RT power consumption while sleeping

[RSargeant]

Hi all,

I have a RT and am delighted with it almost without reservation, but there's just one aspect that irritates me. Maybe I'm missing something?

On the increasingly rare occasions I slip the family iPad 2 into my bag, I can rely on it having enough battery charge to still work if I take it out days later. With the RT the complete opposite is true - after a day or so, I can almost guarantee it'll be completely dead with a drained battery. I carry the RT almost all the time and have recently started to shut it down before putting in my bag, but that kinda spoils the Surface experience because whilst it starts quickly, it's not almost instant like "sleep" or indeed the iPad. I read somewhere that the ARM theory is that the system goes into some kind of super-low power sleep, but never actually powers off, so drains at least some power = empty battery eventually. When I touch the power toggle or close the iPad cover, there's a relay-like click so you have the feeling power is actually off

I guess that if RT could hibernate that would be far faster, but hibernation seems not present on RT.

I haven't yet done any more scientific tests but given that battery sizes of RT and iPad are broadly similar, I seem to wind up with a dead, unusable RT far more often than an iPad, which seems to never die.

Does anyone have any ideas to share or suggestions how I can improve the experience?

Richard
Switzerland

 

[J515OP]

Hi Richard welcome. First off despite what it seems like the iPad does not power off. It is highly optimized for sleep but will also eventually strain in standby. The hardware for the RT has not been optimized to that level yet. It may have changed but initially it was well known that the 5th core which is a power saving CPU core was not being used and I don't recall hearing any updates about this.

You should be able to get several days of life on standby. There is no hibernate on the RT. One thing to look at is your app usage. If you have an app waking the RT and checking the internet every 30 seconds (like checking email or location) that will significantly affect battery life.

 

[m5racer]

Hi all,

I have a RT and am delighted with it almost without reservation, but there's just one aspect that irritates me. Maybe I'm missing something?

On the increasingly rare occasions I slip the family iPad 2 into my bag, I can rely on it having enough battery charge to still work if I take it out days later. With the RT the complete opposite is true - after a day or so, I can almost guarantee it'll be completely dead with a drained battery. I carry the RT almost all the time and have recently started to shut it down before putting in my bag, but that kinda spoils the Surface experience because whilst it starts quickly, it's not almost instant like "sleep" or indeed the iPad. I read somewhere that the ARM theory is that the system goes into some kind of super-low power sleep, but never actually powers off, so drains at least some power = empty battery eventually. When I touch the power toggle or close the iPad cover, there's a relay-like click so you have the feeling power is actually off

I guess that if RT could hibernate that would be far faster, but hibernation seems not present on RT.

I haven't yet done any more scientific tests but given that battery sizes of RT and iPad are broadly similar, I seem to wind up with a dead, unusable RT far more often than an iPad, which seems to never die.

Does anyone have any ideas to share or suggestions how I can improve the experience?

Richard
Switzerland

You know, your not crazy my friend. I have noticed this also ever since I got my surface, and like you, I now find my self turning the rt off when im done using it for the day because the dam thing drains the battery like crazy when its on "standby".

I have noticed that compared to my moms ipad mini, and even my previous tablet, a Motorola xoom, that the surface RT absolutely sucks the life out of the battery when the device is on standby. With the xoom, i can leave it on standby for a few days, even on say 50% batter life, and im confident it will still have enough juice to use for extended Internet use. My surface, half battery, is like "oh no, i left it on standby for 2 days" and then i go to use it and its dead.........Microsoft really needs to solve this horrible battery drain issue on standby, but like you, i noticed my tablet drain like crazy on standby

 

[Tom T]

This is strange, because I don't get anywhere near that kind of drain. To check it I fully charged it, left it unused for exactly 24 hours, and showed 92% left. Not really scientific, and it was only one day. I wonder if it has any thing to do with Windows Update.