From slow speeds to poor battery: find the solutions to your iPad and tablet woesBatteries are the cause of most tablet issues – almost 20% of all the faults recorded in our survey were down to the battery getting significantly worse in a short period of time.
Typically, this is a sign of a hardware issue with the battery itself, which might need replacing, but there are some setting adjustments you can try first.
How to check battery health on a tabletFirst, check the condition of the battery itself. If the battery needs replacing, then there’s no point doing any further troubleshooting, as only a new one will get your tablet healthy.
You can’t usually access the battery physically, but you can check it in the settings.
Android tablet: Head to the battery section in the settings to get an overall rating for the battery. You can get more information here, too. Select Battery from this menu and you’ll see how long a full charge should last. If this is much lower than normal, then it’s a sign that something’s wrong.iPad: Go to Settings, then Battery. Next, tap Battery Health and you’ll see the maximum capacity. Ideally, you want this to be as close to 100% as possible. If it’s low then you know you’re not getting much battery life, even when your iPad is fully charged.
Amazon Fire tablet: There doesn’t seem to be a built-in method of checking an Amazon tablet battery but there are battery health apps on the Amazon Fire store that will show you.Microsoft tablet: You can get a detailed battery report on Windows tablets – you’ll feel like a Matrix extra while you do it. Type cmd into the Start menu to bring up the command prompt box. Type in powercfg /batteryreport and a battery report will be saved into your C drive. This will tell you the maximum capacity and show how much it’s dropped over time, along with a range of usage stats.If you run any of these tests and find the maximum capacity has dropped dramatically, then your tablet’s battery is likely damaged and will need replacing.
10 ways to get more from your tablet batteryIf your battery gets a clean bill of health, try these tips to get more life out of it.
The screen usually drains more battery than any other process. Turn down the brightness, or make it adaptive so it reacts to light and doesn’t maintain unnecessarily high brightness.Adjust the screen timeout so it turns off more quickly when you’re not interacting with it or watching something.Turn off any location services, particularly if you’re mainly using your device at home.If you aren’t using them, turn off Bluetooth and wi-fi. Even if you’re not connected, the tablet will periodically look for active connections, which drains the High quality tablet battery
Close any apps you’re not using. There are different trains of thought on whether this makes much of a difference on newer tablets, but you might as well try it just in case these apps are drawing some power.Your tablet probably has an eco or power-saving mode you can try. You’ll notice this mainly affects the screen brightness, but it will turn off some background processes, too.Switch to dark mode. If most of the background is black, then the screen doesn’t need to work as hard. This is because the backlight and pixels have to work harder to display a white screen.Switching off your voice assistant means the tablet isn’t alert and waiting to hear your voice, which will save some power.
Switch your email to push, rather than regularly checking for emails. You’ll need to actively go into the email app and refresh to see new emails, though.Uninstall apps you’re not using. Just because you’re not using them doesn’t mean they aren’t running processes in the background that are draining your tablet battery Plus, they might be getting automatic updates that are tuned for newer tablets, and older ones might struggle to run them. Join Which?
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Fault 2: Tablet is slowTablet with a cloud symbol and “storage”It can be very frustrating if your tablet is slow to open apps or switch between them.
Sluggish tablet speeds can be a symptom of age. As apps continue to be updated, the power demand starts to exceed the capabilities of the tablet’s processor and Ram, which then struggle.
Things can slow down when the tablet operating system gets updated, too, for similar reasons.
There are other possibilities, though, and it’s worth trying the suggestions below before admitting defeat to slower speeds.
We promise we’re only going to say this once, but try turning it off and on again. It’s the oldest trick in the book, but it works. Your tablet being on for days leads to a build-up of open apps and running processes that you probably aren’t using, but are slowing you down. Restart to give your tablet a clean slate and speed things up.
Clear your tablet’s cacheApps collect data to make them load faster in future. Ironically, this can slow down your tablet as apps accumulate increasing amounts of data.
You can manually clear the cache of apps in the settings menu.
Android tablets: Go to Settings then Storage, followed by Cached data to clear the storage. You can also do this on an app-by-app basis in the App Menu.
iPads: Open the app you want to clear, then hold down the power button until you see the ‘Slide to power off’ prompt. Release the power button and hold the home button until the app restarts. When it does, the cache will be cleared. For iPads without a home button, go to General settings then iPad storage. Choose the app you want to clear and select Offload app. This keeps some data, such as logins, but clears the cache when you reactivate it. This will work with older iPads, too.
Amazon Fire tablets: Open Settings, then Apps and Notifications. Next, select Manage all Applications and select the app you want to clear, followed by Storage. You’ll now see the option to clear the cache.Microsoft tablets: Microsoft tablets run Windows 11 and often use software rather than apps, so clearing a cache doesn’t make as much sense. You can use ‘Storage Sense’ (click Settings, System, then Storage and toggle it on) to free up space on your hard drive, though.Five other ways to speed up your tablet
Generally, a newer tablet shouldn’t run slowly unless you’re using some software that it really isn’t capable of running. For example, if you’ve bought a low-end tablet and start editing some uncompressed 4K footage, then it’s going to struggle.
It’s important to buy a tablet that suits your needs and can handle the tasks you require. Thanks to our tough, independent lab tests, we know which jobs each tablet is best for – so check our tablet reviews before you buy.
Keep your apps and operating system up to date: Newer versions often optimize software to help things run smoothly. You can use our free tablet security tool to find out if yours is still receiving updates. Seek alternative apps: Keeping your apps up to date is a good idea, but if you find an app is starting to feel sluggish following an update, then it could be that it’s now exceeded what your tablet can cope with. There are likely dozens of alternatives you could try and some might run better, so try looking in the app store for a different option.
Remove widgets: If your tablet has to load a bunch of widgets every time you return to your home screen then it will slow things down. Make sure you only keep genuinely useful widgets that you check a lot.Reduce startup processes: This is one for Microsoft tablets mainly, but if you have loads of software set to start every time you turn on your tablet, it could slow your startup to a crawl. Go to Settings, Apps then Startup to see what loads up when your tablet turns on.
Free up some storage space: If your hard drive is almost at capacity, it can slow down your tablet. Try to delete some old apps and content to free up space. You can always move files from your physical storage to the cloud.
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