[pragnesh89]

Hello all,

I have had my blackberry playbook for almost two months now and I've enjoyed every bit of it. But the one thing that I am very afraid of is the battery life. Is there a way to improve the battery life? like killing process in the background or something. I know reducing the brightness is one, but there has to be more.

[anon(2757538)]

Adjusting Messages sync to manual instead of Push

[FF22]

There are suggestions that not "running" too many apps at the same time can save battery life. In other words, while you are browsing, you might want to close your email program or some game. I'm not sure if this is effective or not but you can try it. If not using BT or wifi you could turn those off.

[BerryClever]

I'd imagine this would be one: on the settings under General, 'Pause' the application behavior rather than 'Showcasing' it. Also, as F2 said, if you don't need WiFi, turn it off. So if you are just watching a movie or playing a game have WiFi off, also turn off WiFi if you are not connected to a network as it may still be searching for a signal (ie while you are a passenger in a car using the PB). Turn off Blue Tooth if not in use or needed. Those would be my guesses. The less active processes and apps running the better.

[bdegrande]

Turn off Bluetooth and WiFi when you are not using them.

[glamrlama]

Hello all,

I have had my blackberry playbook for almost two months now and I've enjoyed every bit of it. But the one thing that I am very afraid of is the battery life. Is there a way to improve the battery life? like killing process in the background or something. I know reducing the brightness is one, but there has to be more.

Brightness at minimum is what I use to keep battery life maximized. Wifi and BT off if nothing use also helps. The mobile version of CB is on a black background I believe to further conserve battery power.

[joshua_sx1]

Speaking of "turning it off", no, I wouldn't suggest to turn-off your PlayBook when not in use (although it could possibly help to improve the battery life specifically for a longer period of time) but rather to manually put your PB to "standby" mode if you will not use it or finished using it (instead of waiting it to "standby time out" automatically based on your setting e.g. 5 minutes)... every mobile phones or tablet nowadays has three major battery drainage issues i.e. the processor it is being used, those Apps that keeps running in the background and the screen...

[Delmeister]

The mobile version of CB is on a black background I believe to further conserve battery power.

Contrary to common belief, darkening the background increases power consumption in LCDs. Each pixel is like a window blind shutting out the sun (always on backlight). Its natural state is open. It takes power to close. The backlight power consumption is much greater than that required to control the pixels (90/10?) so eye comfort should be your primary consideration.

Darkening the background does reduce power consumption in CRT and plasma displays because each pixel acts like a little light bulb.

[peter9477]

Contrary to common belief, darkening the background increases power consumption in LCDs.

I hate to have to call you on that, Delmeister, but in this case you're wrong. Fire up my app (and thanks for the purchase by the way :-) ) and run it for 5min while displaying an all-black screen (and switch back to BG to check power after any time between 4 and 5 minutes), then do the same with an all-white screen.

Many LCDs act as you describe, but not all. The PlayBook has one where the darker, the better.

I don't have the numbers handy but I think it was roughly 1.3W black, and 1.8W white, for just sitting idle with the screen on, when I measured on my PlayBook a year ago. That would have been with brightness turned down all the way, and probably the auto-dim disabled. Generally for the PlayBooks and, I believe, the BB10 devices, any developer who is very concerned about preserving battery life should ensure their app has at least an option for a dark theme.

[dynot]

I've always put my PB in airplane mode and shut off the screen by locking it when I'm done. Airplane mode shuts off wifi and bluetooth with one single touch which should help with battery conservation. My screen is set to turn off after a couple of minutes but I figure why waste the power.

[Delmeister]

@Peter: I've done some quick testing and, well, I'm surprised. You appear to be right. I'm going to look into this in more detail but can't touch it for a couple of days.

[Delmeister]

OK, so I've taken text in an e reader and flipped between night (mostly black screen) and day mode (mostly white), and indeed the mostly white background takes more power. But this in itself would not be conclusive because you can't tell if the reader is simultaneously bringing the backlight down.

A better approach seems to be to use a paint program (I used Draw, $0.99) to paint out (blacken) parts of the screen. As an example of the power consumption at full brightnes, and with automatic backlight dimming turned off, Battery Guru give a power consumption of 2.79 and 3.11 Watts respectively for a fully painted black screen and a screen that is fully white. This is a 0.32 Watt, or 11.5% increase in power. With half the screen painted black, the power consumption was 2.94 W representing an increase over fully black of 0.15 W, so the change in power consumption appears to be proportional to the change in white level. Also there is no change in the brightness of the white area as portions of the screen are blackened.

With the screen set at minimum brightness, the corresponding numbers are 1.48 / 1.59 / 1.74 representing power changes of 0 / 0.11 / 0.26 and percentage increases of 0 / 7.4 / 17.6.

So this suggests that the screen is naturally dark, and that the electronics requires about 0.3 W to drive the pixels to fully open. I've never heard of this before, but I did find one reference of this possible reversal:
... these devices are usually operated between crossed polarizers such that they appear bright with no voltage (the eye is much more sensitive to variations in the dark state than the bright state). These devices can also be operated between parallel polarizers, in which case the bright and dark states are reversed. The voltage-off dark state in this configuration appears blotchy, however, because of small variations of thickness across the device.
I doubt RIM would be happy with an iferior picture from the reversal. There must be people who know how this display works and it would be nice if they just told us.

Anyways, a good thing has come out of this for me. Even though I knew the switching power was low, I would still refrain from reading e books in the more comfortable night mode because I wanted to save battery power. Now I can do so with the knowledge that I'm saving power too. Nice.

[Wasp14]

I'm also concerned about battery life. I've turned the brightness down to about 1/4 of the bar and without wi-fi on the battery loses 20% after an hour of video viewing. With internet browsing I'll go to 40% within two hours, I don't get it. Battery guru shows health at 91% (Playbook was purchased three weeks ago) and it seems to drain quite quickly (though it jas normal depletion in standby mode). It's just under 20 cycles so maybe it'll pick up, but with the brightness so low I expected closer to the 8 hour mark with wi-fi/bluetooth off.

[Tha.Housewife]

its RIMs way of making us go out and buy rapid chargers, lol jk

[Andrew4life]

Well, according to a random experiement by PCSTATS, LCD and CRT both perform better with black screens.

Blackle vs. Google Monitor Power Consumption Tested - PCSTATS.com


Another done by techlogg shows that only IPS monitors have lower power usage with black screens.
Black vs white screen power consumption – 24 more monitors tested � Techlogg.com

Did a little more digging and it I had couple of places quoting that the Playbook has an IPS screen but I can't confirm. But if only IPS screens exhibit this energy saving, then perhaps the Playbook has an IPS screen.
So there you have it, In plane switching LCDs have lower consumption if you use a black background as opposed to a white background.

[Tha.Housewife]

ill try it but I highly doubt that's the prob..

[Tha.Housewife]

lol eww I can't see anything..lmao...looks weird with black wallpaper

[kbz1960]

I think I might get 7 hours just using the browser over bridge, I have my screen brightness down pretty far and have wifi off.

[Tha.Housewife]

I'm glad I have a wifi hotspot at home. cuz my bb 8520 has no data service, lol...I'm lucky its still alive and kickin.

[lanemaster12]

Battery life is brutal on mine too... I downloaded the os2.1 dev beta version specifically because it had better battery life than .668 and sure enough it seems like .1032 is just as bad.

[Tha.Housewife]

Battery life is brutal on mine too... I downloaded the os2.1 dev beta version specifically because it had better battery life than .668 and sure enough it seems like .1032 is just as bad.

well, slowly, with each update, rim is giving us access to new functions of thepb, some might use more power..m I dunno..

lol anyone else feel like lab rats? haha

[Delmeister]

Well, according to a random experiement by PCSTATS, LCD and CRT both perform better with black screens.

Blackle vs. Google Monitor Power Consumption Tested - PCSTATS.com


Another done by techlogg shows that only IPS monitors have lower power usage with black screens.
Black vs white screen power consumption � 24 more monitors tested � Techlogg.com

Did a little more digging and it I had couple of places quoting that the Playbook has an IPS screen but I can't confirm. But if only IPS screens exhibit this energy saving, then perhaps the Playbook has an IPS screen.
So there you have it, In plane switching LCDs have lower consumption if you use a black background as opposed to a white background.

Thanks for those interesting links. The Techlogg tests showed that 22 of 24 LCDs consumed more power when displaying black. It's interesting that I got it wrong with the Playbook because I knew this about basic LCD behavior, and Blackle has it wrong now because to them it just seems right that black screens should consume less power (most LCDs are not IPS based).

[forrestishmael]

I was wondering about battery health in general, not just short term conservation. Is there a way to ensure the battery lasts a longer time without having to be replaced? What are some tips? Will things like not using it everyday and turning it off instead of leaving it to drain slowly in stand-by mode help preserve the battery for longer? Is it bad to use it while it is plugged in getting charged? Anyone know anything? Cause I know they don't make them anymore (playbook) and I'm worried that when the internal battery is done, I won't be able to get it replaced.

[Pixtureskk]

My own experience is when I am going to use my PB continuously for a few hours, I always run it on AC power, makes the PB run quicker then I always shut it off (I can put up with the long boot up). When using it on battery alone, never let the battery get below 40% before recharging (I think this is the info from Blackberry). There is also a video from the Blackberry PB support page that explains how to get the most out of the battery. I have been using one of my PB's for almost 5 years this way, the battery, as far as I can tell, is as functional as when I got it.

[dmlis]

I assume that all advises from Battery University are applicable.
Just to note: my current PB spent most of last 2-3 years in charging cradle. And battery health is still reasonable at 83%. It was about 91% or 92% 4 years ago.