — measured from the display, not based upon the brightness slider.

Also, you must make sure that the two devices are using the same video settings, ad blockers, cookie blockers, etc. They should have the same drive space. Any test should occur AFTER quitting all apps and doing a complete restart of the device. Only one app should be running. (The other viable approach would be to run all the apps one usually does, ensure, somehow, they are in the same state, do the exact same tasks, and see how battery life compares from 100% to shut down.)

Multiple tests, using different videos and different apps, are required, too, with averages and standard deviations presented.

As someone who has done applied statistics and research for a living, a 3% difference in a *single* test almost assuredly does NOT reflect what the result will be after many tests. A single measurement will likely reflect some extraneous factor (such as those mentioned) and not reflect actual battery life. The findings from multiple, well-controlled tests are needed and they might show no difference in battery life, small differences, and those could be higher or lower.

Furthermore, one needs to use common sense about battery life “measures” and real world use. Unless you are someone who routinely watches videos for more than 10 hours straight, the findings have little meaning. Most people will recharge well before then.

 

[minimo3]

Of the iPads we have at home I’d rate them (in terms of longest to shortest battery life):

iPad 9
iPad 5 (even though the battery is 5 years old)
IPad Air 4 / mini 6 (tied)
iPad 6
iPad mini 4

 

[Ponylover52]

I would definitely characterize my use of the Air as light with web browsing 3-5 tabs and then if any needed document editing etc basic productivity or watching media. I am consistently tracking 10-11 hours of screen on use with no special settings, brightness on auto and magic keyboard constantly attached being used. It isn’t the M1 Pro which was awesome but for the relative size and portability of this Air, the performance and endurance is remarkable and easily can get through a days of working/use which makes the lesser battery vs a MBP for me at least a non issue.

 

[spiderman0616]

Mine hasn't arrived yet but I can tell you it is going to be at least 400% better than my iPad Pro 10.5 at this point

Of all the iPad Pro models I've owned, the 10.5" might have been my favorite model EXCEPT for all the battery life issues I had with it. That thing was power hungry.

 

[Yebubbleman]

For those who gets the Air 5 today can you please report what the actual battery life is with it?
Is it better than Air 4 which according to most reviews was the worst between it and the 11 pro, mini 6 and regular iPad 9.
I have a M1 MBP and I love it which has unbelievable battery life, easy get 17 hours of light use on one charge!

Thanks

First off, I own two fourth generation Airs and the battery life isn't terrible. Second off, I've heard the battery life in the fifth generation is slightly worse (makes sense since it's the same chassis with the same processing cores, just more of them [as A14, M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 Ultra all use the same efficiency cores and performance cores]).

That said, unless you're really pushing the limits with your iPad Air all the time, I sincerely doubt this comparison you're seeking the metrics to makes much of a difference.

 

[Mark Stone]

When doing architectural/history studies for my website (see sig), writing and posting pictures/articles, and general use, I run my iPad Air 5th Gen all day and it is still at 65% or so at the end of the day.without charging. However, when playing my two favorite games (Minecraft and Roblox - especially Roblox) with my grandson, it will go from 100% to 10% in about 5 to 6 hours, and it gets pretty hot!