Battery Life And Recharge Time
We are in the process of re-benchmarking a host of tablets in our SoCal lab in order to gauge whether MP3 playback (accelerated by NEON or not) has a notable impact on battery life. Unfortunately, these tests consume a great deal of time, so we had to pull some of our battery life benchmarks in order to get this story finished in time for the TF300T's launch.
The Transformer Prime TF210's results are improved from last week's review, too. We made a decision to use the Balanced power profile for all Android 4.0-based devices moving forward because that's the default setting. Previously, we employed the operating system's Normal mode, which was eventually renamed Performance. As you might expect, though, it had a profound impact on our benchmarks.
Asus' Transformer Pad TF300T trails the battery life of its Transformer Prime. This may come as unexpected considering the TF300T operates at slightly lower clock speeds. However, Asus equips this mainstream tablet with a slightly smaller internal battery. As an upside, the TF300T reaches a full charge faster than any other model we've tested.
At maximum brightness, we achieved close to six hours of battery life while browsing the Web with Asus' Transformer Pad TF300T.
With brightness standardized to 200 nits, we extended the TF300T’s battery life an additional 30%. That's not enough to match Apple's iPads, which lead the pack thanks to very efficient IPS displays from Samsung and LG.
Quick recharging is where the Transformer Pad TF300T truly shines, achieving a 90% charge in under two hours and a full charge in just two hours and 13 minutes—again, the fastest score we've seen from any tablet.
