3DS NEWS - Standby mode battery life last "for a day"

We’ve known about 3DS’s battery life while playing games for quite some while now, but what about the system’s battery life when the lid is closed, that is, when it is on standby?

Big gaming website CVG have reviewed the 3DS this weekend – and have mentioned in their review the following about battery life on standby:

“In sleep mode the 3DS’s juice lasted for a day comfortably.”

How long is “a day” for the 3DS battery’s 1,300 mAh of charge?

We’d say at the best estimate it’s 24 hours and at the worst we’d be talking about the battery life for a normal day’s use – that is, using a 3DS like a smartphone or tablet and not switching it off, instead closing the lid after we’ve switched it on for the day or after a quick bit of gaming and walking about with the thing using StreetPass and communicating with other 3DSes.

Either way this is respectable news and more than we’d expect. Not only is it enough for a day’s use (we guess we’ll be charging our 3DSes daily in ‘normal’ use, normal referring to how we see Nintendo’s models use the 3DS in their previous promotions and feature trailers), but 3DS is always connected with regards to wireless functionality – and likely has a few processes suspended on standby – such as games or an application like Activity Monitor, further eating up battery.

While it’s not clear whether CVG played any games during this standby time (essentially breaking an entire battery drain from standby mode), a day’s worth is decent enough for most people on the go (likely the only time we’d be using the StreetPass features on sleep/standby mode anyway).

It isn’t near iPad levels of battery life (up to 1 month on standby) but the majority of the iPad’s innards are batteries due to its larger size.

It’s a shame it isn’t a little longer, too, like some smartphones, but that’s not the point.

Smartphones will need to be on standby for calls and other functions – whereas we’ll only really be using our 3DSes on standby when we’re out and about as we put games on hold or use StreetPass between gaming sessions. Otherwise we can just see ourselves switching the thing off like we do our PSP and DSes.

Positive news? We’d say a confident yes. Considering what 3DS is doing in standby mode, leaving enough battery life for a day’s use (which, at best equates to 24 hours) will mean users will probably still see up to 5 hours playing 3DS games in 3D mode whenever they open the 3DS lid from standby mode.

Nintendo 3DS’s release date is 25 March. You can pre-order Nintendo’s latest handheld from the following UK retailers: Amazon, GAME, zavvi, play.com, HMV, shopto.net

Thanks to computerandvideogames.com for the battery life figures.

Thanks to 3DSTribe

-Dustin