Support NeoGAF

[MooMoo]

Hmm, is the DSi constantly searching for data via WiFi like the 3DS is?
I honestly don't know.
I'm still rocking a DSPhat.
Dunno if that would be an effect or not, but I could have sworn someone on here said the in sleep mode the 3DS got like a day with WiFi on in sleep mode.

To be honest, I'm not sure how having the wireless on actually works on the DSi. I highly doubt it's constantly searching for data though; it probably just leaves the wireless in some standby/low-power state.

I really hope the 3DS has more than a day's worth of sleep life with WiFi D: Guess we'll all find out for ourselves in a week. I'm really surprised though, this has got to be the first launch in a while where we have no absolutely no idea about battery life, internals, etc. despite the fact that it has been released in Japan for almost a month.

 

[Father_Brain]

Also once again, 3DS can run all the new games for around 8 hours if you lower brightness and turn off 3D and WiFi. So if you think Nintendo should have chosen battery life over bells and whistles, well then their you go, you can turn off those bells and whistles and get the battery life you desire. Unless your going to complain about 8 hours..

Can you link to the source? I thought I had read a test showing the battery life to be around five hours on near-minimum settings, but I can't seem to find it and might have just misremembered it.

 

[Barack Lesnar]

Can you link to the source? I thought I had read a test showing the battery life to be around five hours on near-minimum settings, but I can't seem to find it and might have just misremembered it.

I believe his source for that is a three letter word that starts with "a" and ends with "s".

 

[Zoramon089]

That's just plain out wrong. Nintendo could've made the 3DS a tiny bit thicker (say ~0.2cm, so a bit less than 0.1 inches) and used that space for the battery (+ the space that's already used). The result of this probably would've been a ~100% increase in battery life (i.e. 6-8 hours with 3D on and ~15 with 3D off), while portability would've decreased by a bit (due to the thicker device and the weight increase).
I'm not saying that they should've done this btw., I'm just pointing out that it is not at all unrealistic to have both power and good battery life.

I'm convinced you're a joke poster. Absolutely convinced

 

[Ken Masters]

This is the most sane post in this thread by far. The 3DS battery life is in line with devices of similar capacity and size. It's just that modern handheld devices have crappy battery life, and the only way around it for now is making them huge.

why is it sane? because they give you numbers you like?

 

[velvet_nitemare]

No one in this thread arguing for the 3DS will be arguing for the PSP2. .

Yes but they won't be arguing against it either if it has comparable battery life.

 

[M3d10n]

why is it sane? because they give you numbers you like?

No, because it gives real numbers.

 

[The M.O.B]

why is it sane? because they give you numbers you like?

Because it gives correct numbers, and dismisses the people that keep saying how amazing their ipod battery life is compared to 3DS when in reality it is about the same or even worse.

 

[Fuzzy]

Can you link to the source? I thought I had read a test showing the battery life to be around five hours on near-minimum settings, but I can't seem to find it and might have just misremembered it.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=26605635&postcount=1478

Not as good as what you quoted and he didn't post an update for when the battery was completely dead.

 

[krypt0nian]

...


Just wow. Hopefully new iteration isnt too far away.

And those numbers are bullshit, as I can watch a full movie without coming close to draining my whole battery on both my iPhone and iPad.

Not to mention music playback. LOL

 

[Throwaway123456789]

To be honest, I'm not sure how having the wireless on actually works on the DSi. I highly doubt it's constantly searching for data though; it probably just leaves the wireless in some standby/low-power state.

I really hope the 3DS has more than a day's worth of sleep life with WiFi D: Guess we'll all find out for ourselves in a week. I'm really surprised though, this has got to be the first launch in a while where we have no absolutely no idea about battery life, internals, etc. despite the fact that it has been released in Japan for almost a month.

It has way over a day of sleep mode with wifi.

I'm currently cruising in at around 6 hours now and still have a dot of battery left (which is 25% or less - playing 3DS games with 3D off, brightness at 3/5, wifi off, power save mode off). The charging cradle makes it easy to just drop it off and forget it when you're not using it though, so I recon I'm rarely going to actually empty it if I'm not travelling.

 

[Punchy4486]

We're insane if we want strong battery life in a portable? lol

If I'm playing in a place that has a charging solution available, I'm probably going to be playing something on my console or PC instead.

I'm guessing all of you who are harping on the 3DS battery don't own a laptop, because holy shit, the battery life on laptops...

 

[Boney]

Holy shitfuck, you cannot even watch the entirety of tons of movies. Unless you turn the brightness down, and not enjoy the flic the way it is supposed to be seen?

WiFi, screen and music is only 4.5 hours?!? There are no words.

Click the link...

 

[AceBandage]

...


Just wow. Hopefully new iteration isnt too far away.

And those numbers are bullshit, as I can watch a full movie without coming close to draining my whole battery on both my iPhone and iPad.

A movie is not a graphic intensive video game...
I mean, come on now...
I'm convinced you're just trolling at this point.

 

[The M.O.B]

...


Just wow. Hopefully new iteration isnt too far away.

And those numbers are bullshit, as I can watch a full movie without coming close to draining my whole battery on both my iPhone and iPad.

Not to mention music playback. LOL

iPhones and iPads both have way bigger batteries than the iPod Touch that they tested, and also a way higher price.

 

[Lonely1]

No one in this thread arguing for the 3DS will be arguing for the PSP2. Generally the saner ones here are expressing disappointment about an issue with the 3DS, like they should for the PSP2. The people defending it are trying to either protecting an inanimate object or a company; pick your sadness.

The battery life isn't good; that isn't debatable. Whether that's important depends on the person, no matter how many people are trying to tell you "If you turn off the system, it has unlimited battery life!"

Well, there's are several misconceptions that seems commonly shared by many of this saner people. And that' what I mostly argue against:

- The 3DS battery life is specially bad. No, Is in line with other handheld devices. Just look at the whole Apple issue. Wheren the battery life is as bad if no considerably worse (in the case of an iTouch). Would I love DSLite like battery life? Yes, but even then you will get it with DS complexity like games with 3D off and a comfortable screen brightness.

Nintendo cheapened on the battery size.
No, at 1300mAh, is the biggest battery Nintendo have ever shipped a portable device with. The same size as the PSP-2000, and considerably bigger than the one inside the PSP-Go, the iTouch and the DSi. Not that much smaller than what the iPhone 4 got.

- Lol, I will only get 3 hours of battery life!
Well, you will if you play at max brightness with wifi and 3D on. And people wonder why other companies only publish best case scenarios?

3.5 hours to charge? That means It will discharge if I play it while plugged in!
WTF? Were do people get that idea? No, the 3DS power consumption (and most house electronics that aren't a big fridge) is far away from the power they can get from your AC plug...

 

[kpx0]

I don't know about you guys, but as new info come out, more and more I feel like this is the forbidden child of DS and PSP.:lol

btw, if 3DS battery is that bad, I can't imagine how it's going to be for PSP2 with supposedly a much better graphic and higher resolution too. is this the limit for battery technology, or Nintendo is being cheap for their battery here?

the psp is more powerful than the sega gamegear and has 5x the battery life... theres lots of things that affect battery life. one thing the psp2 has going for it is that it will be using a "cellphone architecture" chip so it should have more advanced power saving techniques

 

[Brazil]

3.5 hours to charge? That means It will discharge if I play it while plugged in!
WTF? Were do people get that idea? No, the 3DS power consumption (and most house electronics that aren't a big fridge) is far away from the power they can get from your AC plug...

That's so awesome. People were really under that impression? Holy shit.

 

[Emitan]

the psp is more powerful than the sega gamegear and has 5x the battery life... theres lots of things that affect battery life.

One of those being having a release date in another century.

 

[Door2Dawn]

...


Just wow. Hopefully new iteration isnt too far away.

And those numbers are bullshit, as I can watch a full movie without coming close to draining my whole battery on both my iPhone and iPad.

Not to mention music playback. LOL

gee i didn't know movies were the same thing as video games

 

[gutter_trash]

sucks for airplane travel

do not want

 

[StickSoldier]

sucks for airplane travel

do not want

Theres things to get around that yo.

 

[AceBandage]

sucks for airplane travel

do not want

Are you flying from Montreal to Australia ever day or something?

 

[Donnie]

Can you link to the source? I thought I had read a test showing the battery life to be around five hours on near-minimum settings, but I can't seem to find it and might have just misremembered it.

Someone in this thread posted a test on battery life, they tested with medium brightness and 3D/Wifi off and got 3 hours 35 minutes at 50%. Even if the battery indicator is poor its hard to see that ending up as less then 6 hours, drop the brightness to minimum and around 7-8 hours seems logical.

I believe his source for that is a three letter word that starts with "a" and ends with "s".

I bet my ass would speak more sense then your mouth anyway.

 

[Ken Masters]

The point is, the battery sucks and it defeats the purpose of this being handheld. This thing won't last a five hour plane ride unless the screen is so dim I'm going to need another light accessory to see the damn thing

 

[krypt0nian]

iPhones and iPads both have way bigger batteries than the iPod Touch that they tested, and also a way higher price.

Price is not an issue with me. Usability is.

It matters not. There's no way I'm going to hand over any money to Nintendo if they choose to release this handheld that is unfriendly to users, for the sake of a 3D gimmick.

Once the redesign hits and they bring me what the excellent DS did, they get my patronage.

 

[AceBandage]

The point is, the battery sucks and it defeats the purpose of this being handheld. This thing won't last a five hour plane ride unless the screen is so dim I'm going to need another light accessory to see the damn thing

1. With WiFI off (you are on a plane after all) and on MEDIUM settings, you'll probably get 7 hours.
2. Lowest brightness is still probably more than the DS's maximum brightness, which was just fine for any plane I was on.

 

[Lonely1]

The point is, the battery sucks and it defeats the purpose of this being handheld. This thing won't last a five hour plane ride unless the screen is so dim I'm going to need another light accessory to see the damn thing

Can i have the test of screen brightness you used to reach that conclusion, plz?

 

[Lonely1]

Price is not an issue with me. Usability is.

It matters not. There's no way I'm going to hand over any money to Nintendo if they choose to release this handheld that is unfriendly to users, for the sake of a 3D gimmick.

Once the redesign hits and they bring me what the excellent DS did, they get my patronage.

Since price isn't an issue, and probably size isn't either (since you talk about the iPad). You should consider the option of an extended battery. Luckily, unlike other companies, Nintendo still uses user replaceable batteries. That's a very usability friendly move, imo. And yes, the 3D screens seems to have forced Nintendo in doing some concessions, specially in the (stated) battery life department, but good thing for us that we can chose to use it or not.

 

[The M.O.B]

The point is, the battery sucks and it defeats the purpose of this being handheld. This thing won't last a five hour plane ride unless the screen is so dim I'm going to need another light accessory to see the damn thing

The point is, name me another $250 device that can play high quality games for 3-5 hours straight.

Ipod Touch? Nope
PSP? Nope

The point is, the current state of cost/performance/size of a battery is not currently available for small handhelds.

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

It isn't quite Game Gear bad, but the charge time is still pretty lousy.

I certainly wouldn't buy a phone with those kind of charge issues, regardless of the experience.

Hopefully third parties step in and release a better battery. I would definitely consider buying a 1st gen 3DS with a 3rd party battery that at least doubles play time.

 

[Boney]

Price is not an issue with me. Usability is.

It matters not. There's no way I'm going to hand over any money to Nintendo if they choose to release this handheld that is unfriendly to users, for the sake of a 3D gimmick.

Once the redesign hits and they bring me what the excellent DS did, they get my patronage.

But 3d has nothing to do with it!

 

[AceBandage]

It isn't quite Game Gear bad, but the charge time is still pretty lousy.

I certainly wouldn't buy a phone with those kind of charge issues.

Hopefully third parties step in and release a better battery. I would definitely consider buying a 1st gen 3DS with a 3rd party battery that at least doubles play time.

You're in luck! One will be out at launch for $20!

 

[antonz]

It isn't quite Game Gear bad, but the charge time is still pretty lousy.

I certainly wouldn't buy a phone with those kind of charge issues.

Hopefully third parties step in and release a better battery. I would definitely consider buying a 1st gen 3DS with a 3rd party battery that at least doubles play time.

Nyko already announced a 3rd party battery available at launch that doubles battery life. 6-10 hours is the estimate.

 

[Lonely1]

But 3d has nothing to do with it!

Actually, it has. The screen needs to be brighter since the parallax barrier diminish it whenever is up. But you can turn it of. Also, battery life would be better with only one screen. Or a bigger form factor.

I checked this out at Best Buy today, the lowest brightness setting appeared about as bright as the DS Lite's lowest brightness setting. Didn't have enough time to compare the other levels sadly.

You really can't trust your eyes to judge that. Since they adjust to the lighting conditions of the well lit display room.

 

[PKrockin]

Can i have the test of screen brightness you used to reach that conclusion that, plz?

I checked this out at Best Buy today, the lowest brightness setting appeared about as bright as the DS Lite's lowest brightness setting. Didn't have enough time to compare the other levels sadly.

 

[AceBandage]

Actually, it has. The screen needs to be brighter since the parallax barrier dismissed it whenever is up. But you can turn it of. Also, battery life would be better with only one screen. Or a bigger form factor.

Or hell, just plug it into a car battery! Boom! You can run it for years!

 

[Boney]

Actually, it has. The screen needs to be brighter since the parallax barrier dismissed it whenever is up. But you can turn it of. Also, battery life would be better with only one screen. Or a bigger form factor.

Well yeah that's what I mean, you can turn it off.

And yeah one of the biggest drainers will be the fact that there's 2 screens, and NGP's OLED screen is gonna be a lifesaver regarding space and battery drain.

 

[Donnie]

Price is not an issue with me. Usability is.

It matters not. There's no way I'm going to hand over any money to Nintendo if they choose to release this handheld that is unfriendly to users, for the sake of a 3D gimmick.

Once the redesign hits and they bring me what the excellent DS did, they get my patronage.

So if usability is an issue, then why are you lauding the Iphone 4's battery life when its considerably worse then 3DS for games? In fact a movie only lasts about 2 hours on an Iphone 4 on full brightness and no WiFi.

By the way I could have sworn that people have told you that the 3D can be turned off to give you the same battery life you'd have had if the system didn't have 3D at all.

 

[AceBandage]

Well yeah that's what I mean, you can turn it off.

And yeah one of the biggest drainers will be the fact that there's 2 screens, and NGP's OLED screen is gonna be a lifesaver regarding space and battery drain.

Yeah, but the quad core CPU and the massive GPU will be pretty big power sinks.

 

[big_z]

I thought the dsl had a crap battery, cutting it close to where it becomes annoying.

The iPod touch is even worse. A couple hours of browsing gaf at work and the battery is almost drained.

With everyone saying 3ds battery is horrible it's just another reason to hold off for a revision. I'm sure when chips start moving to a 22nm process later this year nintendo will adopt the process and things will greatly improve. For early adopters maybe well see a battery pack thing like the original gameboy had. A charge pack even half that size could probably increase the 3ds battery by a factor of 3.

 

[Donnie]

Yeah, but the quad core CPU and the massive GPU will be pretty big power sinks.

Also OLED only saves power when dark colours are on screen. It actually uses more power for bright colours then an LCD.

 

[Door2Dawn]

I don't understand why you would wait for a revision when you can just buy that Nyko battery at launch. 6-10 hours is more than enough.

 

[AceBandage]

Also OLED only saves power when dark colours are on screen. It actually uses more power for bright colours then an LCD.

That's fine if you only play shooters, then!
/rimshot

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

Nyko already announced a 3rd party battery available at launch that doubles battery life. 6-10 hours is the estimate.

Now this is welcome news. I'll sit back and wait for the reviews. Probably still wont get one at launch until some good JRPG shit hits though.

 

[wonderfuldays]

...


Just wow. Hopefully new iteration isnt too far away.

And those numbers are bullshit, as I can watch a full movie without coming close to draining my whole battery on both my iPhone and iPad.

Not to mention music playback. LOL

They did that test for iPod touch with screen maximum brightness and even with Wifi off.
If you turn Wifi ON for iPod, it will drain much more battery power.
Link

Second Test: Wi-Fi
So now I wanted to know how long the battery lasts with wifi turned on and in use! For this test I created a webpage that automatically refreshed itself every 10 seconds, put a header in the page to make sure it wasn't loaded from cache and to be absolutly sure every time the page was loaded it showed a randomly created sequenze of 100 characters.

Result: 3 hours

That was quite a bummer. I expected it to be low but THAT low? Well, 3 hours, that's it. For those who are interested: With every page-load there were aproximatly 4 kilobytes of data downloaded. In 3 hours that makes something around 4MB of data downloaded.
Please note that my display brightness was set so around 25% with auto-brightness turned to off. So if you have your display brighter your battery might even last a lot shorter!

I'd happy for doing some real world battery life test for GAF. And if you turn on 3DS Wifi while travel outside, it is not only keep searching Access Point but also other 3DS for communicate. I wish future FW will be let us switch them individually for possible more battery saving. Peace~

 

[AceBandage]

They did that test for iPod touch with screen maximum brightness and even with Wifi off.
If you turn Wifi ON for iPod, it will drain much more battery power.
Link


I'd happy for doing some real world battery life test for GAF. And if you turn on 3DS Wifi while travel outside, it is not only keep searching Access Point but also other 3DS for communicate. I wish future FW will be let us switch them individually for possible more battery saving. Peace~

Actually, I'm pretty sure you can shut off street pass by not allowing data trade.
And you can switch them both off via the WiFi switch on the side.

 

[Donnie]

I thought the dsl had a crap battery, cutting it close to where it becomes annoying.

The iPod touch is even worse. A couple hours of browsing gaf at work and the battery is almost drained.

With everyone saying 3ds battery is horrible it's just another reason to hold off for a revision. I'm sure when chips start moving to a 22nm process later this year nintendo will adopt the process and things will greatly improve. For early adopters maybe well see a battery pack thing like the original gameboy had. A charge pack even half that size could probably increase the 3ds battery by a factor of 3.

There's already a $20 battery pack that doubles 3DS battery life (replaces the base and makes the 3DS slightly thicker). Also as much as people are complaining none of it is based on actual usage, they're all complaining about nothing more then minimum battery life numbers (maximum brightness, high volume, WiFi on ect).

3DS's battery life is far higher then Ipod Touch by the way, and higher then Iphone 4 in games, so its not all that bad.

 

[Father_Brain]

Found a detailed anecdotal test, and it doesn't exactly look good for the 8-hour assertion.

Wireless off
Screen power save on
Brightness 1
Sound off
Nintendogs+Cats

3 hours 38 minutes into the test and 2/4 bars showing in battery life.

Oops it died within an hour later. I'll have to dig up the game play stats today, I think to see how long it actually lasted. But it between 4 to 4.5 hours. I have a feeling nintendos 3~5 hour gameplay call holds true for realistic gaming settings, not full blast.

As stated in a subsequent post, 3D was turned off during this test.

Further proof:

Yeah 4.5 hours was right, now that I've got home and recharged the 3DS.
Heres a photo of teh screen.

Not sure why it got that yellow tinge at the bottom right area but...
プレイ時間　= Play time
分 means minutes if you didn't figure that out yourself, so essentially theres four full bars of 60 minutes and the other two total another 30 so 4.5 hours

Not comprehensive, of course, but it sounds like Nintendo's official battery life estimate might be approximately accurate - 2.5-3 hours on max settings, and 4.5-5 hours on minimum settings. A shame that we have to rely primarily on anecdotal tests like these, though.

 

[Donnie]

Interesting, hopefully I'll have my 3DS in a few days and I can also do some tests. Especially the true difference between 3D and 2D (nobody seems to have done a test with exactly the same settings on both).

Incidentally, doesn't screen power save mode change brightness by itself depending on what setting it thinks the game needs at the time? Surely that should be turned off if he wants the true minimum brightness to work?