The Nintendo Switch battery life is going to be roughly three to six hours, depending on the game. That’s according to the official Nintendo Switch presentation, which—probably wisely—noted directly that battery performance will vary a lot from game to game. The relatively short battery life seems like a bit of a departure for Nintendo, but so is the Nintendo Switch in general. But the truth is, the Nintendo Switch’s battery life is actually about the same as the Nintendo 3DS.
Nintendo Switch Battery Life: Enough, Sort Of
Nintendo handheld devices have generally been well known for their excellent battery life. The original Game Boy battery could last up to 30 hours. It also had a monochromatic screen and required actual, physical AA batteries, so it wasn’t some kind of paradise back then either.
Nintendo’s official guidelines for the Nintendo Switch advise that the system can get more than six hours battery life, depending on the circumstances. The company also makes the more specific claim that players can dive into Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for three hours or so on a single charge. The device charges via a USB-C adapter, and you can keep playing even while it's charging.
And really, three hours doesn’t sound like much, but the Nintendo Switch battery life isn’t so bad—especially if in practice it skews toward the six-hour end of the spectrum. The Nintendo Switch actually has the same expected battery life as the New Nintendo 3DS, for which Nintendo suggests a battery range of just three to five hours. The New Nintendo 3DS amped up the battery life slightly to around seven hours.
And, in that light, the Nintendo Switch battery life sounds a lot better. The Nintendo 3DS didn’t have incredible battery either, and although that did bring about complaints early on, it quickly became an accepted aspect of the system. We all got used to it. The PlayStation Vita also had about three to five hours of battery life. That’s just about where battery life stands for devices with HD resolution (or 3D graphics, in the 3DS’s case). So don’t get spooked by the short-sounding battery life for the Nintendo Switch. You’re basically used to it already.
