Industrial R&D is WAY faster paced, because you will be working on actual, real-world products or solutions. You don't have the pampering that is a university lab schedule; you have deadlines that you have to meet, or else you jeopardize your company's products, and ultimately you own standing in the company. If you end up working for a big engineering company that gets results it is pretty much the antithesis of working in the ivory tower. Trust me, even though you don't have to work for grants and handle students, you have VERY high pressure to perform well on the job. That is especially true if you are in an entry-level position; your work schedule will typically go well beyond 5 pm and sometimes on weekends.
If your ideal work day is one in which you can leave sooner than 4 pm and have weekends to your self, stick with academia. In industry, you have to perform because you won't be sitting on a fat pile of research funds that you can spend at your own leisurely pace. I commonly see professors and postdocs leaving school/work very early, although that is not always the case.
Obviously your experience in industry will vary depending on the company. From what I can tell you from experience though, working for certain companies can be absolutely brutal; graduate school feels like total cakewalk by comparison.