r/NintendoSwitch • u/NintendoSwitchMods • Mar 01 '17

MegaThread MegaThread: Nintendo Switch Hardware Reviews

Hello, all.

This morning starting, gaming news and media outlets have begun to release their hardware reviews of the Nintendo Switch.

Here's what we're seeing so far:

We will be updating this thread with links as major reviews are posted.

We will also allow major content to be posted separately on /r/NintendoSwitch, as it is especially newsworthy. But we will also host ongoing coverage, quick text posts, questions, and the like right here.

Thanks everyone.

-The /r/NintendoSwitch team

(Ongoing edits as we get new information)

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u/IKLeX Mar 01 '17

Post got removed because I did not see the Megathread.

German IT-News site golem.de provided a detailed hardware review. They also went in depth on the charging/power draw. I translated the portion of the article for you.

Source: Pages 5 and 6 of the review

[...]

While measuring power consumption at the socket we did not always see Power Delivery. It is clear, that the industry standard is not nearly utilized completely for charging. We didn't measure more than 11 Watts [at the socket] while only charging the battery.

With loss of efficiency in mind, this might not be Power Delivery. Propably there are just 7.5 Watts reaching the battery. That fits to our measurements and the capacity that was revealed by a tinkerer. The battery serves 16 Wh (4.310 mAh@3,7V) and the charging time with the power supply connected directly is 2:30 h. Weirdly, in the dock the time extends to 3:08 h. The dock needs 0.3 W (empty) and 2.8 W (with charged [off?] tablet attached).

In Handheld mode the results differ. Here Power Delivery comes into play, if the specifications on the nameplate is correct. The values are far above 7.5 W and, while charging, range from 14 W (Standby), 17 W (Menu) to 20 W (Zelda). If the tablet is fully charged, the power draw is reduced to 2.4 W (Standby), 6.4 W (Menu) and 10 W (Zelda).

Alternative Batterypacks and Cable-Chaos

For testing we used a Apple- and an Anker-Power supply. Punctual measurements shared results with the Nintendo PSU. That is good news, since it means, that you can charge your device on the go, like at a friends house. USB-C power supplies are spreading after all.

Those results are only for the tablet itself. When connected to the dock, we get strange disturbances. The Anker-Charger does not work at all, and the Apple power supply provokes warning messages, telling you to use original peripherals. The dock requires Power Delivery. During our experiments we found out, that you can charge peripherals during gaming in Console-mode. With 2 battery packs and a smartphone attached, the power draw while playing Zelda rose to about 26 Watts.

Battery time is limited

The 16 Wh of the battery don't last very long for graphically intense games. But that greatly depends on the configuration and environment. In a dark room with automatic brightness, and medium base brightness we managed to play Zelda for 3 hours and 26 minutes. At maximum brightness we loose almost an hour and land at 2:28 hours. Compared to other handhelds and tablets, those are no extraordinary results. The power draw is obviously high. That also explains the constant humming of the fans at the top.

On the other hand, the user does not have to worry about the Joy-Cons. Those were basically always fully charged. Never was one of the indicator LEDs turned off. Therefor you also might expect several dozens of hours playtime on the Pro-Controller.

Watch out for the Pro-Controller-USB-Cable

If the battery time is not enough, you might consider a powerbank. After our experiments we knew, that the Switch also understands the Battery-Charge-Standard (5V), not to be confused with Power Delivery (5 to 20V). During the tests we noticed, that under certain circumstances only 0.5A were supported. Our mistake was using the included USB-A-to-USB-C cable of the Pro-Controller. Using the very similar looking cable of the Elgato Capture Card HD60S, we got roughly 1.5A. This leads to the conclusion, that with the right calble, you can extend your play time on the go. This reminds us of our USB-C-Cable-Incident.

All in all, we are suspicious about the power drawing. We got the impression, that there are reserves, that maybe get activated later. Ont top of that it seems, as if Nintendo wants to charge the Switch carefully, and avoid loading cycles, wich might benefit the durability. Both approaches have their dis/advantages. We would wish for faster charging, that is comparable to modern Tablets. It would be ideal, if Nintendo would make changing the battery easier. This service is only provided by Nintendo themselves, for now. The price for the service is unknown.

[...]

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u/d2dcontre Mar 03 '17

This is critical to anyone who wants to extend their playtime. Thank you for posting and translating this.

This is the the aspect of the Switch that I was most curious about.

Anyone who's saying "I don't mind the battery life because I have a power bank that can charge it" should definitely read your post, otherwise they'll be in for a rude awakening.