Hardware Comments about battery life

[rave420]

I had my switch 2 for about a week now and I'm curious to hear what everyone's experience with the battery life of the console is.

I basically had low expectations, but somehow I'm still disappointed. I remember cranking out 3, maybe 3 1/2 hours of gaming on the switch 1 when I first got it in games like TOTK and MK8D, which are fairly demanding on the switch 1. The switch 2, however, doesn't get past 2 hours of handheld gaming in the new Mario Kart, and is similarly bad in TOTK. Hell, the console loses 6 - 10% charge in sleep mode doing nothing discernible overnight in 8 hours, which also doesn't seem normal or acceptable. I basically hard shut it down whenever I want to take it somewhere or remove it from the dock, else it just loses battery for no reason. With the "stop charging at 90%" turned on, the situation is even more dire, since I really feel like I need every percent of battery I can get in this thing. Together with a battery that's a pain in the ass to replace, I shudder to think how this device will perform a few years and hundreds, if not thousands of charge cycles on the battery. An hour of handheld gaming, maybe? Who knows.

The only saving grace is that the NSO library titles perform significantly better, playing GBA Yoshi's Island for an hour dropped the battery by 20%, which is alright (i mean, the GBA had better battery life playing the same game, but I digress). I don't know how this will go with more demanding emulators like the gamecube one, maybe once there are some games in the catalogue which I want to play I can test this out further. Also, it has two charging ports, so when one port inevitably gets worn out from constantly being connected to a portable power bank, which seems necessary when on the go, I can fall back on the other port I guess.

What has your experience been with the battery life, and are you personally satisfied with it? Did I just get a dud or something?

 

[morrisseyshair]

My Switch 2 battery lasts a little over two hours. I've had the Switch 2 charged at 100% and I played one race in Mario Kart World and that one race ate 5% of the battery. Seems crazy but those are the numbers. The Switch 2 OLED will have a better battery no doubt.

 

[lucifier_in_deskys]

My Switch 2 battery lasts a little over two hours. I've had the Switch 2 charged at 100% and I played one race in Mario Kart World and that one race ate 5% of the battery. Seems crazy but those are the numbers. The Switch 2 OLED will have a better battery no doubt.

can you imagine a switch 2 with an oled that thing wouldnt last long make no wonder they went with the lcd for switch 2. Anyway I feel like even if i play simple games my battery doesn't last long i'm constantly plugging in but that is all latest handhelds these days.

 

[rave420]

Well, the original switch gave me at least 3 hours minimum on super heavy games, maybe 4 hours on not so demanding games, and that's on a device from 2019 that never had a battery replaced. I consider that "sufficient" for a gaming session. Together with the rapid self-discharge, I am practically mandated to bring along a portable power bank and cable for the switch 2 when going over to see a friend.

Furthermore, the switch 2 lacks the capacity for any meaningful fast charge. My samsung phone goes from 0 - 60% in like 30 minutes, in 45 minutes it is full, even while I'm using it. The switch 2, once the battery is depleted, takes ages to recharge in the dock while it is in use. I get maybe 2 hours on the couch or somewhere else, then I can plug it into the dock, play for another 4 to 5 hours and the battery still isn't charged fully. Why this device can't charge at a decent speed in 2025 is beyond me. Most I've ever seen it draw was 18W on the official charger.

Yeah, fast charging is bad for batteries in general, but the battery life is already kind of crap, so might as well get it charged up as fast as possible. Charging speed while the device is not in use is acceptable, my gripe is the charging speed while the device is in use. Does it not have the capacity to bypass battery charging and draw power directly from the USB-PD to power itself, while also charging the battery at the maximum rate? Even my not-so-recent phone has the ability to bypass battery charging and power itself from a compatible charger while in gaming mode, to preserve the battery life. For such a supposedly advanced console, it sure lacks a lot of quality of life features, while also boasting a brutal battery life apparently.

The 1700mAh SPR-003 in the N3DSXL, which is considerably smaller in a console considerably less powerful also goes for 4 hours minimum. It seems like these days it's just acceptable to produce a "handheld" console which will crap out on you after 2 hours. I was kind of hoping for something better from big N.

 

[jbarton]

I had my switch 2 for about a week now and I'm curious to hear what everyone's experience with the battery life of the console is.

I basically had low expectations, but somehow I'm still disappointed. I remember cranking out 3, maybe 3 1/2 hours of gaming on the switch 1 when I first got it in games like TOTK and MK8D, which are fairly demanding on the switch 1. The switch 2, however, doesn't get past 2 hours of handheld gaming in the new Mario Kart, and is similarly bad in TOTK. Hell, the console loses 6 - 10% charge in sleep mode doing nothing discernible overnight in 8 hours, which also doesn't seem normal or acceptable. I basically hard shut it down whenever I want to take it somewhere or remove it from the dock, else it just loses battery for no reason. With the "stop charging at 90%" turned on, the situation is even more dire, since I really feel like I need every percent of battery I can get in this thing. Together with a battery that's a pain in the ass to replace, I shudder to think how this device will perform a few years and hundreds, if not thousands of charge cycles on the battery. An hour of handheld gaming, maybe? Who knows.

The only saving grace is that the NSO library titles perform significantly better, playing GBA Yoshi's Island for an hour dropped the battery by 20%, which is alright (i mean, the GBA had better battery life playing the same game, but I digress). I don't know how this will go with more demanding emulators like the gamecube one, maybe once there are some games in the catalogue which I want to play I can test this out further. Also, it has two charging ports, so when one port inevitably gets worn out from constantly being connected to a portable power bank, which seems necessary when on the go, I can fall back on the other port I guess.

What has your experience been with the battery life, and are you personally satisfied with it? Did I just get a dud or something?

I've played Zelda TOTK handled for about 2+ hours, but with particular settings (like low brightness, auto brightness turned off, airplane mode).

I agree on the low performing battery AND bad management of the same (even when the Switch 2 is turned off, it loses battery overnight)

 

[Gbasam64]

Switch 2 is 5200mAh, they should have made the console sligthly thicker and added more battery and even better speakers. It's dissapointing after having used the NS1 oled for so long.

 

[PatrickD85]

Yeah sadaly its the original NS1 situation more or less. And while that kinda is a downer. Consider all that improved and think what that normally does to battery life. So all in all not a big surprise and that is why I have a powerbank with me which is 20100 mah is if im not mistaken... that means all in all 10+ hours if Im on travel at a bareeee minimum. Which should be good enough as I will be able to charge somewhere.