Hardware 3DS Battery Life: 3-8 hrs

[Snailface]

I think I might consider investing in one of these to alleviate the situation:

If you think I'm being too critical of the 3DS, you should see the rest of the web -- yikes!

 

[hakujintanuki]

3DS comes with a charging dock. Many of Nintendo's videos have shown the "coming home" process and the person in the video always sets it down in the charging station.
The battery will most likely be info/memory-lithium that isn't necessary to be mostly drained before you charge it again, so it looks like the 3DS is just intended to sit in the charger while not in use.

I doubt I'll ever play more than 3 hours in a day.

 

[Rydian]

Pretty much every modern battery is the kind that you don't need/want to drain fully.

 

[regnad]

The low end of the 3-5 hour range is probably for the brightest setting, the high end for the dimmest.

So basically 3 hours.

Always take your charger with you, and plug it in when you have a chance.

 

[FireGrey]

I'm used to low batter on the DS.
What i'm gonna do with the 3DS when i'm not home or near my charger will just put it on low brightnes.

 

[DeadLocked]

I'm happy with 3 hours.
I only get around 2 hours on idle for my laptop
Want more battery life, turn down the brightness to the minimum you can survive, earphones in and 3D off.

I think 3 hours continuous play will get pretty headachey anyway, you'll be car sick or something.

offtopic;
After realising I may actually have enough money to buy a 3DS without ripping a huge hole in my bank account, i'm getting so hyped

only buying when mario kart 3DS comes out though..

 

[HBK]

Well, I'm hardly surprised. I mean, any portable games console or similar will drain the battery if you play graphic-intense games. For example, the iPod touch might say 40 hours for music, but if you start playing Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja or an even more graphic intensive games, in about 3 hours the battery will have drained. It's only natural, and now that you throw in 3D, even more.

What did you expect, 10 hours? Not even the iPhone/iPod can do that, and that's for simply playing video.

 

[Deleted_171835]

That's insane for a portable device.
3 hours is horrible for a device that you would bring with you outside. I suppose it's because of the 3D effect, though.

 

[awssk8er]

This was my biggest fear about the 3DS.

I have my DSi on the lowest brightness, with the Wifi light off and I still think it dies too much. I'm assuming the 3-8 hours is the time with the 3D, so I doubt I'll ever use it except to try it out at launch.

 

[BlueStar]

I always get a £2 usb charge lead for my gadgets, means I can charge them at work and pretty much anywhere without having to lug around a huge UK plug.

 

[Seicomart]

If true, the pathetic battery life will lead to me buying an old PSP, flashing it and spending the next 5 years enjoying all the portable emulation goodness I can handle, charging a 3ds every day without it even being able to give a day's worth of gaming is a deal breaker for me, ho hum, msx games here I come ; ) its not as if the DS itself has had more than a handful of decent games released in the past year anyhow which doesn't inspire much, if any confidence for the 3ds.

 

[HBK]

If true, the pathetic battery life will lead to me buying an old PSP, flashing it and spending the next 5 years enjoying all the portable emulation goodness I can handle, charging a 3ds every day without it even being able to give a day's worth of gaming is a deal breaker for me, ho hum, msx games here I come ; ) its not as if the DS itself has had more than a handful of decent games released in the past year anyhow which doesn't inspire much, if any confidence for the 3ds.

Well, if you're going that way, get an iPod touch/iPhone, it can handle anything the PSP can emulate and still has tons of native apps. And better specs, battery life and screen. Not to mention it's being supported at the moment (with iOS updates). The only thing that you'll probably miss is PSP games...but there isn't a lot to praise in that category compared to PSX/GBA/SNES/etc... games.

 

[ShadowSoldier]

If true, the pathetic battery life will lead to me buying an old PSP, flashing it and spending the next 5 years enjoying all the portable emulation goodness I can handle, charging a 3ds every day without it even being able to give a day's worth of gaming is a deal breaker for me, ho hum, msx games here I come ; ) its not as if the DS itself has had more than a handful of decent games released in the past year anyhow which doesn't inspire much, if any confidence for the 3ds.

Well, if you're going that way, get an iPod touch/iPhone, it can handle anything the PSP can emulate and still has tons of native apps. And better specs, battery life and screen. Not to mention it's being supported at the moment (with iOS updates). The only thing that you'll probably miss is PSP games...but there isn't a lot to praise in that category compared to PSX/GBA/SNES/etc... games.

Lack of proper controls on the iPod makes the PSP win.


So basically, this isn't a console that you can take with you when you go out, unless you have a charger? :/

 

[Stevetry]

op is so overreacting you get less from flashcard Jesus use the 3ds in low light like i do problems sold stop looking for things to hate

 

[ibis_87]

Well, it's not impressive, but OK. Given I always use middle settings, I'll just set the 3D slider and brightness to middle and get my 4-5 hours. The way I play games, 4-5 days. Very satisfactory, even good. And since I hate online gaming, Wi-Fi won't be a bother. Just gimme my 3DS already!!

 

[ShadowSoldier]

op is so overreacting you get less from flashcard Jesus use the 3ds in low light like i do problems sold stop looking for things to hate

You do realize there's a reason they have different brightness settings right? Some peoples eyes can't focus/adjust/see in low light, so they have to turn it up.

 

[DiscostewSM]

3-5 hours? Decent. I'm sure some other companies will make their own higher-capacity batteries for the 3DS.

 

[Arnold Schwarzen]

I was fine with the PSP's battery life so this shouldn't be too bad honestly. I'll be using it in school mostly during breaks but even then I don't think I'll be playing that long straight.

 

[ProtoKun7]

With the new features it should be understandable, but this is when using the lowest setting? Sounds pretty poor, though I suppose I'm often close to power ports. Still, for a portable game system I shouldn't have to be.

Battery technology has been advancing, but alas, it seems not quickly enough.

 

[RNorthex]

"Miyamoto said that Nintendo are aiming to achieve a battery close to that of the DSi."

they aso say that on the brightest setting you'll get 3-4 hours
this shouldn't be too much of a problem