iPad Pro (10.5") miserable battery life

[lopri]

First I thought it was just YouTube, but then I realized that it is not limited to it. Browsing web also drains battery quickly. But again, the most severe cases seem to be related to video playback - YouTube, Twitch, HBOGO, Amazon Prime Video, etc.

The battery percentage starting at full charge appears great at first, indicating 100% for quite some time. This seemingly excellent performance lasts until the battery charge drops to somewhere around 85~90%, giving an impression that the iPad's battery performance is outstanding. Then after a subsequent viewing, maybe for another hour or two, I find the battery indicator showing the charge is around 40%. It was a rather shocking experience in comparison to older iPad's battery performance as well as this iPad's aforementioned initial performance at 90~100% battery charge (which gives illusion of much better battery performance).

It was like this with iOS 10, and the situation has not improved with the iOS 11. Is it because of True Tone? 120 Hz? A10X? Degraded battery? Does anyone else have a similar experience?

 

[TheStu]

Have you run it all the way down to 0% a couple of times in order to re-calibrate the battery? How many hours of use are you actually getting out of it?

 

[lopri]

No, I have not. I will try that out. I do not know exactly how many hours of use I get out of, but I will keep an eye on that as well.

 

[TheStu]

No, I have not. I will try that out. I do not know exactly how many hours of use I get out of, but I will keep an eye on that as well.

On my 1st gen 12.9 I don't think I get the rated 10hrs, but I almost never run it all the way down, and I also don't know how much extra juice all the multi-tasking I'm doing sucks down. I use it to edit a podcast, so I'm running Ferrite side-by-side with Notability, with either Messages or Files as a floating overlay. During that time, I'm listening over the speakers, or my AirPods, and the iPad is running HOT by the end of a couple hours of that.

 

[lopri]

I tried to test it out in a more controlled manner this weekend and I could not replicate it. As a matter of fact it performed better than I previously thought. I wonder if it is me or if the tablet's battery performance is inconsistent.

 

[TheStu]

I tried to test it out in a more controlled manner this weekend and I could not replicate it. As a matter of fact it performed better than I previously thought. I wonder if it is me or if the tablet's battery performance is inconsistent.

Maybe one particular app is a bad actor?