Power/ Battery issues with Win 8.1 RT

[kristalsoldier]

@KristalSoldier glad your actual usage bared better results. Since I've seen how the battery icon can fluctuate greatly based on use, I've learned to just look at the clock when I take it off the charger and time usage from there. Its always netter in the end than what icon reports.

Yes, Thanks for pointing that out. But I do hope that the icon is not too far off because that is what I used to post the percentages.

 

[oion]

Thanks. So, this means that if we leave aside the odd Endgadget report (which would have been really nice if corroborated elsewhere), essentially there is no real different between the RT and the S2?

MS' official RT blurb only states "up to 8 hours mixed activity." I really don't remember any official battery benchmarks for the RT. The interesting thing about the 2nd gens is that very few places bothered to benchmark either under multiple circumstances--most regurgitate official specs and the few benchmarks that others have done. That only goes to show how piss-poor useless the vast majority of "tech journalism" sites are. :/

 

[kristalsoldier]

MS' official RT blurb only states "up to 8 hours mixed activity." I really don't remember any official battery benchmarks for the RT. The interesting thing about the 2nd gens is that very few places bothered to benchmark either under multiple circumstances--most regurgitate official specs and the few benchmarks that others have done. That only goes to show how piss-poor useless the vast majority of "tech journalism" sites are. :/

Wow!!! So, this means that processor speed - and not battery life - is something that I should be expecting with the Surface 2?

 

[oion]

Wow!!! So, this means that processor speed - and not battery life - is something that I should be expecting with the Surface 2?

Surface 2 blows Surface RT away in "usage videos" you can find on Youtube (video/gaming demos). For regular browsing and Office use that doesn't involve lots of animated graphics and number crunching/equations/whatever, the RT is still perfectly good. But given that even the baseline Surface 2 battery life is supposed to be better than Surface RT under regular load, the fact that MS managed to increase performance noticeably while still keeping minimally the same battery life is pretty nice.

 

[kristalsoldier]

Surface 2 blows Surface RT away in "usage videos" you can find on Youtube (video/gaming demos). For regular browsing and Office use that doesn't involve lots of animated graphics and number crunching/equations/whatever, the RT is still perfectly good. But given that even the baseline Surface 2 battery life is supposed to be better than Surface RT under regular load, the fact that MS managed to increase performance noticeably while still keeping minimally the same battery life is pretty nice.

Thanks. I have seen some of those videos. I think the snappiness of the S2 should not be underestimated - though even in my typical use case scenario, I would not be flitting through apps and/ or opening and closing apps. Usually, I would be stuck between the Mail App, the browser and some Office App. Nevertheless, having that agility would be good. That plus the kickstand. If the battery is even slightly better than the RT, then that's a bonus.

 

[borka105]

There is a real issue here. This past week, I've shut the type cover on my surface, went to the bed, and the next morning the battery icon showed that the batter charge had fallen by 25-30%.

Something is wrong... I will point out that I never had this issue on 8.1 Preview.

 

[kristalsoldier]

There is a real issue here. This past week, I've shut the type cover on my surface, went to the bed, and the next morning the battery icon showed that the batter charge had fallen by 25-30%.

Something is wrong... I will point out that I never had this issue on 8.1 Preview.

Well, I did a very unscientific, but very real-life oriented, test last evening. I found that based on my average use pattern, the RT gives me about 8 hours of use (actually, I could only stay awake till the 7 hour mark, but noted that I had around 23 or 25% of battery left, which would have easily given me the one additional hour). Now, about shutting the cover and the RT going to sleep or whatever it is that it is supposed to do to maintain the connected standby profile, I am not sure how that works out. Have not consciously looked for it.

But I would not be surprised if there is a problem - but nothing that a firmware update from MS can't fix. I'll look out for this issue on my Surface 2 (which is, as of now, only a couple of hours old).

 

[FFX]

Fix for battery issues, was released yesterday!
Microsoft provides fix for battery issues found by some Surface RT owners - Neowin

 

[johninsj]

Fix for battery issues, was released yesterday!
Microsoft provides fix for battery issues found by some Surface RT owners - Neowin

Yeah, I posted that fix a while back - post #8, this thread

http://www.surfaceforums.net/forum/...ower-battery-issues-win-8-1-rt.html#post41355