Poll What is your shutdown and charging habit?

[nipponham]

My second poll in two days. I’m curious about how everyone is powering down their machine when they think or know they are finished using it for the day, whether that’s at the end of the work day, or before they go to bed, and whether it’s plugged into AC or not. I’m going to be using three terms in this poll: Sleep (includes both InstantGo/Connected Standby and Hyper-V enabled sleep), Hibernate, and Shut down.

For me, I shut it down completely at the end of the night before going to bed. I used to hibernate it but didn’t see the need to have what I had open saved to SSD. If anything, I guess I might be saving the number of writes I make to the SSD, but that’s really a minor issue. It just feels good to know that no unnecessary power is being used. The difference in wake up times from hibernation and shut down is negligible; a few seconds maybe. I’m not that busy that I can’t spare the dozen seconds it takes to boot from shutdown.

Also, I do not leave it plugged in at night. I prefer not to have it charged to 100% and like to keep my battery level between 50-90% if at all possible. I know we all have our opinions about battery stress at 100% but I’m also worried about the heat generated when the device is plugged in for a long time. I try not to use the machine while it’s plugged in for the same reason. I find the heat to be less intense when it’s just being charged as opposed to being used at the same time.

 

[strollin]

I pretty much always shutdown my SP3 regardless of whether I plan to use it again during the day. It boots quickly enough that I don't care if I need to boot it multiple times per day.

When I think I'm done with it for the day, I place it in the dock to charge.

 

[kristalsoldier]

The only time I have shut down my SP3 is when Updates from MS require it. I usually just let it sleep by either closing the Type Cover or by letting it fall asleep as per the power plan (within 3 minutes or whatever it is). Usually the SP3 is on the charger at night (I don't have the dock and nor do I plan on getting one). Very rarely do I need to charge it during the day because on an average the battery (at least as of now) lasts my working day.

As for charging, usually by the end of my working day, my SP3 reports a battery level of about 30-35%. The battery report generated says that I get on an average of 8hrs 30 mins or so per charge, which translates to about 10-11 hours of work time. So, I charge every night. But on weekends, I just keep the SP3 on the charger if I am not going out. I am not very concerned about the battery. I just use the device the way I want.

 

[nipponham]

As for charging, usually by the end of my working day, my SP3 reports a battery level of about 30-35%. The battery report generated says that I get on an average of 8hrs 30 mins or so per charge, which translates to about 10-11 hours of work time.

This may be a little off-topic since it’s not about battery life, but are you saying that you are working on average for 8.5 hours on a fully charged SP3 and still have about 30-35% battery left? That extrapolates to 12-13 hours if used until the battery konks out. I’ve never heard of numbers like these, let alone experienced them. I’m getting about seven hours or so on average.

Do you mind if I ask what you do on the machine all day, or what kind of settings you use to achieve these numbers?

 

[Aeron15]

I turn mine off when I know I can't use it for long periods of time. I charge it 3 hours before I sleep and turn it off and open it in the morning

 

[Aurelio]

Shutdown when I know that I finished. And only recharge when the battery is in the end. (or if I know that I'm going out with my SP# and need Full battery.)

 

[ctitanic]

When you say hibernate, I hope is real hibernation and no Standby.

 

[nipponham]

When you say hibernate, I hope is real hibernation and no Standby.

When I say hibernate, I mean hibernate. Standby is sleep.

 

[Maximus3D]

When the device is not in use i will shut it down, if it falls asleep from time to time so be it but i will not keep it on all the time.

/ Magnus

 

[ctitanic]

When I say hibernate, I mean hibernate. Standby is sleep.

Good.

 

[Len J]

I turn it off when an update requires it.

I put it in the dock overnight.

Len

 

[kristalsoldier]

This may be a little off-topic since it’s not about battery life, but are you saying that you are working on average for 8.5 hours on a fully charged SP3 and still have about 30-35% battery left? That extrapolates to 12-13 hours if used until the battery konks out. I’ve never heard of numbers like these, let alone experienced them. I’m getting about seven hours or so on average.

Do you mind if I ask what you do on the machine all day, or what kind of settings you use to achieve these numbers?

Either I was unclear in what I wrote, or you misunderstood - it is probably the former than the latter. Let me explain. When I run the battery report, the HTML file that it throws out says that I get 8.30 mins of battery life since the day I bought the SP3 (June 20th). However, I use the SP3 on an average of 10-11 hours on a typical work day. But my typical work day does not involve the use of the machine continuously. It does mean that my SP 3 is both working and when not actively being used is always on Connected Standby (or whatever it is called) for 10-11 hours a day. Also, I never shut down the device. When on Connected Standby, the machine is polling three email accounts of which two are Outlook accounts (one set to poll continuously and the other every 15 minutes) and the other is my work mail account (set to poll every 15 minutes). The brightness level is at 38%. I have 12 notifications on including Mail, Calendar, Flipboard, News, among others. Since I work in academia, I am usually using Word and Powerpoint. Occasionally, I use Excel. On the MUI side, I use IE, OneNote (I use the Pen extensively), Mail, Calendar, Weather and Contacts (IE usually has 3 tabs open), Book Viser, among others). I am careful to close apps (waiting for the Live Tile to flip) if I don't use it. BT and WIFI are on all the time.

Based on this usage, at the end of the day I end up with around 35% of the battery left. My personal estimate is that I probably use the device for around 6-7 hours per day of continuous use.