[The Asgard]

Picked up a new Playbook on Sunday and i have been very suprised how good it is compared to my iPad V1. Finally i have a browser that works!

However the battery life seems poor compared to my iPad. Like my iPad i was expecting 10 hrs while browsing. I'm currently getting 2 - 3% per 10 minutes browsing,non flash websites. Backlight is low and i have no apps running in the background. Is this normal?

When I first powered the unit up it did do a firmware update to the latest versions. I have tried a hard reset this morning but still seems to be the same.

Searching on the forum it's suggesting 3% per hour under these conditions.

[kennyliu]

Picked up a new Playbook on Sunday and i have been very suprised how good it is compared to my iPad V1. Finally i have a browser that works!

However the battery life seems poor compared to my iPad. Like my iPad i was expecting 10 hrs while browsing. I'm currently getting 2 - 3% per 10 minutes browsing,non flash websites. Backlight is low and i have no apps running in the background. Is this normal?

When I first powered the unit up it did do a firmware update to the latest versions. I have tried a hard reset this morning but still seems to be the same.

Searching on the forum it's suggesting 3% per hour under these conditions.

3% an hour while browsing is impossible. Otherwise, you would be getting about 30 hours of use on one charge.

With web-browsing, you can expect about 8 hours (give or take) of battery life, which is roughly 12-15% per hour. This is pretty close to what you are getting.

Edit: You probably mean 3% an hour on standby, which seems a bit too high to me. I get about 2 hours for each 1% on standby.

[Innovatology]

With a new device it will take a few charges before the battery is calibrated. So don't pay too much attention the % indicator just yet.

But 2% per 10 minutes sounds about right. That would give you over 8 hours of browsing.

[kennyliu]

With a new device it will take a few charges before the battery is calibrated. So don't pay too much attention the % indicator just yet.

But 2% per 10 minutes sounds about right. That would give you over 8 hours of browsing.

Yes, give it a few cycles before it calibrates. In the meantime, you will see some erratic battery readings. You may actually see that the battery level goes up at times. That's OK. It's the OS learning your battery.

[The Asgard]

Thanks guys for the reassurance.
Initially I was expecting 10 Hrs like the iPad which seemed to be suggested on the web. Spent some time on the forum before posting but couldn't nail down the general battery life.

I really think the Playbook is an excellent tablet which far surpasses the buggy web browsing experience I have with the iPad. The screen is perfect, no sunken buttons. I didn't want to take it back for an exchange and pick a unit with other issues.

Cheers

[FF22]

The other issue with a battery comparison to the ipad is that the larger device accommodates a larger battery and/or power supply. That is an unfortunate tradeoff for the smaller size of the pb.

[The Asgard]

More than anything it's to make sure the PB is working normally. Just easier to get it swapped out for a new one if it's less than 7 days old.

[peter9477]

Background reading: PlayBook: Power Consumption