My ipad 3 cannot charge energy as fast as it uses it. Seriously?!

The iPad is a lot more powerful then the iPad 2. So it takes more power to run. The new iPad needs around 10-20 watts to run depending on what you do. The charger only provides 10 watts. Also when the iPad is sleeping it only uses 2watts.

To compensate for the faster graphics and the retina display, the iPad 3 uses a 42.5 Wh battery which is a 70% increase versus the iPad 2's 25 Wh battery. However, both the iPad 3 and iPad 2 use the same charger that charges at the same rate hence the iPad 3 will take longer to charge. And since you are playing a game which burns battery the fastest, it is not rare that you are consuming battery faster than the charger is charging.

The quickest way (and really the only way) to charge your iPad is with the included 10W USB Power Adapter. iPad will also charge, although more slowly, when attached to a computer with a high-power USB port (many recent Mac computers) or with an iPhone Power Adapter (5W). When attached to a computer via a standard USB port (most PCs or older Mac computers) iPad will charge very slowly (but iPad indicates not charging). Make sure your computer is on while charging iPad via USB. If iPad is connected to a computer that’s turned off or is in sleep or standby mode, the iPad battery will continue to drain.

Apple recommends that once a month you let the iPad fully discharge & then recharge to 100%.

At this link http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/galaxy-tab-android-tablet,3014-11.html , tests show that the iPad 2 battery (25 watt-hours) will charge to 90% in 3 hours 1 minute. It will charge to 100% in 4 hours 2 minutes. The new iPad has a larger capacity battery (42 watt-hours), so using the 10W charger will obviously take longer. If you are using your iPad while charging, it will take even longer. It's best to turn your new iPad OFF and charge over night. Also look at The iPad's charging challenge explained http://www.macworld.com/article/1150356/ipadcharging.html

 Cheers, Tom 😉

Just did a test on the new iPad charging speed 17% an hour = 5.88 hour from 0 to 100%.Completly normal.

Did the test yesterday tonight I'm posting with iPad and battery percentage is going up, slower of course but still going up.

There appears to have been a battery management problem introduced in iOS 5.1. My iPad 2's battery management quite suddenly deteriorated after installiong iOS 5.1, and I found two things:

(1) The contents of iOS 5.1 include "Addresses bugs affecting battery life"

(2) Other people reported the same problem after installing iOS 5.1. Try googling on "ipad slow battery charging" and you will find several threads, such as at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3789887?start=0&tstart=0

I do not understand how Apple could have made changes to battery management and not discovered in their testing that they had made matters worse.

I have experienced exactly that...... even plugged into mains power with the 10W charger, the iPad 3 consumes more power than it is getting, so the battery depletes... even only reading an eBook.

The standard practice for battery powered electronic devices is for them to charge whilst in use, even if at a tiny rate..... so it appears only supplying the iPad 3 with a 10W charge is a design flaw from Apple. My suggestion to Apple is that they recall all 10W iPad charger units and replace them with 20W units as a minimum (assuming Tyler39`s figures are correct), and I would be hoping for closer to 30W.

Even with the iPad 3 turned off, it takes far too long to recharge the battery. As a long term iPhone user, I am expecting equivalent recharge times. The user experience is the critical factor here, that is the essence of Apple products.

It is such a shame that such an otherwise excellent product from Apple is marred in such a fashion.

Further to my previous post, I read that someone had solved their iPad battery management problems by restoring their iPad to factory settings, and then restoring from backup; they felt that the original 5.1 installation had completed but had been corrupted in some way that was affecting battery management.

I therefore tried restoring my iPad 2, and battery management is also restored to what it was before!

I have no idea what the actual problem was, or if the hypothesis of slightly corrupted 5.1 installation has any merit, but if anyone else has run out of ideas, it might be worth trying a restore.