“Senior Product Manager Ryan Bidan said that the tablet will have a 5,300-milliamp-hour battery that will offer plenty of battery life, but he wouldn’t quote a specific estimate,” Fried reports. “‘We’ll have good battery life,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about the battery life.’
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, okay, so what about the apps? And the lack of a software iPod and iTunes support? And the lack of AirPlay? And the third-party accessories?
Fired continues, “UPDATE: Asked whether RIM is still aiming for eight hours of battery life, as it claimed at CES, Bidan said, ‘That is the case–our goal is to get a full day.'”
MacDailyNews Take: The operative word, of course, is “goal.” It’s nice to have goals, but as we’ve clearly seen with RIM’s OS releases since iPhone stunned them senseless in January 2007, they have difficulty hitting them.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The thing, when it arrives, is supposed to have a 7-inch screen, 45% the size of iPad’s, and RIM is struggling to come close to iPad’s battery life. This is what you get when you’re stuck with off-the-shelf parts and trying to cobble together shrunken pretend iPads.
The ironic thing is that something named “playbook” is being built by a company that for years has been operating without one — beyond doing a lot of talking, teasing, and stalling while seemingly angling for a buyout, Palm-style.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Vatdoro” for the heads up.]
Why do they even bother! RIP
Okay, so milliamp-hours confuse me, but isn’t that twice the battery size of what the iPad has? In a tablet, half the size, and it weighs less? Is that really possible?
Okay, I just checked, my Macbook, has a battery rated for about 5000mAh, which is 55 watt hours.
So, the PB has a battery at least as powerful as 55 watt hours, while we know the iPad has a 25 watt hour battery. So, it’s at least twice as large. in a form factor, half the size, and weighs less. Either the iPad’s case weighs a ton, while the PB’s does not, or something seems fishy.
One last thing I forgot, the PlayBook doesn’t even have a 3G cell radio, as it connects over wifi, so it should be using even less power. I guess Shaw Wu was right. This thing IS a power hog.
I’m surprised he did not say, “We’re on track for a goal of getting a full day of battery life.”
To me, a “full day” can me anything from about 6 hours (since you can’t use it while sleeping, eating, taking a shower, driving, etc.) to actually 24 hours (unlikely in this case).
A full day on Jupiter maybe.
“It will last a full day… on standby”
The funny thing is, outside of America, Playbook sounds like some kind of kids book. Bad name.
He just conveniently didn’t mention the Die Hard battery backpack that comes with the PlayBook.
I hear Mophie is working on the Ab Pack for PlayBook, which you wear very comfortably around your abdomen and connect with a convenient micro USB cable snaked through your sleeve.
The only holdup is that TSA thinks you’ve got a bomb strapped to yourself . . . guess the Israeli security will have fun with that one! (Remember they shot an iPad?)
Last a full day?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”blank stare” style=”border:0;” />
Is that a work day? 8 hours.
Is that a banker’s day? 6 hours. (JK)
Is that a government worker’s day? 4 hours. (JK)
Is that a union worker’s work day? 2 hours. (JK)
*(JK) – Just Kidding. Lighten Up people. Be Civil!!!
@Rudedog,
What is even funnier is that RIM IS outside of American and still picked the name ‘Playbook’.
watt hour is the product of current capacity x voltage, so for the Macbook it would be 5000 mAh x 10.8v. If the Playbook only has a single 3.6v cell x 5000 mAh = 18 watt hours. We need the voltage to say for sure.
@ChrissyOne, thanks, Best one I heard all day!
The iPad’s battery is 3.75 volts. Assuming the Playbook’s battery is the same voltage, 5300 mA-H is equal to 19.9 Watt-hours, which means it has about 80% of the capacity of the iPad’s battery. This makes sense given the smaller size of the unit.
Let me get this straight, the playbook has a battery twice the size of the iPad and a screen 45% of the size and most likely will not exceed the iPads 10 hours of battery life. So they either suck at battery friendly programming or flash really does kill battery life.
BTW, how are the Rim fanboys supposed to battery pull without a removable battery?
Originally called “Playboy Me Last You Long Time”, but they pulled it out to avoid the sticky mess of rubbing Hugh the wrong way. hehe
I think the tides have turned, and I think people need to revisit how they view RIM.
The original Blackberries were worth of giving RIM the bad rap it now has. I was amazing people thought Blackberries were easy to use and the best thing since sliced bread.
But RIM has done well with the new Playbook. No doubt about it.
I’m cheering them on.
Hugh Hefner will be all over the PlayBook when it arrives. He’ll use it as wall decoration on his Playboy mansion playing Centrefold of the month videos.
Meanwhile in the offices & boardroom of corporate America…crickets.
Who wants to have a half sized iPad with a quarter of the battery life that has no apps???
@ Bizlaw
“the Die Hard battery backpack”
Oh! Stylish!
Any battery will last “a full day” when it sits not being used. Hell, They might even squeeze 2 days out of it.
@sully,
The Playbook battery has less capacity than the iPad’s, not more.
@C1 I always had a sneaky suspicion that you were really Leela from Futurama.
Say hi to Nibbler, Zapp and the Wongs; Leo and Inez from me … ta
@ skylark
The good news is I don’t have to waste money on 3D movies.
Worse battery life, 45% the size, 100% the costs.
Sucker born every minute.
Is that full day in stand-by?
Oh come on guys/gals. This is just like getting better battery life out of some of the Android POSs. You just have to turn off WiFi, turn brightness all the way down, turn off push email and cut processor power by 50%. Then you have an amazing 7 hours.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
The funniest thing is 7 inch tablet = business tablet. That is the most ridiculous thing. I’d buy a 7 inch iPad…….. for my kids.
A Jupiter “day” is about 10 Earth hours, so that seems very optimistic.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
@ ken1w
Well they certainly don’t mean 24 hours.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
A work day on Jupiter about be a little over 3 hours, so I think they *might* be able to make that.
I smell Canadian bacon…
If you install the “weed” app, the 4 hour battery life will seem like all day.
Sorry for the bad math, I said I didn’t understand the conversion between mAh and kWhr. Why would they give capacity in mAh when it depends upon voltage? It’s nonsensical! Maybe the FUD was deliberate.
Read the UPDATE: It clearly says they are aiming for 8 hours – a full day.
In other news, why do you wonder about the name? You think we don’t use the word “playbook” up here in Canuckland?
In some android devices you get the ‘full battery’ rated if you switch off animations, switch off flash, kill background apps (the mighty Droid multitasking fans rave about), dim the screen… and pray.
Don’t believe me?
From Android Forum:
“‘m on my 3rd android phone, and this is the first thing i do on everyone.
Menu-Settings-Display-Animation-NO ANIMATIONS”
another:
“Just yesterday I convinced my fiancée to get the Droid 2 and did it on hers (switch off animations). Easy way to make the phones snappier.”
I think they’re counting it in dog hours.
RIM – Canada – foreign country so maybe need a translator/conversion applied to determine time…
Or, maybe since it comes from a commonwealth country it’s Imperial milliamp-hours.
@twinkie
Didn’t Canada get smart and go (mostly) metric some time ago?
We here in the States use those idiotic Imperial units.
I don’t think that even Britain is dumb enough to use them at this point.
Miles? Yards? Feet? Inches? Fractions? Cups? Saucers? WTF?
I = current (amps) = charge (Coulomb) or number of electrons per second
V = voltage (electromotive force or emf, volts)
P = power = current x voltage = I*V (Watts, W)
Energy = work = power x time (typically expressed in units of Watt-hours, Wh, or kilowatt-hours, kWh)
So mAh is current x time (total charge stored in the battery)
and Wh = power x time (takes into account both the amount of charge and the voltage that shoves those electrons through a circuit), thus the work that the battery can theoretically perform.
High voltages can bridge an air gap (spark). Static electricity in the winter may be thousands of volts (thus the blue spark when you touch a door knob).
If I = current = flow of electrons (think flow of water through pipe) and
V = voltage = electromotive force (think head pressure of water in vertical pipe)
The Playbook won’t last a full day on the market.
RIM Job I say.
The name PlayBook?…. coming from a company who prides themselves in the enterprise space? We don’t PLAY @ work…. We WORK… with the iPad.
BEAM ME UP SCOTTY!!!! BUT CAPTAIN!!!! IM GIVING IT ALL SHE’S GOT!!!! I NEED MORE POWER!!!! What a JOKE!
Damit! Captain I told you…. I’m a DOCTOR a scientist.
NOT a scientist!!! Woops.
Bottom line PlayBook will not come close to the battery life of iPad.
yep it will last a full day in sleep mode. Or maybe a full day to RIM is 4 hours.