Battery Life (Idle)

oligopoly

Hi guys. Thinking of picking up a tablet - mainly for internet browsing and also watching videos via Plex. My experience of tablets up to now is split between quite expensive (an ipad) and cheap (the cheapest android tablet we could find on ebay for my son).

What's most important for me is that I can pick it up for the first time in a week or two and it have at least half-charge, ready to play a couple of hours' video. The cheapy android did not do this and is now in the bin. The ipad does do this but has been commandeered by my son.

Can anyone tell me what the battery is like in idle for the Amazon Fire HD 8 (£80)?

Another option is a second hand iPad Air (£180).

A third option is to steal my original ipad back and give 3 year old a new Fire HD 8. He will happily watch kids tv through headphones each morning giving us an hour lie-in so kinda important for the sanity of my wife and me.

Thanks all

Tempest

Sorry, I can't help you, but YES 100% what you want is the same I do.

I had an old iPad1 and the battery was amazing. I could charge it, let it go to sleep, not touch it for a couple of days, and when I did the battery was something like 98% still..... Amazing.

An Android tablet (a lot cheaper admittedly) seemed to lose about 10 - 15% a day and that is with everything turned off, wifi, location, bluetooth etc.
So I  have taken to shutting it down cold everynight, which means my usage pattern is nothing like it should be as i know I have to wait a few mins to boot it from cold to use it.

From my limited looks, it seems the 10" model are better, due to more space for the battery I guess.

I did for a few weeks have a 7" Kindle, and despite being small, that had a good battery on standby, but I had to get rid of it, as you can't access the play store and apps I wanted were not availiable on amazons store.

dannnielll

Slightly above your target price but well below the iPad would be the Lenovo yoga tab3 plus... See my multiple posting on it. Extremely long duration battery, the best screen resolution up to iPad class, fast processor,  cost typically 250 ...  Quick to recharge. And despite what other postings might indicate , runs the latest android 7.1.1 operating systems.  I am not convinced that there is anything at present in the same price bracket to touch it.

dannnielll

Tempest, I just recalled that one of the reasons the older iPad would have had a very long life battery was that it did not do much... There was not much difference between its idle state and it's off state. It did not have gps... That was only in the 3g models and it did not pick up with fi or emails when off .it was also a lot heavier and had a larger battery. I have still an iPad 2 but with a wonky digitiser
The more modern machines are busier and do respond to emails and WiFi . If you turned them to aeroplane mode, then they would be more like the earlier iPad...

Tempest

Honestly, tablet weight really means very little to me.
My tablets have 99.999999% of the time been on my lap, on a table, on a bed.
Holding a tablet up in my hands is such a rare thing.
A tablet today could be the thickness and weight of an iPad 1, and I'd be more than happy with it.

Is the same with phones. the BIG companies don't give the customers the choice.

I'd love to see Samsung and Apple make a phone, 50% thicker. And make it last about 3x as long on a charge, price it the same as batteries cost nothing in relation to the price of a modern high end handset (plus or minus $10) and see how they sold.

Right now, most people buy their ultra thin small battery version and stick in into a case which bulks it up to around twice it's bare size.

dannnielll

Actually yesterday was the first time I would have to disagree with you. I have just had a minor op and was in bed woosy   post the procedure and the Lenovo yoga tab3 plus unbalanced and hit me in the mouth , it could have cracked teeth except my lip got in the way... So weight matters...
There does seem to be a competition to make electronic devices as thin as possible... It's self defeating anyway, as loudspeakers sound worse when then have no proper housing...  I don't see why TVs in particular need to be less than 6 inches deep. .
My favourite phone was the slightly stubby Sony Xperia z compact, phenomenal battery life, very neat. and as thick as a good bar of chocolate....

Tempest

Oh dear

                                                                                                                                       

Jamie

I agree and hear people sharing similar views all the time. The manufacturers aren't daft though and do loads of market research.

I'm also a massive petrol head and you hear the similar arguements bemoaning the weight and complexity of cars, the disconnection from the increasing amount of autos and flappy paddle gear boxes and driving aids and the like. Yet Toyota and Subaru made a car to answer all of those worries and hardly anyone bought the bloody thing and there's complaints all over motoring forums that it's a nice car but not powerful enough.

I suspect if a manufacturer did design a phone to suit our complaints it may very well be a flop. Weird isn't it?

Tempest

From my own personal feeling, it's about a balance.
Everything is a compromise, when you are trying to fit everything into one device.
What is a shame is when the balance seems to be off a little, and we've seen it again and again in many devices. They design in a weak spot that spoils a product.
There are some weird things.
The classic must be the Nexus 7 tablet from Google.
(2012 launch price £159 for 8GB and £199 for 16GB)

Was widely praised by many for pretty much hitting every target.
Nice enough specs, performed well, great price, a sure fire winner, which it was, sold well, and the follow up, eagerly anticipated.
So they must have seen how well this sold, and so they needed to basically 'Do the same again' and get lot of Nexus 7 owners and new people to upgrade.
They should have, perhaps just gone round the whole tablet, tweaked a bit in all areas, perhaps pumped the screen from 7" to 8", kept the price point around the same (better parts get cheaper over time anyway) and an almost guaranteed follow up success.

But no. Let's scrap that, ignore why it sold well (price/performance/specs) and make a Nexus 9 instead.

(2014 Launch 16GB £319   32GB £399)
Dubious screen quality issues (rings a bell huh!)
And whilst It did of course sell a bit, it was pretty much a flop(ish) with people still hunting for second hand Nexus 7 models.

You've gone from £160 base price to £320 base price for your next tablet.

I guess it's another case of people around the table ignoring what people are buying, and thinking they know better.

IMHO, sure, why not. If you wish to go for the iPad community, which is a pointless exercise as a lot of this is about iOS not the hardware) make something high end, but also, don't forget those at the other end.

At least Samsung did not fall into Google's trap, and whilst going after the iPad quality wise, also produced nice looking products at the lower end at the same time.

Jamie

Agreed. I loved my Nexus 7. Sadly I think quality, particularly the charging port was iffy in places. I seem to remember they did make a 2nd gen slightly improved version but I'm not sure how that fared.

The other factor I'd guess is that phones just got bigger and bigger. A 6" phone kind of makes a 7" tablet a hard sell

Amazon seem to do well with the Fire 7. Probably because it's unfeasibly cheap, my kids have one each that cost me 35quid a piece. OK the software on them is rubbish but I installed Google play services on them which helps a lot.