Battery Life: 3DS Vs. Game Gear

[chessage]

sounds good to me. Do you have a modded one?

I'm planning on doing the black-&-white composite mod once my resources align:

While that is possible, I've never heard that Nintendo made any revisions to it... did they?

They did. Remove the battery cover and peer into the hole left by it. You should see 'DMG-CPU-##'. Late 'Play-It-Loud' Game Boys even use glob-top ICs.

[xelement5x]

I'm planning on doing the black-&-white composite mod once my resources align:

So this only gives you a B&W picture output? That sounds kind of un-fun...

[A Black Falcon]

They did. Remove the battery cover and peer into the hole left by it. You should see 'DMG-CPU-##'. Late 'Play-It-Loud' Game Boys even use glob-top ICs.

Ah. It says DMG-CPU-06, I believe. Maybe 05? I think it's a 6 though. Anyway, anyone know if the internal changes resulted in improved battery life? (again, mine's from late 1993.)

[Clessy]

How about the Game Gear and the 3DS with 3D off, Wifi off..and see who's the winner....

3ds without 3d..... Kinda proves how absolutely worthless it is doesnt it?

[kool kitty89]

I have no idea why they removed that (though it's still mentioned in a reference, actually, they just took the "35" out of the text -- so they cite a source that mentions the 35 in the citation, but don't mention the 35 number in the text... um, yeah, that sure makes sense. Hmm.), but I'd just count it as more Wikipedia incompetence, probably.

I assume it was some conflict over common/anecdotal experience, though I don't see any note or explanation in the discussion section for that article.

While that is possible, I've never heard that Nintendo made any revisions to it... did they?

It would have been rather odd if they hadn't (given the long production run of the GB) . . . sure, they made almost no changes to the NES chipset from 1983-1994, but a handheld is a bit of a different context. (console revisions are usually to reduce cost where practical, but handhelds have power consumption as a major consideration, as well as screen quality, built-in speaker, bulk, and weight as concerns -bulk never changed and I don't think the screen changed much or at all, but I think the speakers may have improved on later models and the real area of contention would be power consumption of the chipset and LCD driver -efficiency of the voltage regulator would also be a major factor)

I'm sure that they would only have been referring to good, alkaline batteries when they printed those numbers, and not any of those lesser kinds, yeah.

Yes, I'm sure Nintendo did (and other in-house tests for GG, Lynx, etc), but I wonder if many (if not most) of the stories/anecdotes on battery life were using non-alkaline cells. (even more so in Europe where those types were even more common -and apparently still make up a fairly significant chunk of sales to this day)

Even back then though, a smart consumer would opt for alkalines as the higher price per battery wasn't far off from being equal price per capacity (alkalines would need to be more than 3x the price of non-alkalines to be poorer values -somewhat less for zinc choloride cells), and then there's the greater shelf life and drain characteristics that make Alkalines an even better value. (much less likelihood of wasting the batteries with sub-optimal conditions of operation)

Then again, many consumers are stupid and/or ignorant and will go for the more attractive option (if only superficial) more often than not. (it's up to marketing to make a given option more attractive -and tactfully pointing out the advantages in a simplistic/non-confusing manner for the layman is obviously one major aspect of said marketing . . . aside from more manipulative/less honest aspects )

[chessage]

So this only gives you a B&W picture output? That sounds kind of un-fun...

Compare it to this.

[xelement5x]

Compare it to this.

Lol, very true. I've got a couple of 1 ASIC ones though and I was thinking about trying the viletim mod. It's still a hassle and a half though.

[chessage]

**Update!**

I've finally checked the power draw of my (1993) VA1 Game Gear with a regular game (Super Columns):

• ~250 mA with the contrast and volume all the way up.
• ~240 mA under normal viewing and listening conditions.

So, even if you use low capacity (1800 mAh) alkaline batteries, commonly found both then and now, you'll get more than 7 hours of use.

Revisions after VA1 should draw the same or lower.