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Comment by izacus | Hacker News Reader

Hmm, the battery life is kinda disappointing. I'm not interested in Switch as a TV console (PS4 does that significantly better and has better games for when I have time to give them) and it seems it's going to struggle as a 3DS replacement when it can't even live through a rather average flight :/

I do still hope the best 3DS franchises will make it to the Switch and I might pick it up after price drops under the price of PS4.

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Just under 3 hours of battery life for a highly demanding game like Zelda seems pretty fair to me to be honest. 6 hours for less demanding games also seems pretty fair.

For me, that's disappointing. It means that a year or two into battery wear you'll be tethered to an outlet.

The situation looks even more dire after reading this quote.

> ...although we’ve yet to find a battery / cable that can charge the console faster than it drains.

Batteries don't tend to degrade like they used to. The chips that charge and discharge them are a lot more sophisticated. Most batteries do well for 2.5-3 years these days.

Obviously the dock can keep the machine powered while playing, so there is at least one.

Other outlets were not having the same issues. I suspect a cable or device issue.

Good thing is that you can use almost any powerbank with it, thanks to it's charging through USB-C.

According to reviews, it depletes the battery faster than it can be charged so a powerbank won't expand life as much as it should.

No, it can charge while playing when using the official adapter. It's just that people were using low-rated battery packs. USB C can support up to 100W, the Switch charger is 45W, so if you're using a pack that doesn't output more than 10-20% of that, obviously you'll have slow charging and probably not enough to sustain playing and charging simultaneously. I'm not worried, I'm almost never away from power for more than 3 hours anyhow, though I will be finding a high capacity battery that can output a good enough charge rate.

Yah, you're right. Quoting from the review: "we’ve yet to find a battery / cable that can charge the console faster than it drains." So it's possible and likely that someone will make a capable pack at some point.

Found

On the positive side, plugging a powerbank into the Switch causes the console to recharge faster than it depletes its own battery even in a stress test scenario with brightness and volume maxed. [1]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-ninten...

Looks like it won't take much. A lot of USB-C power banks on Amazon max out at 3A/5V; at 15W, that's just about the top power consumption measured on the Switch (16W), so it ought to be enough to at least keep the battery constant as power use fluctuates during regular gameplay.

I expect we'll see 5A+ power packs in the future which will handle it easily.

I can highly recommend http://www.banggood.com/ZMI-QB820-20000mAh-Quick-Charge-2_0-..., although I'm hoping someone with a thermal camera can do a proper teardown and review at some point - it gets a little warm at ~40W output.

It charges my XPS 9350 just fine, so it should do the Switch no worries.

Those are extremely impressive specs for the size. Great find and thanks for the link.

But the Switch downclocks the GPU greatly in portable mode, so it consumes less power. If it does that, and charges but a bit slower, you won't need a 45W battery pack.

But you can't charge and use it at the same time

The Switch battery life is comparable to the original 3DS battery life. It seems that it'll last much longer than my iPhone does when I play demanding games on it.

"Jack of all trades, master of none." It's not a console you'd want to own without another console, it's not a portable you'd be able to use like a proper portable.

So what is it, other than something for people who already knew they'd buy whatever Nintendo had to offer?

"... sometimes is better than a master of one" is the rest of the saying ;)

The Switch is almost a Wii U. The one big difference is that the Switch doesn't allow both screens at once - by using the small screen as the console.

It is an average Nintendo TV console with the added functionality of being able to let someone else use the TV by undocking the Switch and continuing game play - just like the Wii U.

You are literally the first person I've ever met who knew the rest of that rhyme! It would be on HN of course... chuckle

I agree with your closing point, which is why I'm so disappointed here. I love Nintendo games, but for a long time now I've despised their hardware.

I've skipped all the Nintendo consoles since the GameCube, in part because I didn't care for odd controls (I just want to play Mario/Zelda/Metroid with a regular gamepad!), and in part because as a result of those odd controls backward compatibility isn't too great either.

The Switch, however, will be the first console I'll buy. I'm not too happy with the low specs, but it's somewhat justified by the portability. And if Nintendo does what I hope they'll do, I'll be able to play a whole bunch of older and indie games now that there's a normal controller as a default (portable Metroid Prime!?!).

Unfortunately I don't quite trust Nintendo to be sensible, so I'll have to wait and see what happens first. I'm very tempted to get a second-hand Wii U so I can play Zelda and go through my unplayed first-party back-log, though.

> I just want to play Mario/Zelda/Metroid with a regular gamepad!

Both the Wii and WiiU offered pretty good controllers so you can do just that.

since the GameCube, in part because I didn't care for odd controls

Gee, I remember thinking the Gamecube had pretty odd controls when it came out. The C-stick seemed like an odd compromise between the N64's C buttons and the PS 2 controller's dual analog sticks.

It was definitely a bit odd... it worked, but it wasn't the ideal solution. In the end, there's a reason why that was a dead-end.

The problem is that everyone wants to create bold new interfaces, but few people want to refine existing ones. If you can make a breakthrough, go for it, but if not... just make iterative improvements. I'm a lot happier with how Sony and MS have gone with their controllers, by contrast.

Honestly the Switch seems like the closest thing to a classic control scheme that they've had in a while. If it had more than 3 hours battery life, and didn't seem in need of a day-0 patch, it might even be worth it.

I think you're over-selling the Wii U. I was originally excited by the Wii U portability, but the range that the gamepad can go from the console is incredibly short.

My office is 20 feet away from the console (through two walls), and I can't use the gamepad reliably. That's hardly portable. It doesn't work anywhere in the house other than in the adjacent room.

Well, I wasn't trying to over-sell the Wii U - but it was definitely a Prototype for the Switch - that's practically undeniable. Especially when you look at the Wii U prototype [1]

Range on the Wii U is terrible, and the Switch is an "incremental improvement" in that regard :p

Battery life between the two is about the same, with the Switch gaining range

[1]: http://nintendotoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/slide002...

You seem to be thinking of your PS4 as a "home console" and the Switch as the "portable", whereas the Switch is really both those things and none of them. You can play the same games both on the couch and on the go (unless you are hellbent on always playing two games in parallel on each console).

I think the Switch will allow for a new "non-binary" way of thinking about what's portable and what's a home game, and fit into our lives in a new way. I can't wait to start playing a game on the commute back home from work (which takes well under the 2.5h), and continue the same session on the big setup later when I arrive. I think it will allow me to spend more hours per week playing big titles compared to what I can spare today.

I'm in the opposite camp. I'm a happy owner of Wii U and would probably skip the Switch.

I don't like the compromises (mostly performance) made just to make it portable. That's the use case that doesn't interest me in the slightest.

I would just prefer a beefy modern console that plays fun Nintendo-ecosystem games.

Same here as a happy Wii U owner. Skipping the Switch unless there's some very compelling content and I don't know what that would be. It's essentially the Wii U all over again but you can take it out of the house. I don't care about that.

It might be a little more compelling if they kept the processing in the dock and the handheld was a thin-client, requiring a home network or internet connection to stream from it. Battery life would improve at least.

And I personally wanted a new TV console with current-gen capabilities. It looks like neither use case is completely addressed.

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