Balanced Power - why use it? why not?

[arbarnhart]

I really haven't found much on what this does, other than someone briefly mentioning it should extend battery life but may not be a good trade off if you play games. So, what does it do and are you using it or recommending it for certain types of users? Recommending against it?

 

[flashallthetime]

One of those useless items I guess, battery life is solely determined by how it's used and how often

Sent from my Evo 3D GSM using Tapatalk 2

 

[dieseltown]

I don't use it.. I just adjust my brightness manually, I actually leave it on about 35%.. I leave wifi on always, and get a good 8 - 10 hours solid use.

 

[arbarnhart]

I don't use it.. I just adjust my brightness manually, I actually leave it on about 35%.. I leave wifi on always, and get a good 8 - 10 hours solid use.

I adjust my brightness manually also. That's a different setting. I am not sure what the balanced power setting actually does, but they must have some reason to have added it.

 

[vampirefo.]

As far as I know, as the setting does is dim tne lights.

 

[arbarnhart]

It is on the Display page, but there is also a separate brightness setting with the slider and check box for automatic.

 

[vampirefo.]

It is on the Display page, but there is also a separate brightness setting with the slider and check box for automatic.

Yes, balance power overrides those settings, and adjust brightness to reduce battery use.
All tegra 3 devices has this setting, I have never read anywhere that the setting did anything beyond adjusting brightness.
I think if it did more then that, the info would be posted on the internet somewhere.

 

[vampirefo.]

This setting is designed for users who don't adjust their brightness, they want the tablet to make the adjustment for them. People who download battery saving apps, most likely would find it useful.
My battery savings are done at kernel level, lowering the voltage used at each frequency uses less battery life to do same task.

 

[arbarnhart]

I turned it on on mine and the slider still adjusts the brightness up and down and it doesn't enable the automatic brightness (not checked in the UI, and testing it by taking it from shadow to light the screen doesn't change). I did find the info below about the Tegra in the Transformer Prime:

The "normal" mode, which will be renamed "performance" in a future update, runs the Tegra 3 at its stock frequency of 1.3GHz. Out of the box, the Prime runs in "balanced" mode, which caps the processor at a slightly slower 1.2GHz. There's also a "power-saver" mode that imposes a series of frequency caps on the CPU. This mode limits the Tegra 3's CPU to 1GHz with one or two cores active, ~700MHz when three cores are active, and ~600MHz when four cores are fired up.
In a bid to further conserve battery life, the power-saver config switches the screen into a power-efficient operating mode. This mode caps the refresh rate at 35Hz and makes some other changes that result in lower color fidelity. This muted screen setup looks fine with the monochrome hues of my favorite text editor, but any colors displayed elsewhere look dull and washed out compared to the balanced profile. The downgrade in visual quality is severe enough that I'd avoid web browsing or picture viewing in power-saver mode.

Source: Asus' Eee Pad Transformer Prime tablet - The Tech Report - Page 6

The odd thing about that is that if I am reading it correctly, on the Prime the balanced mode is not the power saving mode.

 

[FloRider]

I turned it on on mine and the slider still adjusts the brightness up and down and it doesn't enable the automatic brightness (not checked in the UI, and testing it by taking it from shadow to light the screen doesn't change). I did find the info below about the Tegra in the Transformer Prime:


Source: Asus' Eee Pad Transformer Prime tablet - The Tech Report - Page 6

The odd thing about that is that if I am reading it correctly, on the Prime the balanced mode is not the power saving mode.

That might be the case. You get better control with a governor though (over the cpu freqs).
And I don't like the display quality. Just MHO.

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[arbarnhart]

I don't like the display quality. Just MHO.

The display quality of which setting on which tablet? I fear I confused the topic further by quoting info on another tablet, though it seems relevant. The Balanced Mode does seem to be a Tegra thing more than an Android thing or Lenovo thing...

 

[FloRider]

The display quality of which setting on which tablet? I fear I confused the topic further by quoting info on another tablet, though it seems relevant. The Balanced Mode does seem to be a Tegra thing more than an Android thing or Lenovo thing...

I don't like the display quality of Balanced Power. I set mine at 55% tho...

Sent from my IdeaTabA2109A using Tapatalk HD

 

[arbarnhart]

I haven't been using Balanced Power but will try that later and compare. I have watched a lot of video since I got the tablet and been pretty pleased.

 

[FloRider]

I don't like the display quality of Balanced Power. I set mine at 55% tho...

Sent from my IdeaTabA2109A using Tapatalk HD

Sorry I didn't respond to the tablet question. I mean my A2109.

 

[arbarnhart]

Well, I messed around some last night and I am confused as ever. Balanced Power does not completely over ride the other display settings but definitely affects them. I wish they had a graphic on the display settings page so you could see the effect as you changed it. It is subjective to begin with and flipping back and forth makes it really hard to compare. I found that I like the slider set brighter if I have Balanced Power on. That is not to say that it is dimmer with it on, just that if it is on I like the display brighter. Overall, I like the display better with Balanced Power turned off. Purely subjective; it is really difficult to pinpoint visual differences. It's like looking at 2 TVs at the store that both have good pictures but are obviously a little different. It's a lot easier when you see them side by side to say one is crisper or warmer or whatever. I can't really make a definitive analysis on the tablet, though I guess that means I can say it isn't that dramatic.