My phones batteries are no match to my iPad. I could stop just right there because that first sentence said it all. The iPad battery leads the pack and I know of no other gadgets that offer 10 hours autonomy. At first I did not believe it, I'd even become a "powernoid" to the point that I'd leave my phones on charge whenever I got a chance. That also means that I was walking around with some chargers in my pocket. Yeah, that is what I call a "powernoid". There's no proof yet that it's contagious but if, like me, you often have been frustrated with your phone losing charge in just a day, then you're just one like me and I suspect there are a lot out there. So, here's your chance to speak out about it. Don't worry, it is not your fault, it's those damn batteries.
From laptops, Smartphone, feature phones and other gadgets, the battery industry has never been able to keep up with the gadget revolution. All of our devices are mostly capable to sustain our needs for at least 7 hours. Stay connected through whichever means and they discharge faster, watch a movie on your phone and you experience the same frustrating experience. Keeping my gadgets connected to AC certainly is a solution that dramatically impacts my mobility plus reduces the battery life itself. Besides battery life, most batteries out there allow for a thousand charge cycle before they start behaving erratically and eventually die. But that is not the case with the iPad (I'm not saying it's immortal).
The user manual – I did read the user manual – states the iPad has an autonomy of 720 hrs in standby mode; 10 hrs when browsing the internet using Wi-Fi and 9hrs through 3G; 140hrs doing music playback and 10hrs of video playback. These numbers are quite impressive. So how does it really stand in real life? I was sceptical and still "powernoid", so in the beginning I kept charging my iPad until I came across a paragraph in the user manual about the battery which recommended doing a full cycle each month. A full cycle means letting the battery drain completely before recharging. I did just that.
My iPad was fully charged when I took the decision to let it drain. My guess was it would at least take a whole day to "die". Well I was utterly wrong. The battery reached the red area after 4 days. I could not believe it. I did what I usually do on my phones: listening to podcasts, downloading emails, browsing the web, listening to online radios, reading books, a bit of chatting, trying some apps etc. I have no songs and videos on my iPad yet. I forgot to mention my daughter also playing with it and I believe the iPad could have made it to 5 or even 6 days without her using it. Amazing.
Sometime back I tweeted that I wanted a tablet to save me from my phones. Now I can say I have found the tablet I wanted and it did save me from my phones, plus I'm less of a "powernoid" now.
