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I was wondering if I have a defective unit. I have an i5 surface pro 3 and I only get about 4 hours of battery life playing YouTube videos at about 40 % brightness and about 5 hours of web browsing. The computer shuts off when I am just below 10 % battery left. What are you guys getting?
Thank you in advance for your help.
Best regards,
Jordi
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Dear James,
Thank you for your detailed explanation. When I just surf the web without watching videos I get about 5 hours of battery before it automatically shuts off. Bluetooth is on.
You said each battery is different. Should I replace my computer and get another one? I am within the 30 day return period. Would the i7 model have a better battery life?
As for replacing the tablet for another one - no! The next tablet might even be worse. Battery life also depends on what you have hooked up to it other than the keyboard. Also, the keyboard itself could be an issue.
As for the i7 - that one would eat more juice. That is a blazing fast CPU but requires more juice to work.
Swapping out the tablet is totally up to you and getting 5 hours is possible to be the 'real world' battery life of the i5 Pro 3 models. The i7, I would suspect, would have a 4 hour battery life.
At 5 hours, you are getting more than an average laptop. I think you are in the ball park of being good and I would say keep it as long as you are not having problems with any component on the machine.
The Pro 3s are showing to have fewer problems than the previous two generations. Still some problems but WiFi/Bluetooth seems to work and so do the cameras, keyboards, etc. I made a self prediction that by the time Microsoft got to the 4th generation models, the problems would be in the past and that might happen.
It is up to you, but I would keep it if there are no mechanical problems.
Thank you James. I measured the five hours of battery life without the type cover.
I have other issues with this unit, like the online keyboard sometimes won't register my input and therefore misses some keystrokes and the screen will sometimes freeze. Do you ever have these issues?
Thank you again for all your help, James.
Best regards,
Jordi
No, but that can be a video related issue or the touchscreen controller. If you get any freezes, that is a problem. That should not happen at any time.
The only problems I had with my i3 was when attempting to install two old games, the fan kicked in and the CPU got hot. Did not get to the point of overheating but was getting there before I shut down the programs and removed them. When I did that, I heard the fan slowly quiet down and smooth sailing from there.
Other than that, the i3 I have is a perfect machine (for which I am keeping a real close eye on). I don't trust "perfect" with a Surface tablet.
By the way, those issues you mentioned could be the cause of your battery life reduction. There is a possibility of an electrical short if all updates are installed and no failures of installation on any of them.
James,
These two issues I mentioned are not predictable. There is no way I can replicate them at will. I have had the unit about two weeks, and my screen has frozen about five times. The onscreen keyboard issue also seems to be a mystery. I have two more weeks before I can't return the unit to the Microsoft store....
