Re: Battery life sucks, as does charging
I use my tablet heavily 16-17hrs a day. As soon as I got it I went in and turned off/disabled much of the unnecessary stuff I have no use for and that are not needed for all the things I use this tablet for. I will admit I never have the screen brightness above 15% bc it seems incredibly bright to me even below that part. I think it's a little unreasonable to expect that a device with these specs (performance, screen, and included software load) that is slimmer than previously to magically last an incredibly long time. It is built to do more and to do more faster and more vibrantly, therefore, it will require more energy. If nanotechnology and the like were progressing at the same speed we are creating beefier machines and expecting insanely improved visuals, we wouldn't have this problem but all companies do.
I think the battery guide that the above user created is incredibly helpful, I unfortunately did all mine on my own but I still had great results. You can't expect the tablet if it has every single available input and detection capability turned on and is constantly searching for stimulus to not drain a battery. There's a ton of stuff like that and bloatware that you can disable in system settings itself or "ignore" with Nova etc that will not impact your aggressive use of the tablet.
As I've said in another thread my tablet was shipped within the US, then brought via plane out of the country, and it was left on the whole time, around 8 days. It had 18% left with Snote, settings, Email, File Manager, Dolphin, and Chrome on standby. I use mine heavily and just need to plug it in for 2-3 hours about ever 24hrs and it charges while I use it to continue to take notes, edit PDFs, use the internet, download documents, have email up, transfer files, and download/play my podcast or stream MRI, CT, ECG's.
I'd suggest to anyone having battery issues- a) follow the disable guide, b)periodically close apps you won't need, c) practice good battery preservation- keep it in the sweet spot zone of % whenever possible and don't leave it plugged in once at 100%, don't have it running hot for long periods of time), d) RETURN the device if it is draining improperly.
You can start with a severe clean up and then add stuff back in one by one to see if you can pinpoint a problem app or use. This tablet may not be for everyone, I did extensive research and determined that with my heavy use the battery is excellent but I also know if I travel to outer mongolia to research bactrian camels, I can't rely on heavily using my tablet for more than 2 days straight without having to find a power source.
I don't really game on it, its an available feature but not the central point of this tablet and I'd be annoyed if there was a game I loved that drained it 40% after 2hrs, but why are we currently expecting tablets to play intensive games all day on a battery when we'd never expect the same of the PS3/4, xbox, etc?
I thought I was going to have to get Nova to have a speedier experience. After I altered the settings and tightened everything up there was nothing to speed up. It was surperb. Even before doing so I had no issues and no lag anywhere. I ended up bringing in Nova solely bc personally I prefer the customization and cleaner interface. I fully believe there are 2014s out there going to people that inherently kind of suck and tweaking, resetting, and updates are necessary, AND there are some that just need to get returned be it for hardware, software, or specifically battery issues. But if you do your research first, and this model is your ideal productivity monster, and you get one that's not screwy, its absolutely wonderful!