Nintendo 3DS battery lasts 3 to 8 hours

Come this March, you shouldn’t expect your new Nintendo 3DS to last a long-haul flight. Nintendo has revealed that its next games handheld, released in Japan on February 19th, will have a battery life of between 3 and 8 hours.

It all depends how you use it, of course. Play a 3DS game with the screen’s backlight reduced (though not off), and you’ll squeeze out somewhere between 3 and 5 hours of gameplay.

Play a normal Nintendo DS game (remember those?!), and you can expect five to eight hours. Whack the screen lighting up, and naturally your battery life will go down faster.

3 hours may seem brief, but those aren’t such bad numbers, especially with the 3DS being such a powerful little blighter. Also worth noting: a 3DS will take 3.5 hours for its battery to fully charge.

[Nintendo.co.jp, via Kotaku]