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[The Technomancer]

Yeah I'm a big fan of the idea that what the "dock" provides is the active cooling to boost the clock, and that those vents on the top of the screen are essentially pass through.


I don't expect the dock to have any actual processing any more than a breakout box needs

 

[Sesuadra]

Doesn't it have a micro USB port? or was that incorrect?


That's true. I hope replacing the battery is user replaceable. Who knows, maybe Nintendo will release a larger one.

battery is user replaceable on all nintendo handhelds..can't see why it should not be on the switch

 

[Rondras]

My PSP doesn't last 2:30 hours anymore and I'm happy with it. Also external batteries exist and aren't that expensive.

 

[letmetrythisname]

3 hours, damn. Will there be brightness/power saver options?

 

[StereoVsn]

Dock providing/activating active cooling and removing power throttling of battery based device makes sense. So for example if Switch is running at 1.5 Ghz on battery it could go to 2.2 Ghz on power ( umbers ompletely made up) giving significant boost to CPU/GPU.

Now, 3 hour battery life needs to be clarified. If it's at full screen brightness with full sound on built in speaker, WiFi on and heavy 3D game, then it's maybe acceptable (borderline). If not, and it's the average out of dock use amount then it's a deal breaker.

 

[DustyVonEric]

You guys really expected more?

Yes. Yes, I did.

3hrs is feces.

 

[purseowner]

"Source A (Nintendo) described the Switch as having a “mediocre” battery life."

yep, that sounds like something a company would say about their own product lol.

not saying the 3 hrs is wrong, but when in the hell would Nintendo say "our new product has a mediocre feature"

A source from within Nintendo, not a statement from the company themselves...

 

[dan2026]

Does the tablet at least have an AC adapter?

 

[Plinko]

Just realized I put NX in the title. It's going to take me a while to stop using that term.

 

[ThatStupidLion]

but a tablet or phone isn't running at max power 95% of the time so the battery can last all day doing 90% of it's intended use still....

where as this is meant to be using used at 100% power 100% of the time, so you wont get a day out of it. maybe you'll get 6 hours out of it in sleep doing 0%, but that just means you arent using it... and when you do use it that battery will drain fast as shit.


and yeah people are going to argue "oh well you are near an outlet within 5 hours of your day", but thats besides the point. so you're going to have to worry about finding a place to charge it (and in public places thats not very easy), then you have to spend time charging with it plugged in and watching it from afar or standing over it... and if youre using it while its charging 1. will you get much charge for it to be portable after? which will also defeat the purpose...2. youll be playing tethered to an outlet also defeating the portability purpose.

 

[SlickShoesRUCrazy]

Good thing I never plan on undocking it haha.

Nintendo really should have a standalone "console" for people that don't care about the hybrid aspect.

 

[I Wanna Be The Guy]

Mario Maker would be incredibly lame if you had to keep docking and undocking as you switch between playing levels on the TV and designing them on the tablet. Yeah you can just play on the tablet screen but it's not the same.

Personally I never even bothered playing Mario Maker on the tv. If a new Mario Maker came out for Switch I'd do the same.

With that said I'm sure if they did a Mario Maker sequel they'd design the interface so that it's possible to create using just button controls. It wouldn't be as intuitive but it's a workaround I'd expect for tv play.

 

[MDSVeritas]

"Source A (Nintendo) described the Switch as having a “mediocre” battery life."

yep, that sounds like something a company would say about their own product lol.

not saying the 3 hrs is wrong, but when in the hell would Nintendo say "our new product has a mediocre feature"

If I'm reading it right it doesn't mean Nintendo as an entity told her that, it means someone who works at Nintendo is a source of hers, and they told her that in private.

 

[joecanada]

if it comes in at extra processing power when docked , even opening up some floodgates with extra cooling, etc (not just fans like a laptop dock though), I'll change my stance and admit it's a hybrid.......

otherwise its just a simple portable device with a docking station. you can get a docking station for any device, hdmi out, etc.

and strangely I never really thought about it much but if its not a hybrid then I would consider it Nintendo skipping this home console gen.

 

[Steiner]

Look, guys. I'm not going to sit here and try to force you all to don rose-tinted glasses and assume that this is going to be some kind of miracle machine. It's not. I do need to say this, though:

What were you expecting? You guys are shocked by this? While undocked, we're dealing with a device with a bright screen playing AAA games in HD. Were you expecting 5-8 hours of battery life? Were you really?

I'm expecting about 3-5 hours of juice depending on how you play, and that's perfectly fine. That's about what I get from my 3DS XL, and I've never run out of battery while I'm out and about. Even on long flights, I don't sit there and play my 3DS for four hours straight - do you guys? I'll play for maybe an hour or an hour and a half and then I'll switch to listening to music, reading, watching a show, etc. Then I might play a little more.

Even during a recent trip to Seattle with my wife, I'd bring my 3DS out and about and I'd sit and play in short sessions whenever we lingered somewhere for a longer period of time or during long tube rides. Even with the 3DS brightness cranked up to 3 and no power saving mode on, I still had plenty of battery throughout the day because I didn't actually spend more than 3 hours collectively playing on the thing. I was living my dang life.

I'm not trying to be antagonistic or dramatic or anything else. I'm really asking you guys: How many of you - when you're traveling, commuting, or just out and about - spend more than 3 hours of your day playing your 3DS or gaming on your phone or tablet? I guarantee that the people who say that they do need more than 3-4 hours of juice are the exception and not the norm. For those exceptions, I guarantee you that Nintendo will have charging packs. Even if they don't, charging bricks are cheap and effective. You can find them anywhere, they're like thumb drives. I bet for less than $40 you could find a high capacity quick-charging brick and a cable that would be compatible with the Switch and double that battery life no problem in a pinch.

Trust me. This is a nonissue.

 

[10k]

No wonder they didn't want to comment on battery life at this time. It isn't finalized and/or is likely trash.

 

[Lonely1]

I hope that the battery is user replaceable so I can buy a bigger one, like I did with the OG 3DS.

 

[Omnistalgic]

Well when I play this even portable it'll be in a house, or at my office cubicle, as long as I can charge it I don't really care.

I'm not actually playing games when I'm out and about.

 

[What A Time To Be Alive]

3 hours is about what I expected for what Nintendo was promising for the Switch portable.

Hopefully they improve it a bit but I'm not holding my breath, don't really care much anyway because I would probably keep it docked majority if not all the time.

 

[LordKano]

Oh boy, I didn't know it was already that bad with every tablet/smartphone.
That settles it then.

 

[Diprosalic]

i could live with 4

3 is pushing it, especially when it's the max

 

[vareon]

That's 1 more hour than my expected 2 hours, lol.

Can't say I'm happy, but this isn't unexpected.

 

[zoukka]

3 hours is plenty when you consider it's not a handheld but a hybrid.

 

[TheLastCandle]

Expected.

The Wii U gamepad lasts that long depending on the game you play.

 

[I Wanna Be The Guy]

Does the tablet at least have an AC adapter?

It surely must do. 3 hour battery life with no way to play portable while charging? No way. That would be next levels of stupid.

 

[WiiRevolution1]

So is it safe to say a good two hours before it goes red with brightness all they way up and wifi on? I hope so. Better than my WiiU slightly atleast.

The only problem I mainly have is that it appears that the charger connects to the bottom. Yikes. Its going to get bent like crazy.

 

[CrispyBoar]

3 hours? LMAO. That's just about even more worse than the battery life for the 3DS.

 

[Xiao Hu]

Laura said the Ubisoft dev is going off of a dev kit

Laura Kate Dale‏ @LaurakBuzz
@Erimgard Ubi source is most familiar with the dev kit, but believes the retail jkit won't see a big jump.

I mean the dev just "believes" it won't be much better in the retail, but this isn't final.

Pretty much this. Too much drama in this thread...

 

[Projectjustice]

Not surprising, that handheld is packing some heat!

 

[Kandinsky]

Why? Just curious. She was pretty accurate with her reports in the months leading up to the reveal.

Didnt she say that the leaked dev kit pic was fake?

 

[Interfectum]

No wonder they didn't want to comment on battery life at this time. It isn't finalized and/or is likely trash.

Besides the proof of concept video, they haven't commented on anything other than the name of the system and month of release though.

 

[jonno394]

but a tablet or phone isn't running at max power 95% of the time so the battery can last all day doing 90% of it's intended use still....

where as this is meant to be using used at 100% power 100% of the time, so you wont get a day out of it. maybe you'll get 6 hours out of it in sleep doing 0%, but that just means you arent using it... and when you do use it that battery will drain fast as shit.


and yeah people are going to argue "oh well you are near an outlet within 5 hours of your day", but thats besides the point. so you're going to have to worry about finding a place to charge it (and in public places thats not very easy), then you have to spend time charging with it plugged in and watching it from afar or standing over it... and if youre using it while its charging 1. will you get much charge for it to be portable after? which will also defeat the purpose...2. youll be playing tethered to an outlet also defeating the portability purpose.

If you're using a tablet for purely gaming as you will a switch, it's going to last 3 hours or so, so I don't get your point here

 

[KingBroly]

I wonder if they're going to sell a separate, bigger battery

 

[Bamboo 竹]

Expected. High power portable device in general has a mediocre battery even gaming laptops in general has a mediocre battery duration if used just for gaming.

Not a problem for me tbh. If you want more capacity just buy an external bank and you call it a day ad I do with my gaming laptop.

 

[RootCause]

As for docking extra power. Maybe it's not extra power, but that the system is able to sustain better performance because it doesn't get as hot.

That's what happens when you use the shield tablet while hooked up to the tv, it's able to maintain better performance due to not having to power up the display which gets quite hot.

 

[boclfon479]

If the battery truly is not that great, there will most likely be a battery available to replace the stock one with to increase battery power like with the gamepad.

 

[Gai Murakumo]

If it is true that is worse than the Wii U gamepad which was already terrible in terms of battery life to begin with.

 

[Lonely1]

Exactly, thanks for posting this.

>10~ hours of websurfig is not comparable to with 3 hours or playing Skyrim.

 

[Toadthemushroom]

iPad Pro battery life under benchmarks isn't really indicative of the whole picture. A benchmark pushes the hardware to its absolute limit, when most software doesn't do that.

A review stated:

3D gaming is one of the biggest power hogs, so it’s a good indication of how the iPad Pro’s battery behaves under stress. The iPad Pro uses 19% of it’s battery for every hour of intensive 3D gaming, which means you'll be able to get a good hours of thrills at 60% brightness before it needs to be plugged in. As always, if you want the screen brighter then the battery life will suffer

That's about 5 hours for intensive 3D games. Less intensive games tend to drain iOS devices' batteries at the same rate as web browsing and messaging and so on.

Laura said the Ubisoft dev is going off of a dev kit

Laura Kate Dale‏ @LaurakBuzz
@Erimgard Ubi source is most familiar with the dev kit, but believes the retail jkit won't see a big jump.

I mean the dev just "believes" it won't be much better in the retail, but this isn't final.

Great to have confirmation, even if that detail should have been clarified in the original tweet.

 

[DustyVonEric]

i could live with 4

3 is pushing it, especially when it's the max

This is how I feel about it.

 

[sanstesy]

No matter what, the retail unit will never ever get even close to 5 hours of battery life. People on here need to get real and realize that.

Further more, 4 hours of battery life would be amazing for this kind of device and 3 hours would be pretty standard.

 

[DieH@rd]

Wowza.

And I thought would hit at least 4hrs, with 5 being a target (which fat Vita can do).

3hrs is just for emergencies (when gamer is forced to move from the TV by housemates), or very short outdoor gaming sessions (which is already compromised with the bulky console).

 

[ShadowFox08]

Plug in ac guys. No big deal.

I'm afraid the upclock would only be for upresolutioning the game from 720p to 1080p for games that are compatible for it. Bot expecting sign if more. /:

 

[wildfire]

I'm mostly happy with what I read in there.

Motion controls continue to get support and in a better form factor. That's the one thing I wanted from the trailer I didn't get.

Nintendo themselves already said they are working on porting Mariomaker so touch screen is almost confirmed.

If Mariomaker is nixed is when I would start believing this screen doesn't have a touch component.

I'm really happy that Beyond Good and Evil is coming out though it's a shame for everyone else that Nintendo seems to have locked down exclusivity on it.

People are hanging on to 3 hours way too much. This unit sounds like on average it will run 2 hours and 20 minutes and that's a joke for trying to make a console portable.

Think about it. For us Americans the average commute time is 25 minutes according to the Census Bureau. But look at Japan. Their average commute time is 58 minutes.

Obviously the Switch was designed with Japan in mind and that's terrible performance for Japanese commuters. You can only use it commute. You can't realistically use it during lunch time or while traveling with your team for your job.

Personally what kills the idea of using this as a portable device are when I go out and wait on lines at amusement parks, concerts or conventions. I don't know about you but that super low battery life would put some stress on me. I hope the max battery life in the final unit (since Ubisoft guy had the dev kit to make his estimate) is 4.5 hours max. Otherwise it's going to be stressful to use now and then.

 

[Koren]

Be honest GAF, do you ever leave your house for more than 3 hours?

Well, my daily commute time is 6h, 3h30 being train. I'm fine with 3-5h if it's servicable, but 3h max would be low.

Many of the trains have power, but still...

 

[Gemeanie]

It surely must do. 3 hour battery life with no way to play portable while charging? No way. That would be next levels of stupid.

I mean, region lock has always been at that level of stupidity...

 

[Ryzaki009]

3 HOURS?

That's terrible. D:

I would've been meh at 4 and happy with 5. But 3? Nah.

 

[LordKano]

Didnt she say that the leaked dev kit pic was fake?

And she still is, saying that it may looks familiar but it's not the same.

 

[Oersted]

3 HOURS?

That's terrible. D:

I would've been meh at 4 and happy with 5. But 3? Nah.

Are you a developer?

 

[JimJamJones]

@LaurakBuzz 3m3 minutes ago
As I understand it the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con triggers are analogue on final hardware.

Triggers are analog.