So disappointed Read today that the Nintendo 3DS *max* batter life span is 3,5 hours. Wtf! Can we use extra battery packs or something?
Nyko has already built a larger battery for the device that doubles the battery life. But it's a little bulky from the images I've seen.
It looks actually pretty good, and it's crazy cheap: And what the heck people, there's a 3DS thread that's almost all the time on the first page. Post there.
This is really poor from Nintendo their handhelds were always the kings of battery life although the only one I have right now is a game boy micro but that easily gets 8 to 10 hours despite being tiny. To me anything with less than 5 hours isn't even worth dealing with and even then it's just meh. Another disappointment for me was the fact it doesn't have inductive charging like a lot of sites suggested. 3DS looked really good when it was first announced but now not so much I hope the same doesn't happen with the NGP.
I'm sure there is a way to increase the battery life by turning the 3D off and the WiFi and StreetPass feature, but turning off the main features of the system just to squeeze in some more battery life is pretty disappointing. Either way, I'm sure in a year or so they'll come out with a 3DS lite of some sort that will increase the battery life.
My iPhone 3GS can last maybe two hours running Infinity Blade, and with the 3DS I don't need to conserve battery life or risk being unable to communicate with people. I don't really see this being an issue.
NGP is quoted as 5 hours at the minute and its a hell of a lot more powerful than the 3DS the closest comparison to the 3DS power wise is the PSP which I get close to 6 hours life from and even more if I scale down the cpu. Ipod does have rubbish battery life for 3D games I didn't know that when I bought it it I probably wouldn't have, but at least it still gets about a day as a music player and other uses like videos are well over 5 hours. 3 and a half hours is absolutely nothing for a handheld console though it's taking things back to the game gear days.
Not really. It's more like taking things back to the... PSP days. Yeah, the PSP 1000 gets maybe 4 hours if you're lucky. On the other hand I don't think that a Game Gear ever got more than two, and that was on non-rechargeable AA batteries. The thing burned through batteries and racked up one hell of a battery bill.
Technically, when using the 3D on the 3DS, the 3DS is making two images at slightly different angles, and that requires more power than just a single image because it's rendering more. Not to mention all the other features the 3DS has; gyroscope, StreetPass, etc. Also, there haven't really been any major advancements in cell phone/mobile battery technology, so the low battery life is understandable (but still disappointing). To compare, the DSi had a battery life of 3-4 hours on it's highest brightness setting. On the lowest brightness setting, it was bumped up to 9-14 hours. So i'm sure that the 3DS' battery life can be bumped up as well.
So I guess all of you who think you'll get 3.5 hours of battery life out of the 3DS are planning to use your 3DS at max brightness (something that I personally never found necessary with my DSi), max 3D effect, Wi-Fi on and multitasking?
This. The given time is if you use it on max settings, which there isn't much point in doing :3 It would probably last around 5 hours on normal settings, and even more on minimum.
The NGP is also a hell of a lot bigger hence more space for a better battery to fuel that hefty processor. Remember 3 hours is the minimum battery life, it can be improved by adjusting things like 3D, Wifi, volume and brightness. I'm guessing most people will find a midpoint where they're still getting good performance with decent battery life.
Then you haven't read the statement properly. It tells you what features are turned on with the time estimate they gave.
I already have first-hand experience on this, as does many others over on neogaf. You can achieve well over five hours by turning the brightness to a step or two below maximum and not have wireless on all the time. People seem to forget that the Lite and DSi only last for a few hours on maximum settings as well. The simple reality is when it comes to such small devices with dedicated controls, the days of eight hours and more for games is over. It is quite simply impossible to keep improving performance and expect the same battery life because the whole industry is still stuck on the same decades old battery tech. The low power consumption that can be achieved with the latest CPU designs and multi-core only goes so far and doesn't make up enough for the huge inefficiency of the battery tech we use. This won't change until we move onto something more efficient and that's some time away. So yeah, you will need to get used to it.
