1. ferritt's Avatar
    I've read that theres a battery issue with the playbook and thought I'd post my finding on this.

    I have a 16gb PB. I normally have to charge it every 2/3 days with general to heavy use on it. I always have bridge on and normally wifi aswell but I have started to use the bridge browser alot more when at home with my 9780 connected to my home wifi. My screen brightness is always at the minimum and auto dimming off. So last night I went bed with the PB on 7% woke up this morning at it was on 0% so I thought I'd let it go dead then do a cycle. I havent used the PB all day and 7 hours on it's still on 0%!!! I'm sure once I start to use it it will die but it seems to my that the battery needs calibrating to give the right readings. I've never tested it for continuous use but I'm sure I'd never get the 10 hours stated. Whats the battery life like for others. the PB is great and I use it all the time instead on my ipad just wish I didnt have to charge it as much.

    cheers
    07-12-11 09:09 AM
  2. shootsscores's Avatar
    Getting 10 hours out of the battery is no problem at all.
    07-12-11 09:15 AM
  3. Phil DeLong's Avatar
    Getting 10 hours out of the battery is no problem at all.
    10 hours of continuous use? Because that was his question.
    07-12-11 09:17 AM
  4. lexsteryo's Avatar
    The other day i was down to 0% and got an hour of video and web surfing. The battery meter needs of work yet but i do know i can use it at work for 5 hours amd still have power to go after my 9 hour shift.
    07-12-11 09:28 AM
  5. blackjack93117's Avatar
    I wouldn't expect 10 hours with continuous use - mine is similar - if I use it heavily, I would have to charge it every day - I generally don't let it go below 50%, and that happens typically every other day with low to medium use.
    07-12-11 09:38 AM
  6. ferritt's Avatar
    Also do you leave apps running when not using them? I tend to swipe the app away when done or putting the PB into standby. I wonder what effect that has on the battery when leaving things running?
    07-12-11 09:41 AM
  7. Schlymer's Avatar
    I've read that theres a battery issue with the playbook and thought I'd post my finding on this.

    I have a 16gb PB. I normally have to charge it every 2/3 days with general to heavy use on it. I always have bridge on and normally wifi aswell but I have started to use the bridge browser alot more when at home with my 9780 connected to my home wifi. My screen brightness is always at the minimum and auto dimming off. So last night I went bed with the PB on 7% woke up this morning at it was on 0% so I thought I'd let it go dead then do a cycle. I havent used the PB all day and 7 hours on it's still on 0%!!! I'm sure once I start to use it it will die but it seems to my that the battery needs calibrating to give the right readings. I've never tested it for continuous use but I'm sure I'd never get the 10 hours stated. Whats the battery life like for others. the PB is great and I use it all the time instead on my ipad just wish I didnt have to charge it as much.

    cheers
    I easily get 10 hours of continuous use with wifi on and bluetooth off. I have had some charging issues too, make sure you see the lightning bolt in the battery icon or else it is not charging. When I use my charging dock, I have to be very careful as most times if I set it in it doesn't start charging. If I take it off and put it back, usually a few times, it will pick up the lightning bolt and start charging. I think it is a faulty charger or a software issue as it is a high speed charge, rather than the normal charge. The charger that came with the playbook works perfect every time.

    When I first got my playbook it seemed I was only getting around six hours and I was so nervous to let it go below 20%. After the update came that allowed the playbook to be able to charge while being powered off, I decided to let the playbook run until it powered off by itself. It got all the way to zero and then ran for another hour and 10 minutes before shutting off. I let it charge up to 100% and ever since when it gets to zero it is out of power and shuts off. Having the meter dialled in makes all the difference.
    07-12-11 09:45 AM
  8. peter9477's Avatar
    It's not possible to get 10 hours continuous use if you're actually running an app that does anything much (e.g. heavy video), but it is possible to get 10 hours just leaving the screen on and backlight at minimum. I've done some detailed measurements and wrote an article about it.

    Do remember (or understand) that some units have poorly calibrated percentage-remaining estimates, but they should still get the expected battery life even if it means sitting at 0% for hours, or (at the other extreme) shutting off when they say they're down to only 13%. I've had reports of both cases, and others in between.

    If you want to validate your battery life, drain it fully, to the point where it shuts itself off. Then charge it fully, without using it other than to check status, to the point where the lightning bolt symbol goes away (i.e. not merely until it reads 100%). Then set your backlight to 100% with auto-dimming off, run an app that keeps the unit awake, and let it sit. You should get around 6h from the device before it shuts itself off again.
    07-12-11 09:53 AM
  9. peter9477's Avatar
    Also do you leave apps running when not using them? I tend to swipe the app away when done or putting the PB into standby. I wonder what effect that has on the battery when leaving things running?
    Depending on the app in question, and your settings, this may or may not help.

    If you have the tablet in Showcase or Default modes, merely swiping up to minimize the app will do nothing useful for you... it's still running normally, and depending on what it's doing could even be using marginally more power (fullscreen video takes less power than video shown in a viewport covering only part of the screen).

    In Default mode, switching to a different app will deactivate the first one, but then the other app is running... you'll almost always have one app active this way. (Running two apps, then closing one without making the other one go fullscreen will mean the leftover app is still deactivated actually, in Default mode.)

    If you have the tablet in Paused mode, the app is deactivated immediately when minimized.

    Some apps have no need to be minimized... they're written efficiently. Many are not, and could be chewing up extra power, some of them *lots* of extra power, when not deactivated.
    07-12-11 10:00 AM
  10. SuperDuckWC's Avatar
    Agree with pete, play the HD video during one hour and check your battery drain, I will try this at home, just to check.
    When I surf on the web I have almost 1% down every 3 minutes., so by extension 5hrs of intensive surfing
    07-12-11 10:02 AM
  11. ferritt's Avatar
    Well my PB just ran out of juice after sitting on 0% in standby for nearly 9 hours! will fully charge and see what I get after.

    cheers
    07-12-11 11:33 AM
  12. chiefbroski's Avatar
    Yeah, I played nfs for 30 minutes at 0% battery life.

    The original build which was the first one you got when you bought the playbook was the best at battery life.

    It got worse with 1.0.3 and 1.0.5 but 1.0.6 is good.

    I have wifi on, bluetooth on, max brightness, showcase mode on and with medium usage it lasts the whole day.

    It's a tough question to quantitatively answer. Nobody is going to use the playbook for 10 continuous hours. But 10 collective hours in one day, I'd say you can get about that.
    07-12-11 11:56 AM
  13. blackjack93117's Avatar
    Also do you leave apps running when not using them? I tend to swipe the app away when done or putting the PB into standby. I wonder what effect that has on the battery when leaving things running?
    My educated guess is that the biggest battery drainers are (not necessarily in this order:

    The display at full brightness.
    Streaming audio at full volume (takes power to amplify and power speakers)
    Any radios (wifi, bluetooth)

    Did I leave out anything?
    07-12-11 12:17 PM
  14. naudurivsm's Avatar
    Overall max life of about hours with reasonably good use.

    1. Just playing games (with no BB bridge on) - about 4.5 to 5 hours - my family were playing games

    2. playing games on PB (again my daughters were playing) and the bridge WAS ON. - full battery drained to 20% in about 3 hours.

    3. Streaming a full movie onto my HDTV via HDMI - battery lasted for the entire 2.45 minutes and status indicated 30% still remaining. - NO Bridge again

    4. live streaming a cricket match for about 3.5 hours with bridge ON - battery lasted all the time and status at the end - 15% remaining.

    5. general browsing including news articles video clips etc battery lasts about 4 hours with bridge ON

    and about 5 hours without bridge.

    And all the time PB is automatically connected to home wi-fi even when only playing games.

    Conclusion is: Bluetooth connectivity for Bridge and the Wi-Fi connections take a lot of power and irrespective of that I think the battery life is pretty decent.
    07-12-11 02:06 PM
  15. peter9477's Avatar
    My educated guess is that the biggest battery drainers are (not necessarily in this order:

    The display at full brightness.
    Streaming audio at full volume (takes power to amplify and power speakers)
    Any radios (wifi, bluetooth)
    The display is definitely the biggy. Playing video is pretty hard on it too, though audio is relatively minor.

    I've published some detailed measurements already covering some of those items.
    07-14-11 04:36 PM
  16. shootsscores's Avatar
    Nice measurements. Pretty decent battery life for such a powerful display.
    stanlai likes this.
    07-14-11 09:04 PM
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