Jeffrey Hazelwood/ZDNET
Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.
When buying a tablet, you'll typically consider its primary use case (entertainment, drawing, work, etc.), price point, display size, operating system, and more.
At ZDNET, we considered all these factors when choosing the best tablets you can buy, but we also tested one important factor that can truly make or break your tablet experience: battery life.
Also: The best cheap tablets
We ran nine tablets through the gauntlet in our lab in Kentucky, evaluating each tablet's battery life under different settings. The one tablet that stood out above the rest for battery life was the M5 iPad Pro, earning it ZDNET's first official Lab Awards badge.
Other tablets that impressed us in our testing included the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, the base-model iPad, and the Google Pixel Tablet, with performance data shown below.
How we tested the tablets
In our Louisville-based lab, we tested each tablet using a dedicated PC with an NI USB-6001 DAQ, eight auxiliary inputs with adapters, and in-house LabVIEW software that analyzed audio outputs as voltage signals.
We tested each tablet's battery life a total of 12 times: three times with maximum brightness/audio, three times with minimum brightness/audio, three times with maximum brightness/audio on Airplane Mode, and three times on minimum brightness/audio on Airplane Mode.
... continue reading