Nintendo Launches Refreshed Switch With Improved Battery Life

Nintendo is launching a new Switch console, followed by the launch of the Lite version. Unlike the Switch Lite, the launch of the new Switch — which is still called the Switch — is more of a minor upgrade. Nintendo is quietly launching the new upgrade, as it doesn’t include a lot of changes to the hardware.

After all, Nintendo said the new Switch Lite is the only new Nintendo Switch hardware for the year.

So what exactly is new on the new Switch? Increased battery life. The refreshed model comes with increased battery life, offering up to 9 hours of battery life, compared to the previous 6.5 hours of battery life. Nintendo says users can get anywhere between 4.5 to 9 hours of battery life on the refreshed Switch, with games like Zelda: Breath of the Wild offering up to 5.5 hours of playtime. On the original Switch, you’d get between 2.5 to 6.5 hours of battery life, and around 3 hours of playtime on Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Nintendo isn’t detailing what changed in the new Switch that allowed for the battery life improvement. But a recent FCC filling suggested that the Switch was getting an improved processor and flash storage, which could be the source of the improved battery life instead of a brand new battery. We don’t really know, to be honest — Nintendo is very tightlipped on the details.

Either way, as Euro Gamer notes, the new Switch will be available in Japan late August, and later in other countries.

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Conversation 6 comments

  • Lauren Glenn

    17 July, 2019 - 11:16 am

    <p>The big question is….. how will we know the difference? I already have a Switch and I'd like extra battery but it's still cheaper (and ultimately better) to get a 20Ah battery instead. But I'd still like to know should I have to ultimately replace it at some point. </p><p><br></p><p>Unless they come out with the inverse of the Switch Lite and have a unit that can only connect to a TV set and isn't portable…..</p>

  • Thom77

    17 July, 2019 - 2:41 pm

    <p>This is a little annoying, but to be honest, I dont play mine anymore and am only keeping it around because of Witcher 3, which I hope will actually run solidly in handheld mode unlike the WWE game which is unplayable. </p><p><br></p><p>If the lite version had 5.5 hours of battery on zelda, I might of bought it.</p><p><br></p><p>Also, I highly doubt Zelda will get 5.5 hours of battery life anyway but who knows. </p>

  • IanYates82

    Premium Member
    17 July, 2019 - 3:02 pm

    <p>It's nice that they do this, but by not really marking it as something obvious on the box, unaware people will still buy the older one by accident. I don't like to see people tricked just because they're not up on the very latest bit of news.</p><p>Hopefully the retailers are able to offer the old stock at a discount and clearly delineate between the two product lines whilst there's the mix of stock in the channel.</p>

    • jimchamplin

      Premium Member
      18 July, 2019 - 4:44 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#443360">In reply to IanYates82:</a></em></blockquote><p>If they do things the way they have in the past, the upgraded model will be called “NEW!” Nintendo Switch on the box. </p><p><br></p><p>This was done with “The NEW!” 3DS and “The NEW! 2DS.” They were overhauled versions. In the case of the 2DS, the redesign was quite drastic.</p>

  • remc86007

    17 July, 2019 - 4:47 pm

    <p>The Switch pisses me off as a gamer. It had the potential to be great, but Nintendo made too many compromises to performance to improve short-term margins at the expense of long-term viability of the product. It could have been a portable Xbox One of sorts.</p><p><br></p><p>When the Switch launched, the SOC in it was 789 days old and it wasn't a great chip to begin with. Nintendo made this worse by running the chip at significantly reduced clock speeds to eek out a couple more minutes of battery life on a device that was going to have bad battery life no matter what they did. When the Switch launched, it was severely outclassed in every performance metric by current smartphones. </p><p><br></p><p>If the Switch had 8GB of ram, a–modern as of 2017–SOC, and better memory bandwidth, it could have run cut down versions of the current gen's base console games (Xbox and PS4) rather than poorly running ported versions of games. </p><p><br></p><p>I enjoyed Mario kart, Mario Odyssey, Smash and Zelda, but that's about it. I somewhat enjoyed Splatoon 2 and Rocket League before their core gameplay was put behind a paywall by Nintendo. I'm not going to pay annually for Nintendo Online until there is a reason to do so. Prior to the paywall, I had constant problems with online connections, and I don't see any other games I would want to play online on the Switch anyway, so I can't justify the expense.</p><p><br></p><p>/rant</p>

  • grammersolutions

    23 July, 2019 - 3:21 pm

    <p>Nice Post, continuo.</p><p>Arshad Hussain</p>

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