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[Interfectum]

Great, so it's a hybrid between two form-factors, yet it utterly fails at both.

Taking this with a grain of salt. Might as well not make it portable at all if this were the case.

Your hyperbole in these Switch threads are too much bro.

 

[Menitta]

But what if it IS 3hours zelda? Real 3 hours

You can go straight to Ganon if you want so...

 

[pastrami]

so much complaining in a single thread!

this is similar to the original 3DS battery life, I don't see why the panic.

I personally don't have much problem, if it needs charging, I'll use one of the many plugs I have around me when I use it, it isn't like I'm going to use it on a forest or something like that.

I really would like to use a portable charger on it, though. that would ease a lot

The 3DS has a battery that lasts at MOST 3 hours? This rumor says a maximum of 3 hours. So we could be looking at less than 2 hours depending on brightness and other settings, or the intensity of the game.

 

[mrmickfran]

Time to give Nintendo even more money with the extended battery pack.

 

[Spiral Insanity]

It's ok, in 2018 we can buy the Switch Lite with twice the battery life.

 

[Possumowner]

Yeah,ill wait for official news before going all sorts of annoyed,i mean it's a very powerful handheld,im not sure what people were expecting...but like I said,lets wait for the official details

 

[Metalmarc]

Could be too expensive to take out as a portable, for me anyway esp of its at the rumoured 349-399 price point

So 3 hours on the couch isn't too bad. Still hoping for 3rd party batteries like WiiU

Pleased with the news of touchscreen, so we can potentially have the mentioned Mariomaker Port.

This makes me pleased.

 

[killroy87]

As long as I can power/charge the tablet while on the go, through USB or AC, I won't lose much sleep over it. I'd like the battery to last longer, but I'll survive.

 

[thecouncil]

Minimum should 6 to 8 hours to make it acceptable for my gaming habits when it comes to portable gaming.

damn, come back to the real world, friend. you play continuously for that long?

 

[hemo memo]

3 hours max is.... very low. Indeed a home system.

 

[Herb Alpert]

"finally something to laugh about Nintendo new console"

 

[jmizzal]

All this sounds good to me

I dont care about battery life since I will use it mostly as a home unit

I'm sure there will be 3rd party batteries and portable chargers

 

[crinale]

The question is how much power it drains while playing. Is USB outlet at airplane is enough to keep charging while playing?

 

[Rebel Leader]

If true, I'm not surprised.

 

[Toadthemushroom]

I'd be skeptical in assuming the 3 hours max claim will be true of the final product - again this information is all based on development kit hardware.

 

[Kyuur]

Some people have speculated on the controller middle piece being a chargeable battery; I wonder if you will be able to charge the tablet off of it as well as controllers? Could make up for short battery life somewhat.

 

[LelouchZero]

Could be worse, hopefully they offer an extended battery pack for an extra two hours or something.

 

[Django.Mango]

Interesting read.

Maybe Samsung could help improving the battery life.

Serious, 3 hours is a downer.

 

[Primethius]

3 hours? I was already iffy on the Switch (being a console first, not handheld) but this makes my interest drop like a rock.

 

[hEist]

people are shocked? really?

it's a dev unit, so I think it is not optimised for sure. Also, I think the joy-con controllers also got an internal battery unit (see trailer, guy playing wireless in the plane) so hopefully the batteries are shared(when plugged in) with the system.

I could see 3-4h (not expecting 5h, wishing) when, depending on what type of game.
totally fine with 3h, if they can't extend it.

 

[Sesuadra]

About the battery..we don't know if the battery in the devkit is the same as in the final version, we don't know what nintendo can do with optimisation until march..

and we don't know what 3 hours max means. 3 hours max when you play skyrim with brightness and wifi max/on? that would be awesome.

or hours max with brightness on the lowest setting and wifi off while playing a not cpu/gpu intensive game/surfing/leaving it on the table turned on? that would be bad.

it is just not enough information to judge anything or to get any conclusions.

 

[hoserx]

Be careful. If we complain about battery life too much, they'll just drop clockspeeds.

 

[SmoothRunningGun]

A real 3 hours would be ok (not great). But usually when they say max it's about half of that. Also can you swap the battery out for a long flight?

 

[Nibel]

Your hyperbole in these Switch threads are too much bro.

Don't ruin my entertainment dammit

 

[Herb Alpert]

Be careful. If we complain about battery life too much, they'll just drop clockspeeds.

This.

 

[mrmickfran]

Interesting read.

Maybe Samsung could help improving the battery life.

Yeah, but that would hurt our Quality of Life

 

[boneyjangles]

Yikes, I was thinking 6 hours, but i was ready to be pleasantly suprised by 8+ because of the 720p screen

3 is low, that's almost pointlessly low, like the Wii-U screen.

No one is going to be taking these down for the evening at the basketball court or whatever the hell was in the unveil video. Someone is going to have a dead unit within 30 mins.

 

[winjet81]

3 hours is just fine. More than just fine. Who the hell has 3+ hour commutes or needs to spend every second of that 6 hour flight on their portable device?

Besides, there are so many millions of plug in/power up stations out there that this really is a non-issue.

 

[Interfectum]

A real 3 hours would be ok (not great). But usually when they say max it's about half of that. Also can you swap the battery out for a long flight?

This isn't PR saying it though... these are leaks from a developer with not a lot of context other than him saying maximum.

 

[Paracelsus]

I think the future won't be in better battery technology but each product will just come/launch with/next to a "deal with it" branded usb powerbank. I would actually bet on Nintendo releasing something like this for the Switch.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

3 hours is some game gear shit

 

[Salaadin]

Sorry if already answered somewhere in the thread bit is this an official number? I understand that Laura Dale was reliable in the past but can this 3 hours number come from early units or something like that with room to improve before release?

 

[casey_contra]

I'm okay with 3 hours as long as it's micro usb...

 

[Air]

3 hours is disappointing, but since it's a dev unit (as it's from ubisoft) I would assume the final battery life could be better. Hoping for 5 hours ideally, but if I'm honest with myself I don't really know how often I'll be carrying it around.

 

[wiibomb]

The 3DS has a battery that lasts at MOST 3 hours? This rumor says a maximum of 3 hours. So we could be looking at less than 2 hours depending on brightness and other settings, or the intensity of the game.

we don't really know how they are running the system, this info comes from ubisoft devs who leaked info, there is still no direct confrimation, don't swallow word from word about it.

that said, the original 3DS lasted about 3:30 hours on the 5th brightness, about the same as this, it is similar, min-max setting are still unclear about the NS, but we should be waiting for that.

and even in that case, I'm not that concerned, I usually end up playing in a place where I can charge it at hand.

we must remember we are very delayed in battery energy developments, cellphones last about a day in this era, Nintendo isn't out of this cycle to magically put a 15 hour pack inside a system targeted to a mass market

 

[Brinbe]

Bummer

 

[Breads]

Have people played 3D games on a phone? It's going to kill your battery fast. Battery technology isn't advancing as fast as processing powers go.

They also, you know, run the risk of exploding if you try to play fast and loose with use designs.

 

[Falchion]

3 hours is fine, touch is cool, really exited about the potential for extra power.

 

[Somnid]

Kids play at parks and cafe.

Some might, they also run around at parks and do other things to pass time with their friends. I don't think the kids at parks demographic is the one that cares nor are they the ones that are directly buying this stuff, I think it's more the frequent traveler and the hyperbolic neogaffer that really cares and might have potential impact.

 

[Hoo-doo]

lol. what are you talking about?

utterly fails at both? ...how?

might as well not make it portable? ...why?

By making it a hybrid, the appeal is that it's giving you the best of both worlds. Console and handheld.

Turns out it's going to be rather underpowered as a home console and very short-lived as a handheld. That's what I mean with failing at both ends.

 

[Da-Kid]

Need more context. Is it 3 hours on Max settings (i. e max backlight, etc?) I can see this having a power saving mode. But I suspect the final product will have 5hrs.

 

[brawly]

This is why Nintendo just needs to come out and put everything on the table, the good and the bad. We're back to to rumour threads every day, aren't we? Goddamn it.

 

[hemo memo]

3 hours is just fine. More than just fine. Who the hell has 3+ hour commutes or needs to spend every second of that 6 hour flight on their portable device?

Besides, there are so many millions of plug in/power up stations out there that this really is a non-issue.

3 hours max is not fine no matter how you try to convince yourself it's. Specially for a product advertised as portable.

 

[The_Lump]

Sorry if already answered somewhere in the thread bit is this an official number? I understand that Laura Dale was reliable in the past but can this 3 hours number come from early units or something like that with room to improve before release?

Literally all we know is that a devkit has about 3 hours battery life.

It means nothing at this point. Wait for official word before panicking

Spoiler

(and even then, 3 hours for somthing designed as a way to take your games console on the go isn't that bad when you consider how long a smartphone or tablet lasts whilst gaming)

 

[digitalrelic]

Three hours is more than enough for me. I don't think I've sat down and played a game for more than 3 hours straight for about 5 years.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

That would put the battery life around that of the Wii U Gamepad. Less actually if that's the max.

The Gamepad's life was complete dogshit.

So why bother with portability?

 

[VendettaRed07]

Well at least I won't have to spend money on 6 new double A batteries after they drain in 3 hours like I did with my game gear 20 years ago.

 

[Interfectum]

If I played a 3D heavy game on my iPhone for ~3 hours straight I'd expect the battery to be at 4-5% by the time I'm done.

 

[Sesuadra]

Sorry if already answered somewhere in the thread bit is this an official number? I understand that Laura Dale was reliable in the past but can this 3 hours number come from early units or something like that with room to improve before release?

it can only come from devkits right now. nothing official yet except for the famitsu interview.

 

[BuggyMike]

The low battery life and increased power in dock mode is a good sign for the power of the system as a home console. I really hope they can at least hit a solid 4 hours of playtime in handheld mode, that'd be the best compromise between home console and handheld imo. As much as I want this thing to be a solid home console experience, I want Nintendo to nail the handheld aspect since playing console games on the go is whats getting them such a positive reaction. We've still got about 4 months left so lets hope.