Battery life can make or break a handheld console – just ask SEGA’s Game Gear. Nintendo has revealed how often you can expect to charge your shiny new 3DS, and it’s a lot more than you’re used to from a Nintendo machine. With the backlight turned down low you can expect a battery life of three to five hours. Turn the backlight up and obviously that will decrease. Playing a normal DS game on the 3DS will see a battery life of five to eight hours. Charging takes three and a half hours.
This puts the 3DS in the realms of the PSP 1000 – a console that was widely lambasted on launch for having a poor battery life. It certainly makes us wonder what kind of monster battery Sony must have in store for the PSP2.
mynameisblair
And there’s that charging dock? Do we have to use that?
If so – that’s terrible and making me want to buy it less.
project84music
Ouch, that doesn’t make good reading. We knew it was going to be a power hungry beast, but that’s such a massive drop in battery life (the DSi XL apparently reaches up to 17 hours).
cc_star
Didn’t think anything could have a worse charging to playing ratio than a PS Move but I was wrong, nice comparison to the GameGear.
Still time for a FW update to help things along
Jaffa-the-Cake
With that sort of battery life they can hardly call it a portable games device. You’ll see people walking around with huge extension leads trailing behind them.
Peter Rushton
If sony can get the psp2 working with a batter life of over 5 hours then they stand a good chance.
Kennykazey
PSP2 will have to be charged by cold-fusion batteries to make it past five hours.
gazzagb
The DSI XL has an insane battery life, I wonder why Nintendo doesn’t just use the same battery.
I found my PSP1000 had great battery life, I could easily last me 7-8 hours playing a game, and was even longer for music + videos. Turning off the WLAN switch had a massive impact.
Erroneus
They properly are, but the hardware and the screens in the 3DS is just more power hungry, specially when you use the 3D.
mynameisblair
The original DS lasted for infinity, I swear.
DrNate86
Whew, that’s pretty abysmal. One of the reasons I never used my PSP was because the damn thing needed charging all the time, surely the DS proved originally that the general public doesn’t want an insanely powerful charge-hungry machine to carry around.
KillaScorp
Ahh yes, the Game Gear. Fond memories of buying 6x AA batteries with pocket money to get through the first level of Sonic (just!)
Dan Lee
That’s exactly the same memory of the game gear that I have :oD
ARUMIR Sympozium
Can you hear me say!! aaaall 3DS play on ten never gonna turn it off again.. (oh god the charging is too short that just ain’t the way Nintendo and Sony!!!)
They really need revolutionary battery POWER!
beeje13
What, you’ll constantly worry about playnig it too much if you’re out and about because of this.
I expect a third party battery accessory, and if thats not possible, unofficial mods will appear.
stingraz
That’s it? 3 – 5 hours?! Well that’s with near no light..
That has almost completely put me off buying it. The only reason you get a portable console, is so you can play it on the move. For me, that means not near my house ( as the ps3 lives there ). That won’t happen though, as after 3 hours I’ll have to charge it again, for longer than I was playing it! That’s a large chunk of the holiday/flight/trip I was on.
Looks like it’s the PSP2 for me then – if it does release (which it probably will).
ruinereraser
And if it does deliver ;)
DrNate86
TBH the PSP2 will probably have an equally bad battery life, it is a monster of a machine.