Topic: Anyone Worried About Dealing With a Short Switch Battery Life?

[Kairon]

I was wondering if anyone else has this topic floating around in the back of their mind like I do.

My brother and I asked for a GameBoy one Christmas and we got a Game Gear instead, so I have experience with short portable battery lives. We got a rechargeable battery pack/grip instead of burning 6 AA batteries every three hours, but basically we played the thing mostly just sprawled out on the floor near the closest wall outlet.

It turned out ok (the GameGear had some neat games off the beaten path that our Mom, excellent shopper she was, was able to find), but it just makes me all the more conscious of short battery life issues.

To that end, since rumors are that the Switch could have a battery life of just 3 hours unplugged, I'm pretty much certain I'll have to get some sort of extended battery-life solution...

Anyone else holding their breath for the final word on battery life? Anyone else thinking about having to budget for some third-party launch accessory with an extended battery, or some sort of USB-to-Switch cable to use an all-purpose power pack?

[Stogi]

That depends on how big the ac adapter is. As large as a laptop? Yeah, I'd have a problem. As large as a cell phone? We're good.

Furthermore, if the rumors are true, it could use USB-C to charge. I have a phone that uses the same protocol and it charges from completely dead to full in 30 minutes. If the Switch employs that, then it'll be even less of a concern.

[Fatty The Hutt]

Not to hi-jack the topic but I'm more worried about the storage solution.
I was just (finally) listening to the RFN where they reacted to the Switch announcement and they were talking about huge installs and patches for XB1 and PS4. Will lack of onboard storage effectively kill third party support?
Reportedly Skyrim Remastered is huge and it seems pretty likely it is coming to Switch, so who knows. Maybe those cartridges have lots of room on them for big games. But I worry about running out of room with big day-one patches and such.

[Kairon]

Installs should be completely unnecessary with the cartridge format, I believe their main purpose was to get around the seek times on disc media.

The patches ARE a tricky question though. I figure it should be easy enough to throw a 256 GB SD Card into the switch, but barring an expandable storage solution like that I'm guessing there will be a limit that people hit with Switch storage due to ridiculously sized patches.

[Miyamoto]

My Switch will probably rarely leave the dock so I'm probably more concerned about the battery flat-out dying.

[BranDonk Kong]

I'm assuming it will have around 10 hours battery life. Look to the Nvidia Shield K1 for comparisons. Hell, even the Nvidia Shield (portable) from 2013 has about 10 hours battery life. Granted it has a 7350 Mah and the K1 has a 5200 Mah battery, but the K1 is much more powerful than the portable and has a 1080p display whereas the portable has a 720p display - but this is just to show how much more efficient Nvidia's chips are becoming. Maybe the Google Pixel C would be a better comparison, since it has an Nvidia Tegra X1 chip (closest thing to what's in the Switch) with 5-13 hour battery life (depends on what you're doing), but it has a 9320 Mah battery and a 2560x1800 display.

[Miyamoto]

I'm assuming it will have around 10 hours battery life.

I think that is extremely optimistic. I would expect 5 hours with all the bells and whistles turned off.

[BranDonk Kong]

I'm sure the way you're using the controllers will make a difference too. If they actually use IR when attached to the tablet, the effect on battery life will be almost non-existed. If they use Bluetooth or WiFi Direct (or RF) when detached, then that will definitely have somewhat of an effect, but probably not *too much*. It also depends on if the battery will be (easily) user-replaceable, like on the Wii U, 3DS, etc. I would assume that it will not be, though - given how much input Nvidia has on the console (typically non-user-replaceable allows for bigger batteries).

[Miyamoto]

Hopefully we'll find out in about forty days. I can't wait for that Switch press conference. So many questions still to be answered and so much still to be revealed. It's like having E3 early (or very late, depending on how you look at it).

[Kairon]

Couldn't you buy a bigger capacity battery from Nintendo for the Wii U Gamepad in Japan? I totally would have done that if I had been given the chance here in the states. If the battery IS replaceable then I'd hope Nintendo sells a more expensive higher-capacity replacement I can switch in.

I'm assuming it will have around 10 hours battery life. Look to the Nvidia Shield K1 for comparisons. Hell, even the Nvidia Shield (portable) from 2013 has about 10 hours battery life. Granted it has a 7350 Mah and the K1 has a 5200 Mah battery, but the K1 is much more powerful than the portable and has a 1080p display whereas the portable has a 720p display - but this is just to show how much more efficient Nvidia's chips are becoming. Maybe the Google Pixel C would be a better comparison, since it has an Nvidia Tegra X1 chip (closest thing to what's in the Switch) with 5-13 hour battery life (depends on what you're doing), but it has a 9320 Mah battery and a 2560x1800 display.

The Google Pixel C costs $500 msrp. Granted, a whole bunch of that is retail markup since the software to subsidize it is thoroughly decoupled unlike a console, but it's hard to imagine Nintendo springing for a battery that large and aiming for a lower pricepoint.

[Soren]

Wishful thinking: I hope the Switch charger isn't some proprietary BS charger. I have a few portable chargers hanging around which would be good for the Switch.

[Kairon]

That depends on how big the ac adapter is. As large as a laptop? Yeah, I'd have a problem. As large as a cell phone? We're good.

Furthermore, if the rumors are true, it could use USB-C to charge. I have a phone that uses the same protocol and it charges from completely dead to full in 30 minutes. If the Switch employs that, then it'll be even less of a concern.

Wishful thinking: I hope the Switch charger isn't some proprietary BS charger. I have a few portable chargers hanging around which would be good for the Switch.

I completely forgot about the rumors and analysis pointing at the port being USB-C. If so that gives me great hope for ease of finding charging accessories.

[Adrock]

I'm not worried because I will seldom use Switch as a handheld. Ignoring personal usage for the sake of discussion, I hope for 10 but would consider anything less than six hours to be disappointing. I was spoiled as a kid. Nintendo handhelds used to get over 10 hours of battery life. While that would be nice, I've been using 3DS since 2011 which typically lasted four to five hours. Basically, I'm of the mind of "do better than 3DS."

[ThePerm]

I'm not worried about the battery life, because I will rarely be playing it in handheld mode.
I will just bring a charger around. From all breakdowns the charger is a USB-C jack. So likely I can just
carry a light weight charger and just find electrical outlets. If it's4-6 hours like rumors suggest than that
is plenty of time for handheld mode.

[ejamer]

Couldn't you buy a bigger capacity battery from Nintendo for the Wii U Gamepad in Japan? I totally would have done that if I had been given the chance here in the states. If the battery IS replaceable then I'd hope Nintendo sells a more expensive higher-capacity replacement I can switch in.
...

You can buy that extended battery in North America also - but only direct from Nintendo.
https://store.nintendo.com/ng3/browse/productDetailColorSizePicker.jsp?productId=prod150204

To tie this into the question, I considered buying the extended Wii U battery to get better playtime, but have found that I never needed it - as long as the Wii U game pad is plugged in when not getting used it's always lasted longer than I have available for gaming. That made it hard to justify the battery when I could spend roughly the same amount of money to get a new game instead.

If I were to get a Switch (unlikely at the moment, but I've said that before and still bought in) then my expectation is that 3-5 hours of life outside the console will be sufficient for me.  Getting more time would be nice, but not necessary... and I suspect that turning off features I don't use and turning the screen brightness/volume down a bit will let me reach that goal?

[lolmonade]

I'm thinking 5 hr battery life is best case scenario. 


That said, it's not a great concern for me, because:


1) Most of my gaming is at home.
2) I've been conditioned to buying 3rd party mobile charging options for my phone.


I'm guessing Nintendo will offer some exterior battery option for those who have extended travel time with their device.  It's inelegant, but the mobile industry has shown it's a viable option, and why wouldn't Nintendo capitalize on a chance to sell an accessory that maybe a decent portion of the userbase wont need?

[supermario2k]

I think Kairon hits the nail on the head. Think about it. Why did people sit and play their 3DS or GBA for long stretches of time? Because there were exclusive Pokemon, Zelda, Mario, DK, etc, games that you had to play right? So you could only get those games on your handheld and thus you would sit in your living room and play those games plugged into the wall like Kairon said, or you would use adapters like the Super Game Boy, Game Boy Player, etc, to play the games on your TV.

SO this battery nonesense goes back to the problem of the way you play. If this machine is the sole Nintendo library and you do not need to pick up the mobile games separate because there is only one library. That is the whole point of the Switch. So those players that bought a 3DS for the exclusives and have to sit and play those games on the handheld, good news you can now just plug it into the TV, see why battery isn't an issue?

Now for the truly mobile gamers, the ones who picked up a GBA, 3DS to actually take it on the go, do you need more than 3-5 hours? Aside from say a really long flight what scenario is there where you would truly be without an option to play this?

Again stop thinking like a 3DS gamer who maybe doesn't own a Wii U or maybe who prefers to sit on the couch and play, those days are over. You can now sit on the coach and play those same games on the Switch, on the TV. I am not sure what the issue is. I mean I am not a mobile gamer so maybe I am going about it all wrong but I always assumed the majority of the mobile gamers were only such because that is where the games were and not because they gamed on the go.

I think that is my best way to hopefully remind those people that might be overreacting. The rest maybe 5 hours is too short I don't know. I just can think of any reason why I would be away from electricity for 5 hours. Even in a power outage I can't see lasting more than 5 hours in most cases. Those rare cases where it might, it's not the end of the world to me.

[Kairon]

Funny how Sega hardware is preparing me for the Nintendo future.

[ThePerm]

I know, I used to sit and play Game Gear for hours, simple solution was plug it into an power outlet. Power Outlets are pretty much ubiquitous.

[Oedo]

As of the last Q&A with investors in late October, Kimishima said Nintendo wasn't planning to sell Switch at a loss. He sort of left the door open to that changing, but if we take that as a given, they're going to have to make concessions somewhere. It doesn't seem feasible to offer close to XB1 levels of performance on a handheld with great battery life and internal storage, offer a $250 basic unit at launch, and still make even a nominal profit on each unit sold at the same time. I'd rather those concessions come on things like battery life and internal storage (which is not to say that they don't still have to do reasonably well in those areas), which should be easy for everyone to upgrade based on their individual needs.

[Mop it up]

Nope, because I don't envision ever taking it out of the dock.