Anyone disappointed with Transformer Prime battery life? Just 5 hours!? - Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime

According to the review from The Verge, Transformer Prime loses out in battery life to iPad 2 and other competing tablets and is only marginally better than iPad 2 when the keyboard dock is attached.
I find this very disappointing, I did not expect Asus to announce their battery life with the device in its lowest setting, while iPad 2 gets eight hours of battery life in 'normal mode'.
5 hours is very, very low. I expected them to at least match iPad 2, especially when they announced that it will survive for 12 hours.

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The Verge review is by far the lowest of any of them. Several report 10+ hours when playing video. Anandtech has 8 hours with an apparent mixed load.

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It was advertised as 10:04 on Balanced, the default setting. That review uses Normal, where the two power-hungry cores are always active, instead of shutting off when they aren't needed.
Check out the bolded "NOTE:" where they say they're rerunning the battery test. Engadget said it lost to the iPad 2 by only 9 minutes on Balanced.
EDIT: And, according to the comments, this is without discharging/recharging the battery - battery stats aren't calibrated yet.

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I think 5 hours is just for the dock and 10:17hours (according to engadget) for the the tablet...a total of whooping 15+ hours, not BAD at all

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No, the review on Engadget said that they expected 15+ hours with the dock.

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skpamnani said:
I think 5 hours is just for the dock and 10:17hours (according to engadget) for the the tablet...a total of whooping 15+ hours, not BAD at all
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No, they cannot test how long battery lasts on the dock alone. The Verge found that it survives 10 hours with the dock.
Balanced mode or not, fact is that iPad 2 is rated being in 'normal' mode for more than eight hours. Prime in normal mode only gets 5 hours. They may advertise their 'balanced' mode, but that is not as good in performance according to the review. In fact, the whole quad-core for tablet is put in doubt, it doesn't make the interface (and browser) faster at all, it only seems to help with games.
I am disappointed.

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I'm impressed as this tablet doesn't need to run in normal mode 24/7, meaning 4 cores on all the time. That'll be a waste when balanced mode alone makes it as snappy ,if not more than ipad2. This still has the best battery life of any android tablet I've seen. All sites I've seen that reviewed it are very impressed with battery life. Plus the source you listed isn't as reputable as the main ones churning out the praises on battery life. Instead of just taking that one review and making an assumption, compare all of them. Seems strange that one site out of several giving it negative battery comments. As it's also strange you being disappointed already on an assumption from a sub par tech review site..lmao.
Get an ipad2 then while we blow past ya with the excellent performance and battery life of the prime.

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demandarin said:
Get an ipad2 then while we blow past ya with the excellent performance and battery life of the prime.
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Well, you won't. iPad 2 has a better GPU and does not need a 'balanced mode' to have a battery life as long. iPad 2 gets 8 hours of battery life in their 'normal' mode that only lasts five hours on Prime.
I am still going for Prime, because I'm Android developer and my phone is an Android, but I was hoping that Prime would have battery life longer than devices released six months ago without having to tune down the performance that makes it fast.
Now it is a trade-off.

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kristovaher said:
Well, you won't. iPad 2 has a better GPU and does not need a 'balanced mode' to have a battery life as long. iPad 2 gets 8 hours of battery life in their 'normal' mode that only lasts five hours on Prime.
I am still going for Prime, because I'm Android developer and my phone is an Android, but I was hoping that Prime would have battery life longer than devices released six months ago without having to tune down the performance that makes it fast.
Now it is a trade-off.
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I think you missed the point of what he was trying to say. The site you are quoting your stats from in regards to battery life was the only one that rated it low in that regards. Let's take engadgets review for instance which on "normal" mode lasted for 10:17 which was 9 minutes shorter than their iPad 2 test. So the idea was if placed in "balanced" mode it would get longer life than its already good life.
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA App

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kristovaher said:
Well, you won't. iPad 2 has a better GPU and does not need a 'balanced mode' to have a battery life as long. iPad 2 gets 8 hours of battery life in their 'normal' mode that only lasts five hours on Prime.
I am still going for Prime, because I'm Android developer and my phone is an Android, but I was hoping that Prime would have battery life longer than devices released six months ago without having to tune down the performance that makes it fast.
Now it is a trade-off.
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iPad 2 gpu has more raw power but not the resources to back it up. There are hardly any ipad2 only optimized games out. Most stuff I can still run on my ipad1. I don't think Asus never claimed 12 hours battery life with 4 cores running at once. I never assumed that either. I see what you are saying though. Just compare the different battery reviews. Plus battery wasn't even truly calibrated yet. So it'll get more than 5 hrs. In normal mode. You have to remember to we talking about apple, the king kong of tech..lol they have the money to be lit years ahead of the game. That's why my ipad1 still performs great for me although it's clearly not the highest spec tablet out now.
The go out in get an ipad2 was just a joke. Android is getting closer and closer to closing the gap on quality and performance with iPad. This Asus Transformer prime is what will start the next wave/revolution of high tech tablets and Android in general. I've been thinking also about those different power modes and display modes of which I would use the most. Seems like the balanced mode does well without noticeable drop in performance since it uses amped up dual core. I would think normal mode only needed for intense gaming or very resource hungry apps. We will see once it comes out. Regardless, this will be a great price of machinery at a lower price entry and higher gb storage than ipad2.

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Anand review reports 9 hours and Engadget reports 10 hours battery use....both tablet only..
either the unit the Verge got was faulty..or their battery test was significantly different

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What is this Prime "normal mode" and "balanced mode"?
I know what they are, but is there some kind of a "switch" to choose between normal and balanced mode?
An option in the setting?
I thought the Tegra 3 will determine this 5ft core functionality (when to use) automatically.

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gogol said:
What is this Prime "normal mode" and "balanced mode"?
I know what they are, but is there some kind of a "switch" to choose between normal and balanced mode?
An option in the setting?
I thought the Tegra 3 will determine this 5ft core functionality (when to use) automatically.
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Asus implements 3 different settings for the Quadcore, this is from Anandtech.com:
There are three power profiles ASUS and NVIDIA have defined on the Prime: Normal, Balanced and Power Saver. Normal allows the CPU to run at up to 1.4GHz with only a single core active, and 1.3GHz otherwise. Balanced is the default setting and it drops maximum CPU clock to 1.2GHz and favors lower clock/voltage targets on the curve compared to Normal mode. Power Saver caps CPU frequency at 1GHz with 1 - 2 cores active, 760MHz with 3 cores active and 620MHz with 4 cores active. It's unclear what the impact is on GPU clocks/performance.
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http://www.anandtech.com/show/5163/asus-eee-pad-transformer-prime-nvidia-tegra-3-review/6

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Thanks ... So the difference between Normal and Balance is 0.1 - 0.2 ...
Normal = Max 1.4 GHz (1 core) or 1.3 GHz (2 - 4 cores)
Balanced = Max 1.2 GHz (1 - 4 cores)
Not much different, isn't it?
I would choose Balanced and be done with it.
sontin said:
Asus implements 3 different settings for the Quadcore, this is from Anandtech.com:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5163/asus-eee-pad-transformer-prime-nvidia-tegra-3-review/6
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gogol said:
Thanks ... So the difference between Normal and Balance is 0.1 - 0.2 ...
Normal = Max 1.4 GHz (1 core) or 1.3 GHz (2 - 4 cores)
Balanced = Max 1.2 GHz (1 - 4 cores)
Not much different, isn't it?
I would choose Balanced and be done with it.
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The mode also determines how the CPU speed scales to meet loads
ie Balanced would be slower to rise to its max 1.2 GHz than Normal

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wow op sounds like an apple fanboy, he just keeps ignoring what everyone has to say about the review being the only one to state a 5 hour energy life.
if its only 5 hours i wouldn't buy it.

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blaziner18 said:
wow op sounds like an apple fanboy, he just keeps ignoring what everyone has to say about the review being the only one to state a 5 hour energy life.
if its only 5 hours i wouldn't buy it.
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I do not own a single Apple device and recently purchased Galaxy Nexus in my line of Android devices. I am also an Android developer. Just because I am disappointed by the battery life on the so-called 'normal' mode does not mean I am an Apple fanboy.

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kristovaher said:
I do not own a single Apple device and recently purchased Galaxy Nexus in my line of Android devices. I am also an Android developer. Just because I am disappointed by the battery life on the so-called 'normal' mode does not mean I am an Apple fanboy.
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both anand and engadget reviews were running Normal mode too...and the batter life rivels iPad even without dock..and certainly the best among all android tablets.

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kristovaher said:
I do not own a single Apple device and recently purchased Galaxy Nexus in my line of Android devices. I am also an Android developer. Just because I am disappointed by the battery life on the so-called 'normal' mode does not mean I am an Apple fanboy.
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You still fail to accept what everyone else is saying.
But here's an idea: Just get the prime and send it back to where ever you bought if it doesn't please you...
What about checking the battery life YOURSELF before whining here? Good idea?

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Diamondback2010 said:
You still fail to accept what everyone else is saying.
But here's an idea: Just get the prime and send it back to where ever you bought if it doesn't please you...
What about checking the battery life YOURSELF before whining here? Good idea?
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Are we turning into Apple fanboys ourselves!? Seriously, I can be critical about the device, stop acting as if I don't have a right to voice my concerns or share my opinion.
Of course I will check the battery myself once it's released. I simply expected it to perform better in reviews than it has. This is not just because The Verge shows weaker battery life than devices released months ago, but also AnandTech, where the battery apparently lasts less than iPad 2 as well. I keep bringing out iPad 2 not only because it is so widely known, but also because it is the standard other devices are measured against in terms of application speed and UI.
I simply expected it to blow opposition out of the water, but it is only marginally better in some ways. The quad-core also does not enhance Android experience as has been pointed out, it doesn't make the UI and apps slicker unless in really obvious examples, like a game (and iPad 2 is also great in games).
I am also disappointed to hear that some of the integral things, like a browser, is not as fast as one would expect from a quad-core device. The lags in zooming and moving around have been pointed out in reviews.
And it just outright loses against iPad 2 in processing power too.
So it costs as much as an iPad 2, but loses out in both battery life and performance. It is better in some ways, like the camera, but really, it does not blow the opposition out of the water. It will not be the 'best Android tablet' out there for long either.