Surface Pro 3 Battery Life with Windows 10

[ManYee]

Hi,

I just bought an SP3 with Windows 10.
What is the average battery life most users with similar device get for daily use?
Mine is updated to the latest firmware already.

Last testing I got is like these (25% screen brightness, wifi on, time is measured from 100% battery until it shuts down by itself around 5% battery life):

1) 5.5 - 6.5 hours battery life for normal office use (using excel, words, check email, 1/2 hour online video)
2) 5 - 5.5 hours battery life for non stop youtube video/online video

Are those numbers normal or is it considered as short battery life?

The reason I asked is because when I watch/read reviews of SP3 with Windows 8, many reviewers said that they got 7-8 hours even with heavy use.

If mine is defective, I'm thinking to exchange it before the exchange period is over.
Thanks in advance.

 

[leeshor]

Welcome to the forum
Your battery time, with no additional tweaking, is pretty good. There are things you can do to extend it by turning off some live tiles, not using Edge, (un-modified) or Chrome and a few feedback privacy and background settings adjustments.

Moved your thread to the Windows 10 section of the SP3 forum.

 

[ctitanic]

They look normal to me too.

 

[ManYee]

Welcome to the forum
Your battery time, with no additional tweaking, is pretty good. There are things you can do to extend it by turning off some live tiles, not using Edge, (un-modified) or Chrome and a few feedback privacy and background settings adjustments.

Moved your thread to the Windows 10 section of the SP3 forum.

Actually, I did some tweaking:
- disable the recording microphone
- disable the Windows Search service on the Task Manager (this helps a lot in battery life)

Before the tweaking above, I only got like 3-4 hours max for normal office use.

 

[leeshor]

My mic is on as is search services, but glad you got a little more without if you can do without.

 

[hughlle]

Actually, I did some tweaking:
- disable the recording microphone
- disable the Windows Search service on the Task Manager (this helps a lot in battery life)

Before the tweaking above, I only got like 3-4 hours max for normal office use.

I just ran battery report on my partners, and for fairly heavy Adobe usage (picture and video creation) she is averaging 6.5 hours.

 

[ManYee]

I just ran battery report on my partners, and for fairly heavy Adobe usage (picture and video creation) she is averaging 6.5 hours.

Are you guys on Windows 10 or Windows 8?

 

[leeshor]

Are you guys on Windows 10 or Windows 8?

If you check the forum this is posted in, it's for Windows 10 on SP3. They should be all on Windows 10.

 

[hughlle]

Are you guys on Windows 10 or Windows 8?

10, hence the response

 

[ManYee]

If you check the forum this is posted in, it's for Windows 10 on SP3. They should be all on Windows 10.

10, hence the response

Ah..I see. Sorry, I didn't see that it's already in Windows 10. I thought it's SP3 for general.
This is my first post to this forum.
Thanks btw for confirming.
Just for update, seeing how you guys get more battery life than mine, I brought mine back to Best Buy.
The Windows rep said that my SP3's battery life is not normal so they gave me an exchange with a new one.
Unfortunately, this one has a defective lcd when I opened it the first time.
What makes it worse, Best Buy apparently no longer carrying SP3 i5 256gb version.
They said they are clearing out their SP3 stocks and will not sell SP3 anymore.
The one they gave me was the last one for the whole Best Buy in US.
So here I am without Surface Pro...
Maybe I'll wait to see how stable the SP4 or the other competitors' will offer (ex: Lenovo X1 Tablet)

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[kristalsoldier]

Welcome to the forum
Your battery time, with no additional tweaking, is pretty good. There are things you can do to extend it by turning off some live tiles, not using Edge, (un-modified) or Chrome and a few feedback privacy and background settings adjustments.

Moved your thread to the Windows 10 section of the SP3 forum.

Are you suggesting that 5.5-6.5 hours of using just the Office Suite and 1/2 hours' time of online video watching is ok for the SP3 (stock)?

 

[leeshor]

Are you suggesting that 5.5-6.5 hours of using just the Office Suite and 1/2 hours' time of online video watching is ok for the SP3 (stock)?

Yes, especially if you are using unmodified Edge or Chrome. However, the only way to tell is to actually use it because looking at the battery level alone is deceiving. Only the total run time or a full battery report would give you anything close to accurate data.