iPad Battery Life 2 Years Later

pigoo3

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So about a year ago I posted a question/thread regarding iPad battery life:

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/ip...d-1-0-battery-life-3-6-9-12-months-later.html

This was at a time when there was a lot of excitement around the release/pending release of the iPad 2...and the age of some early iPad 1's were close to 1 year old. So I was curious how the 3, 6, 9, or 12 month old iPad 1's at the time...where holding up in terms of total battery runtime...which when new...was supposed to be like 8-10 hours.

Most (if not all) of the feedback was very positive.:)

So now another year has gone by...and some iPad 1's are close to 2 years old...and some iPad 2's are approaching 1 year old. So I again would like to ask the question...how is battery runtime holding up...compared to what the iPad was when new (approx 8-10 hours).

Since these devices are primarily meant to be run off of the battery almost 100% of the time...some units have got to be racking up lots & lots of battery charge/discharge cycles. So I would love to hear how things are holding up...especially from folks who have an almost 2 year-old iPad 1.:)

Thanks,

- Nick
 
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My iPad 1 came as an Apple refurb a year ago, so that means the battery was renewed?

Anyway, I've not noticed any decrease in usage time over that period, and it's still hard to run the thing down; even with a whole day's heavy use it generally doesn't dip below 60% from charged.

Cheers :)

Hugh
 
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iPad 2 here. So far as I can tell, the battery is as good as it was on day 1. I'd be thrilled if the iPad 3 has a battery life this good.
 
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My recently sold IPad 2 still got 8-10 hrs easy using web, email, ebooks.
videos and games would of course eat the battery faster.
 
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My iPad 2 lasts all day. The only thing that really kills it is watching web based videos like Netflix and Youtube - but even then I get most of the day. I use mine all day all the time and I haven't really seen any degrade in battery life - even with quite a few charge/discharge cycles.

What didn't last too long for me was the smart cover. I started getting a tear in the flap that holds it to the metal. It started sliding - and now it slides all over. Luckily you can get replacement smart covers on sale from Amazon.
 
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To the best of my knowledge, Apple is using the exact same battery technology in the iPad (iPhone, etc) as they do in the MacBook Pro. There's a lengthy (for Apple) video on the MBP page that talks about the battery technology, but the bottom line is that it should be good for at least 1,000 cycles or 4-5 years, whichever comes first.
 
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I have had my ipad for a year and use it ever day. Haven't noticed any decrease in battery health. The only battery problem I ever had with an Apple product was with an older Ipod classic. The one I purchased five years ago had the battery die out after about 5 months of daily use. The battery was replaced for free and I still use it, although the battery is now starting to die down.

I would say 4-5 years is probably a good guestimate of useful life, provided you let the battery deplete often and don't always have it plugged in. You really want to drain it completely at times and don't always charge it at half-cycle just so you always have a full charge.
 
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I would say 4-5 years is probably a good guestimate of useful life, provided you let the battery deplete often and don't always have it plugged in. You really want to drain it completely at times and don't always charge it at half-cycle just so you always have a full charge.

My ipad's holding up fine so far - what a trooper - and i don't stick to the battery charging rules above! (Bit of a maverick :D). Its doing fine for me, but hey, might be lucky.
 
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Our iPad2 is 6 months old and used daily for web surfing, e-mail and light gaming. I go days w/o needing a re-charge. I guess we are just not POWER USERS.

I do recall one business trip where I did all of the above plus watched a 2 hour movies and listened to an hour of music and 12 hours later when I checked into our hotel my battery was showing 60% remaining.

So for how my wife and I use our only iPad2 I just don't think about battery life. It works.

Tom

PS: Since we will have an AAFES (military BX) 15% off coupon good until June 30th we plan on buying the new iPad3-HD, but this time we will buy the 32GB/Wi-Fi vs our 64GB/3G. After living with our top of the line iPad2 for 6 months now we found we don't need 64GB or 3G.
 
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Had the first gen iPad since August 2000. I've seen a decrease in its battery capacity but not enough to trouble me in getting a good couple of days use. Estimating it's 85%ish of what it was originally.

It's nothing more than I'd expect for the number of battery cycles, it's fairly heavy use and that many apps no are far more complex and challenging for the first gen iPad to run.

Still a very happy owner. Not felt the need to jump to iPad2
 
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I'm still rocking my 1st gen iPad (it'll be 2 years in May). I haven't noticed any lack in battery performance. Although, I don't exactly keep track of battery life or anything like that. I just use it around the house mostly and on the occasional out of town trip. I usually only charge it when it gets down to around 10 or 20 %. Some times I leave it plugged in if I know I'm gonna go on an Angry Birds marathon or something like that. :)

I'll be selling mine for pretty cheap once I see the newest iPad start to show up in Apple's refurb section. But that'll be several months from now.
 
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pigoo3

pigoo3

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I'm still rocking my 1st gen iPad (it'll be 2 years in May). I haven't noticed any lack in battery performance. Although, I don't exactly keep track of battery life or anything like that. I just use it around the house mostly and on the occasional out of town trip. I usually only charge it when it gets down to around 10 or 20 %. Some times I leave it plugged in if I know I'm gonna go on an Angry Birds marathon or something like that. :)

I'll be selling mine for pretty cheap once I see the newest iPad start to show up in Apple's refurb section. But that'll be several months from now.

Thanks for those details MYmacROX...just the sort of long term info I was hoping to hear.:)

- Nick
 
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I have a 1st gen and 2nd gen iPad, both still have strong batteries. We can use them several days before thinking about charging them.
 
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Still really loving my iPad '1' and iOS 5.1 seems to have given it a bit more grunt too! 5.0.1 seemed to slow it a little but it's all good now. It's even running iPhoto well :)
 

dbm


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My iPad 1 is still holding up excellent, with the no noticeable degradation of battery life.

Still really loving my iPad '1' and iOS 5.1 seems to have given it a bit more grunt too! 5.0.1 seemed to slow it a little but it's all good now. It's even running iPhoto well :)

My iPad 1 is iOS 5.1 but it refused to load iPhoto - yours will do that?
 
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So, will it be possible to calculate the average battery % loss from the users that reported, at those monthly intervals, and show it on a graph? I know there are iPad apps that monitor battery health the same way as CoconutBattery does. That would be something that I would really enjoy looking at. I've been really impressed with Apple's batteries, or choice of battery vendors.
 
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I'm still easily getting 10 hours. Last night my iPad had 78% charge. I watched a 720p Game of Thrones (about 55 mins) last might, posted a bunch of Mac Forum posts this morning and replied to my emails as well as updating the Twitter app and I have TuneIn radio in the background for the last 30 mins, that's about 3 hours this morning with the screen on and off during that time. Charge? 61%. In fact, I think I get almost 11 hours on a full charge.

I'm getting the new iPad, but whoever gets this iPad will still get decent battery life.
 

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