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.
leon
I think I will wait for the second version with better battery life
colmshan1990
Three hours with the backlight off?
That’s not the same as PSP 1000, that’s worse.
stingraz
To put it into perspective, the 3DS has one-third the battery life of a game boy advance. (which has 15 hours). Yes, it requires more energy to work the graphics, etc, but still, a nice little comparison!
icuyesido
Wow, what a let down, I’m reconsidering my preemptive jump to purchase.
Person678
I think it should be noted that the 3DS does ship with a very lovely charging cradle rather than a cable, which is nice.
jayjay119
Surely that just inhibits you from playing as it’s charging though, which is even more of an inconvenient. One thing that annoyed me about the PSP 1000 was it’s abysmal play time. I currently have a PSP 3000 which can last upwards of 10 hours with no LAN activation, so the 3DS is coming off rather badly in this respect. Certainly put me off,and I was far more interested in this than the PSP2.
Person678
That never occurred to me. Bah.
colmshan1990
Is the battery removable?
Because that would be an easy enough way to give a decent play time when out and about.
MXZ
Now thats a little disappointing.
battery life has always horrified me with nintendo products.
i remember playing on my GameBoy, anywhere at any time and loving it
(that was of course only possible if i had put fresh batteries into it) if i had not? well then id be staring into that square screen for hours on end imagination i was actually playing pokemon.
Nintendo, i love you, but if Sonys next portable has a decent battery life then it will get more of my attention.
hazelam
but will it give you a warning before the console dies from a flat battery? the battery running out is one thing, but running out without warning so you lose the last half hour of progress, that’s really annoying.
coolgr33k
Its funny when my ps3 alerts me that the battery is almost flat, but somehow it keeps up for another 30mins to an hour.
But a warning is definitely needed for the 3DS otherwise that would be annoying.
InternationalGamer
Seriously?? That bad?
The PSP-1000 was released back in 2004 and if its battery life was considered bad back than, it must be horrible now, couldnt Nintendo improve its battery life or is its 3D feature is to blame eating every power that comes to it. I wonder how much the battery life will improve if the 3D is turned off which Im sure it has a feature like that.
lukieboy1981
I am not impressed at all by that, I can’t get to uni and back with only 3 hours of play. Was very impressed to discover the DSi XL has a large amount of hours though and might get that instead.
coolgr33k
3 hours charge time and possibly 5 hours play time isn’t good :S
Technology these days is developing too fast for battery life to keep up. Smartphones are especially bad.
I read somewhere that there was a way to increase lithium ion battery life significantly, but it would reduce its lifetime (e.g the amount of times you can recharge it).
But the PSP1000 which I still have has such a bad battery but luckily I only use it whilst on a plane going on holiday, or long train journeys which means I play it about 4 times a year.
coolgr33k
I meant they are developing a way to increase battery life, its currently not available.