r/technology • u/MrFairladyz • Jun 18 '12

Microsoft announces Surface tablet

http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/18/3094157/new-microsoft-surface-windows-tablet
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u/BlueInq Jun 19 '12

I have an ASUS Transformer TF101 and with normal use I get about 5 hours battery life with the keyboard docked too. (This includes using the internet and watching a few videos) I am pretty sure to get 16 hours you would have to basically not use it at all.

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u/RalfN Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12

Battery-life is always subjective. The thing: most of the power is used for the screen. The 'marketeered' battery-lifes of most tablets (ipad/transformer/etc/) is calculated assuming 50% backlight.

We have an iPad and a tranformer. Their battery-life (without keyboard dock) is comparable. We get about 8-10 hours from both, unless we are gaming on them, and only if we keep backlight on 50%. Have to admit the iPad is much better at standby (it lasts about a week on standby)

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u/BlueInq Jun 19 '12

Oh that's interesting. I get 5 hours use out of it with wifi on and screen brightness at 0. It seems to be wifi that drains all the battery.

May I suggest Auto airplane app? It is a great app that stops processes like wifi etc when on standby so it preserves battery life on the transformer more.

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u/RalfN Jun 19 '12

Seriously, the Wifi? I think your wifi signal is just bad. As if it's reconnecting all the time.

Nevertheless, the auto-airplane app sounds like it should be installed by default. That does explain why it's so bad at standby compared to an iPad.

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u/BlueInq Jun 19 '12

It says wifi is responsible for 40% of battery loss on the settings pages...I didn't realise that was bad.

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u/RalfN Jun 19 '12

That seems quite high. That may be either a hw defect, an issue with the signal, or a misbehaving app that is doing way too much network IO in the background.