iPad mini with Retina Display: LTE Hotspot Battery Life
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 22, 2013 9:00 AM EST
As I promised in our iPad mini with Retina Display review, I put the new mini through our LTE hotspot battery life test. As connected tablets are effectively smartphones with huge batteries, they can make for a very long lasting personal hotspot.
I’m running the same test I ran on the iPad Air: a 100KB/s constant download from a laptop tethered over WiFi to the iPad mini. The mini’s display is off and no background syncing is taking place, making this a test of AP and modem efficiency, as well as battery capacity. The AP and modem are more or less identical to the iPad Air, with the Retina mini using a PoP implementation of Apple’s A7 and Qualcomm’s MDM9615M modem. The big difference here should be battery capacity. The new mini has a 23.8Wh battery compared to 32.5Wh for the iPad Air. With 73% of the battery capacity and similar hardware, I’d expect the mini to deliver about 73% of the LTE hotspot battery life of the iPad Air.
The mini managed to last 18.77 hours on a single charge, making it a bit more efficient than the iPad Air and still a formidable option as an LTE hotspot. The Air will obviously last longer, but if you prefer something a bit smaller the iPad mini with Retina Display is a great option.
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jason32 - Friday, November 22, 2013 - link
I hope they do hotspot battery life tests for it and other phones. Using a phone for a hotspot is a far more likely scenario than a tablet.sciwizam - Friday, November 22, 2013 - link
How does this compare to a LTE Nexus 7?kk12002 - Friday, November 22, 2013 - link
I really liked some of the reviews I read here at anandtech, I mean they are real technical reviews, testing the claim of manufacturers, or details that are frankly left out by them. I am waiting for anandtech review of the nexus 5, its been out for quiet some time, before the mini 2. I hope you focus on call and connectivity, thermal throttling, speaker and camera, and most importantly for me audio quality using headphones. Do cellphones come with in built amplifiers for headphone, that actually work well?Tegeril - Friday, November 22, 2013 - link
They've stated on Twitter that the Nexus 5 review is in progress. The review of the Retina Mini obviously required less work given that the iPad Air review was already complete and the similarities are kind of obvious.kk12002 - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
Hi, I just checked out 2 demo display versions of nexus 4, one had the nubs, and the other one did not. I checked the boot loader, and both phone were Rev 11. I heard there is rev 12 and 13 also in nexus 4. How do I know if I'm buying the latest nexus rev without unboxing? Is there a production date on the box? Why is Google making things difficult? What is the current rev no of nexus 5...? I hope anandtech helps clarify this...❇steven75 - Monday, November 25, 2013 - link
That's easy: it's because Google is a advertising company first, a software company second, and a hardware company a very distant third.MadMan007 - Thursday, November 28, 2013 - link
It's not like this obscuring of versions is unique to Google though, lits of hardware-centric or hardware only companies do it too.Dennis Travis - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
Again the Anand is biased comments. I am speechless.Also why so much interest in a 5" tablet? Are your eyes that good? :D What next a tablet with a .1" screen to do web browsing on? :D
michaelemery - Sunday, November 24, 2013 - link
Does anyone have accurate weights for the Smart Case & Cover for iPad Mini Retina?