Brand New Surface Book owner, battery life question during Sleep, calibration, etc.

[brosenz]

This is a brand new SB that I received today, is the i7/16GB/1TB model.
I was using the clipboard alone and I had 28% battery left, I closed all the open application and place the SB in sleep mode by pressing the power button, around 20min later I checked it and it was at 18% battery left, it seems like too much battery consumption in just 20min of doing nothing.

Also when the clipboard was 100% the battery estimated 2 hours left and I was just browsing news using Readiy, that was the only app running. What are reasonable expectations for battery life for the clipboard and the whole thing together?

Does the battery requires some kind of calibration? I've noticed that hibernation is fast, and I can use that instead of sleep, but that kills the whole purpose of instant on.

Any feedback or suggestion would be appreciated, with this level of power management, unfortunately my initial reaction is that the SB has high potential of going back to the store, and that's bad because I really like the device.

 

[mtmowl]

I have an i5/8/256. Running Firefox with 3 or 4 tabs, Thunderbird minimized and 40% brightness, I'll get between 11 and 12 hours estimated by BatteryBar v 3.6.6. In use, this seems to be close to realistic. At the end of a day's teaching, I'll sometimes show 6 or 7 hrs left. Note that I keep a lot of things turned off to conserve battery. YMMV.

 

[brosenz]

I have an i5/8/256. Running Firefox with 3 or 4 tabs, Thunderbird minimized and 40% brightness, I'll get between 11 and 12 hours estimated by BatteryBar v 3.6.6. In use, this seems to be close to realistic. At the end of a day's teaching, I'll sometimes show 6 or 7 hrs left. Note that I keep a lot of things turned off to conserve battery. YMMV.

Thanks, how much are you getting just with the clipboard? without the keyboard

 

[mtmowl]

Hard to say since I keep it on the keyboard most of the time, but my attached time at present is 9:25, and my unattached time is 2:49. My feeling is that I'd get maybe 3.5 hrs, the way I use it.
Don't forget that you can reverse-attach the clipboard and fold it down, getting all batteries in use in a clipboard-type mode.

 

[brosenz]

Hard to say since I keep it on the keyboard most of the time, but my attached time at present is 9:25, and my unattached time is 2:49. My feeling is that I'd get maybe 3.5 hrs, the way I use it.

Thanks, what do you keep OFF to conserve battery that doesn't affect your productivity?

 

[mtmowl]

Thanks, what do you keep OFF to conserve battery that doesn't affect your productivity?[
Probably the biggest thing is keeping the brightness at 40% unless the ambient conditions require more. Also, I keep any unnecessary apps from running, as there are a fair number that run in the background, and I limit the number of open screens or apps. You can open a new tab and your recently used apps are immediately suggested ( in Firefox, at least). Also things like Bluetooth, unless needed for a specific task.
Obviously, the more you have going on, the less battery life. I could really keep more going on than I usually do, but there's no need to. It only takes a second to open something up.
Hope this gives you some ideas.

 

[Wayne Orwig]

This is a brand new SB that I received today, is the i7/16GB/1TB model.
I was using the clipboard alone and I had 28% battery left, I closed all the open application and place the SB in sleep mode by pressing the power button, around 20min later I checked it and it was at 18% battery left, it seems like too much battery consumption in just 20min of doing nothing.

If you got the Surface Book to use the stand alone Clipboard mode, you bought the wrong device. Return it and get the Surface Pro 4.
The Clipboard battery is only rated for a couple of hours. And I suspect that repeated draining, and processor heat, will short it's life quickly.