Terrible Surface Pro 8 Battery life - Nearly 1% drained per minute

Maybe a class action lawsuit could motivate Microsoft to find a solution or at least correct their claims that the battery should last 16 hours. I get 1 hour out of my device and this is basically not usable as a computer. The Surface is a very expensive paper weight and a tremendous cost for service as no one can find the source of the problem.

I would also love to improve my surface pro 7's battery life. As a student, I can't even make it through half of the school day without needing to charge. I wake up and start classes at 9 am. By the time I have my 3rd class at around 11am I have to charge. Thats only 2 hours without it draining to percentages in the teens. Luckily, the charger is super fast, however I've had four break. One was my fault, but the rest weren't. I switched to slow charging with USB C as it was more convenient, but I quickly realized that I needed it to be way faster. So now I'm back to surface charging. Now, it does charge my computer from 10% to 50%, but I still have to charge it again to make it through the day. During lunch, right after the previously mentioned period, It can drain a lot. I am not impressed. I loved this computer, but yeah, the sucky battery life will make me switch. I'm buying a M2 Mac Mini soon, and then, I'll buy a mac book pro. Though, I love windows, and will still keep this machine, I, as a music engineering major, and who does video editing and photo editing, need a machine I can trust. Macs are best for my industry, so I'm switching.

Hey Johnny, thanks for the reply but, surely, a brand spanking new Surface that I fired up yesterday has all the latest drivers? Unless a critical update that improves the battery life threefold has been released in the last 24 hours of course. How can something out the box need an uninstall/reinstall of the software?

It’s like a Day One Patch for a video game but, rather than just being a few bug fixes, it’s 75% of the story being added.

Hey Danny1993

Product ship date with software installed will never have the most up2date software, it doesn't matter if it is Microsoft in this case, Dell, IBM, Apple, Google, etc. That's real-world production for you, its every industry, in this case yes even Microsoft. But let me know if you help, I'll be happy to lend a hand.

"The only way of Out of the Box aka OOBE would ever happen in the manner that you are referring to, is done more on the large-scale enterprise solutions end. The Company / Org. Provides a specific Windows image etc. to let's say Dell, IBM, or 3rd party Vendors and they then ship the machines to you with all up2date software drivers / firmware etc. less specified, furthermore if Microsoft was to do such a thing ship time also increases etc. you get the point."

Hi carleast,

We have noticed that you haven’t replied to our first response yet. We would like to know if you still need some assistance on the concern raised. If yes, please reply back for us to further assist you.

Hope to hear from you.

Kind regards,

Marrion

Hi carleast,

Thank you for reaching Microsoft Community.

Hibernate state still uses power but lesser compared when the device is in Sleep state (see:Shut down, sleep, or hibernate your PC (microsoft.com)). For the Surface Pro 8 battery life: Up to 16 hours of battery life based on typical Surface device usage. Testing conducted by Microsoft in August 2021 using preproduction software and preproduction Intel® 11th Gen Core™ i5-1135G7, 256GB, 8GB RAM device. Testing consisted of full battery discharge with a mixture of active use and modern standby. The active use portion consists of (1) a web browsing test accessing 8 popular websites over multiple open tabs, (2) a productivity test utilizing Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook, and (3) a portion of time with the device in use with idle applications. All settings were default except screen brightness was set to 150nits with Auto-Brightness and Adaptive Colour disabled.  Wi-Fi was connected to a network.  Tested with Windows Version 11.0.22000.9 (21H2).  Battery life varies significantly with settings, usage and other factors. (Surface Pro 8 – The most powerful Pro – Microsoft Surface)

Surface has designed this generation of devices to be up to twice as fast with a balance of performance, battery life, and great user experiences in a thin and light design. As a result of increased performance, overall battery life has been impacted, but we expect customers will continue to get a full day of use from their Surface, and faster charging when they need it.

Kindly try first running these steps below then observe if the battery life of the device improves:

1: Run Surface Diagnostic Toolkit

See: Fix common Surface problems using the Surface Diagnostic Toolkit (microsoft.com)

2: Check for Windows Update

Go to Windows Settings > Update & Security and select Check for updates

Make sure all updates need are installed including Optional updates

3: Update drivers and firmware

Check what is the current OS Build of your Windows version by going to Settings > System > About. 

Go to Download driver and firmware for Surface, choose Surface Pro

Then click the link next to Surface Pro 8 then click Download on the next page.

Choose the .msi file that matches your current OS Build and click Next.

After downloading, run and install the .msi then Restart. 

4: Run System File Checker Tool

See: Using System File Checker in Windows (microsoft.com)

You may also see this page for details and tips in caring for the battery of your Surface: Caring for your Surface battery (microsoft.com).

Kind regards,

Marrion