Is the battery life on portables still an issue?

retro junkie

retro junkie

All You bases are belong to us.
The following battery life ratings is somewhere in the neighborhood for each of these systems. And I realize not all systems are listed, only the cream of the crop.

Continuous Purchase of batteries
Original Game Boy= 35 hours on 4 AA
Atari Lynx= 4 to 5 hours on 6 AA
Turbo Express= 3 hours on 4 AA
Sega Game Gear= 5 hours on 6 AA
Game Boy Pocket= 14 hours on 2 AAA
Game Boy Color= 15 hours on 2 AA
Neo Geo Pocket Color= 40 hours on 2 AA
Game Boy Advance= 15 hours on 2 AA

Rechargeable built-in batteries
Game Boy SP= 10 hours light on, 18 hours light off
Game Boy SP Bright= 10 hours? two different light settings
Nintendo DS= 10 hours max and that is a bit iffy
Nintendo DSi= 3 to 14 hours, depends on screen brightness adjustment
Sony's PSP= 3 to 6 hours

In the early days battery life was a very big part of a consoles features and contributed to the success of the Original Game Boy. My question is, Has the event of built-in rechargeable batteries diminished this concern among consumers?
Looking at the present portables on the market, it seems to not be as big a deal as it was back then.
With newer portables on the horizon sporting more features with bigger and better gaming, unless there is some new technology to help, battery life will be shorter than past gaming portables, or at least the same in some cases.
 
Where's the Sega Nomad and Virtual Boy? :p Yes I said Virtual Boy! Do you have a problem with revolutionary systems from the future!? :D
 
Where is the Nintendo DS Lite? or the DSi XL? PSP Go seems to also be about 3-6 hours.

From what we know the 3DS matches the battery life of the DSi I believe. I doubt we can get much more out of those unless the devices somehow adopt the battery that Apple uses. I dont know the battery life of the new iPod Touches but perhaps we are at the current maximum in terms of life.

I think next gen handhelds (3DS, PSP2) will have battery lifes similar to their predecessors. A large amount of people havent seemed to really complain in terms of the PSP (4 iterations and the battery life has stayed similar)
 
Battery life doesnt cross my mind when buying a portable. It didn't when I got my SP, my DS, or now that I'm looking for a PSP.
 
ThravRande said:
Battery life doesnt cross my mind when buying a portable. It didn't when I got my SP, my DS, or now that I'm looking for a PSP.
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Why would it not cross your mind? Seems like a pretty important aspect of a system that is based on its ability to be portable...
 
Well unless they are looking to use it at home. Then battery life may not be an issue. I cant really think of when Im truly portable with any of these handhelds unless my family takes a driving trip which is usually ~11 hours but then I really only play the systems for just 3 or so hours and sleep the rest of the time. On a plane, lets see the longest flight I had was less than 6 hours so then battery life wasnt an issue, plus outlets on planes.

Oh I play on the bus and at the bus stop but thats just 30 min to an hour.
 
Rechargeable batteries make it a lot less of an issue. If you play it on the go 6 hours a day, plug it in at night, and you are good to go the next day.
 
I wasn't trying to list everything. I was only trying to give a general idea of the changes in battery life from the beginning. It was such an issue during the early Game Boy years that it was some of the major complaints against the Atari Lynx, Game Gear, and the Turbo Express.

But the Nomad has like 3 to 6 hours on 6 AA and the Virtual Boy 7 hours on 6 AA batteries. The DS lite falls in there sort of with the DS phat, if not a little less. The WonderSwan had 40 hours on 1 AA!

I think the issue of battery life was more of an "Ouch" when you had to purchase replacements in the early days of portable gaming. Continuous purchasing of batteries ate a hole in the pockets of gamers and I think that was the major issue. The technology of built-in rechargeables has soften the blow. People seemingly have accepted the shorter battery life to keep the money in their pockets. When you compare the success of the Original Game boy with the present day portables there is a big gap in playtime. Even the change to the Game Boy Pocket didn't seem to disturb people as much as it did during the early years. Portable gaming had become established and excepted in the pockets of gamers and was here to stay might be the reason for that. Has 6 to 10 hours become the target playtime for portables?

I think how you are going to use the portable, like that morning commute, determines how you look at that battery life.
 
SpartanEvolved said:
Rechargeable batteries make it a lot less of an issue. If you play it on the go 6 hours a day, plug it in at night, and you are good to go the next day.
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My GBA/SP and DS lite definitely benefit from recharable batteries. It's nice that you can just plug into an outlet while paused, then continue playing..
 
Starrynite said:
I doubt we can get much more out of those unless the devices somehow adopt the battery that Apple uses. I dont know the battery life of the new iPod Touches but perhaps we are at the current maximum in terms of life.
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The batteries Apple uses are not special. The reason the iPods have decent battery life is because they use very low power chips. Not to mention, if the iPod family had as many features as other gaming handhelds, they would all pretty much have the same battery life. It's the reason why gaming handhelds have bigger batteries with higher mA/h ratings.

Apple also takes battery life very seriously, so they optimize their iPods for that (ie. skimping out on functionality such as multitasking.) Not saying that gaming handhelds don't, it's just that the processes that a gaming handheld performs is a lot higher than an iPod.
 
x2 said:
Why would it not cross your mind? Seems like a pretty important aspect of a system that is based on its ability to be portable...
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Because when I buy a handheld, I buy it to play games on, Not to carry around with me everywhere I go. I pretty much play my NDS right here at my desk. :P
 
The PSP's battery life is only an issue for me because it drains even when you aren't using it. All of them do, but I find it more noticeable in the PSP. For example, I can fully charge it, but if I forget to play it for a bit, like a week or so, it's dead when I try to use it again. And no, that is not on standby. From a full charge, if I play it right then, I'd say the PSP is probably good for about 4-6 hours, depending on whether it's something like an rpg that reads a lot or a less taxing game.

The DS I've played probably about 8-10 hours straight before needing a charge. The length on that depends on the screen brightness and if the volume is high or low or turned off.

I think rechargeable batteries do make a difference, though.
 
My PSP Go gives me 8-10 hours of play time. Since I'd practically play it the whole time being overnight at work while my client was sleeping.
 
If you use the PSP (like I do) off the SD card, rather than UMD, the battery lasts a lot longer.

Whenever I'm on a plane trip, I use my PSP to play PS1 games - battery lasts about twice as long as when you're using a UMD.
 
Not an issue for me, I usually plan my day accordingly, chances are if I'm going out somewhere I wouldn't be playing enough for battery life to be an issue.

Although lately my DS and PSP have stayed at home and I've carried my NGPC more recently than those two. Although since I got an iPhone that's all I really take
 
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