Power Tests

[Seadog]

For some good news, MacWorld did some battery tests. Running video continuously, the iPad was good for almost 12 hours before cutting out on low battery. Running music continuously in iPod mode, after 43 hours, it was still at 71%.

 

[brobar]

That is CRAZY!!!

 

[JohnnyApple]

Wow thats amazing battery life. Do you have a link to the full article?

 

[Edlex]

I wonder if the 3G will have similar performance?

 

[CaptKirk]

I wonder if the 3G will have similar performance?

I think the 3G will use up more battery since is has another radio as well as the GPS engine.

 

[Seadog]

It will depend on what is being done with the iPad. The 3G components can add to the draw down on the battery, but if all a person is doing is playing music, they should both be equally long lasting. Playing movies would be about the same, just requiring more power. A lot of this issue is part of the problem with what many want to see added to the iPad. If you add multi-tasking, printing, or other features to the iPad, then there would be more drain on the battery. Not to mention the drain on memory. With 3G, GPS, and the potential add-ons in OS 4, I suspect that battery life will be optimistic at 10 hours. But it also means that battery life is something we can control. Turning things like the GPS and other features off may be a big help to keep the battery charge up.

 

[HX_Guy]

In all these tests...WHY CAN'T THEY SAY WHAT THE SCREEN BRIGHTNESS WAS SET AT?!

Seriously...that is the most important part of the test to me as it makes a HUGE difference.

 

[Seadog]

Which is probably why the video took so much power and the music playing took so little. As far as screen brightness goes, it is a very individual issue that would vary a great deal, so could be hard to quantify.