Battery life is short. 98% only has 6 hours 15 minutes. My SP2 is defected?

[cedric5555]

HI,
I got a SP2 256gb two days ago. Battery life is short. 98% only show 6 hours 15 minutes left. I already use Power saver, also dim the display to 30% brightness. I also set the maximum cpu speed to 50% from 100%. I turned off blutooth and auto sync for apps. I only have wifi on. I never see it show 8.5 hours.
I have the latest firmware update. I also updated the intel graphic drivers.
I am so scared that I have a defected SP2.
I sold my SP just for the extra battery life. Now, the SP2 just giving about the same battery life as SP1.
Could one please advise? Is there any way to test my battery to see if I got defective battery SP2? I have one day left before I can return my SP2.

After I finish editing this post. My battery condition is 96% 5 hours 26 minutes. @_@

Can anyone please share advice on how to max. the battery life?
Please help!! Thanks a million.

 

[oion]

Two days, if you set up mail and your files, it could be still indexing and syncing, and the battery is being conditioned.

Whenever you check the battery indicator it extrapolates time left based on exactly what you have running at that moment.

And if you play games on it, obviously battery life is going to be shorter no matter what else you do.

 

[D1vad]

Have you actually cycled the battery even once yet? Have you gone from 100% and run the battery out yet? While you do not routinely want to fully cycle your battery it is a good idea on the first cycle to do this to calibrate the battery management system.

 

[CrippsCorner]

I'd say over 6 hours is completely reasonable depending on usage. What are you actually doing over this time?

You could always buy the Power Cover next year if you wanted to add a couple more hours to the battery life. Not an ideal solution I know, but it's an option!

 

[jnjroach]

And the time is an estimate based on load at that current instance...so those vary widely from moment to moment...

 

[Dane]

Mine showed the exact same condition the first day or two I had it, then all of the sudden it showed 8 or 9 hour estimates. But you have to realize that it's exactly that - an estimate.

 

[cedric5555]

AnandTech | Microsoft Surface Pro 2 Firmware Update Improves Battery Life
Surface Pro 2 firmware update packs a big battery boost | PCWorld

According to that website, I should have 6.65 (before firmware update) and 7.73 (after update) video playback.
It seems I only got 5 hours video playback which is not too good compare to that.
I have done a video test with brightness 40%, max CPU 80%, airplane mode(no wifi, Bluetooth) , turn off speaker.

I already did the battery cycle , charged to 100% and ran the battery out.

5 hours is far from the 7.73 result. That's why I m afraid if I got the defective battery sp2.
Since I am still have a day left before the return period ended, I want to make sure my sp2 is fine. It is 256 gb model and costs over a thousand.

PS. Web browsing, I only got about a little bit more than 6 hours which is still far from 8.33 testing from the above articles.
Anyone, please help and share your info. I appreciate your advices. Thanks


My video test, 720p Mkv format with kmplayer.
5.20. 95%
5.03 90%.
4.42 86%
4.34. 85%
4.30. 84%
4.17. 81%. Movie time 56 mins
4..15. 80% movies time 59 mins
4hours 10mins. 79% movie time 1 hour 02 mins played
4.03 78% 1.07 played.
3.36 70%. 1 hour 30 mins movie played.

 

[macmee]

For starters, Windows is absolutely useless at guessing how many hours of battery you have left.

Second, with average use I get about 5-6 hours too with my SP2 so I think it's normal. If you want an OS that is good on battery life you'll want OS X, Windows is a hog.

Edit: I'm at 78 percent now which apparently gives me 5 and a half hours, but I won't get that.

Its hard to know how my battery life really is because I've never used the thing for 5 hours straight before, I do know that these devices have worse battery life then they should in general though.

Edit 2: battery jumped from 78 to 76 in the time it took me to write this post, now windows is reporting 30 minutes less than before. Sigh. The poor thing, at least its trying.

 

[oion]

For starters, Windows is absolutely useless at guessing how many hours of battery you have left.

Second, with average use I get about 5-6 hours too with my SP2 so I think it's normal. If you want an OS that is good on battery life you'll want OS X, Windows is a hog.

Edit: I'm at 78 percent now which apparently gives me 5 and a half hours, but I won't get that.

Its hard to know how my battery life really is because I've never used the thing for 5 hours straight before, I do know that these devices have worse battery life then they should in general though.

Edit 2: battery jumped from 78 to 76 in the time it took me to write this post, now windows is reporting 30 minutes less than before. Sigh. The poor thing, at least its trying.

Macs are crap for gaming, so that's no good for this OP. I'm just waiting for him to come back and complain about a 3-hour post for a gaming session, since he bought a SPro2 for gaming.

The battery indicator is always a rough estimate, yes... the best test is the controlled discharge. Surface 2 with WinRT certainly posts great usable battery life.

 

[Ruffles]

Install Battery Bar Pro. It will tell you what your mW current drain is. This will help you identify if you have other processes running that are sucking power. My system is around 3800 mW which equates to around 8-9 hours. If I play a game or compile some code, I can see the current draw increase and my estimated battery time decrease.

Also, are you playing video from the desktop or from the Metro player? For best life, you want full screen video. Any desktop or charms causes the DWM to kick in rendering stuff. Fullscreen video uses overlay which is more power efficient.

 

[cedric5555]

Macs are crap for gaming, so that's no good for this OP. I'm just waiting for him to come back and complain about a 3-hour post for a gaming session, since he bought a SPro2 for gaming.

The battery indicator is always a rough estimate, yes... the best test is the controlled discharge. Surface 2 with WinRT certainly posts great usable battery life.

Oion,
Are you referring "he" to me? Why are you always against my post? If you are not willing to help, you can ignore my post. Why are you always saying my sp2 is for gaming? I never offense to yours so stop replying my post like that. Of course I use it for all my school works, movies, web browsing, and of course gaming. I know gaming on SP2 will only last about 1hours 45mins. That's I don't care cause I don't always gaming outside. I do care the movies and web browsing battery performance.

As some people saying they got over 7 hours for regular use with wifi on and web browsing. I only get around 5 hours and I already pick "power save" mode. I already lower the display to 40% brightness.
That's what I am thinking I may have a defected SP2 and I should return it back. Thought this is a SP fan site and ppl would like to share and help each others.

 

[cedric5555]

For starters, Windows is absolutely useless at guessing how many hours of battery you have left.

Second, with average use I get about 5-6 hours too with my SP2 so I think it's normal. If you want an OS that is good on battery life you'll want OS X, Windows is a hog.

Edit: I'm at 78 percent now which apparently gives me 5 and a half hours, but I won't get that.

Its hard to know how my battery life really is because I've never used the thing for 5 hours straight before, I do know that these devices have worse battery life then they should in general though.

Edit 2: battery jumped from 78 to 76 in the time it took me to write this post, now windows is reporting 30 minutes less than before. Sigh. The poor thing, at least its trying.

Thanks for your info.
Now, SP2 is showing 1 hour 04 mins left with 20% battery (power save mode, 40% brightness), wifi on. I am doing nothing on it, not even web browing.
In conclusion, it's about 5 hours battery life on my SP2 regardless watching movies, web browing, editing word documents or doing nothing.