What, no thread about the official Wii U release date and prices?

[Shifty Geezer]

I hope they are conservative with their 3-5h estimate and that the reality would be closer to 5h instead of 3h. 5 hours would be ok imo. Perhaps they can improve this aspect of it in any case. I agree with Shifty and probably almost everybody that with that amount of space and a low res display they should have done better.

The official website doesn't sound too optimistic:

About 3 hours to 5 hours

※ battery life may vary depending on the brightness of the screen.
※ battery duration is an approximation. May be shorter depending on the situation.
※ By connecting the Wii U GamePad AC adapter, you can play while charging.

Google translate of http://www.nintendo.co.jp/event/e3_2012/wiiu/index.html

The recharge requirements aren't as vague, saying about 2.5 hours.

Have Nintendo's listing of battery life for its handhelds been optimistic or pessimistic? That should be a good indicator of whether actual results may be on the higher or lower end of the spectrum.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Their official 3DS numbers were pretty optimistic.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Their official 3DS numbers were pretty optimistic.

So we're looking more at three hours? How could the tablet burn through so much juice? Or have they really put in a battery no larger than a DS3 controller battery?

 

[Brad Grenz]

It's not a very big battery, and it's a pretty large back-lit screen that can't turn itself off every two minutes if you aren't actively touching it like a phone or tablet will do.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's not a very big battery, and it's a pretty large back-lit screen that can't turn itself off every two minutes if you aren't actively touching it like a phone or tablet will do.

A Nexus 7 gets 9 hours of h.264 playback according to that Tom's Hardware article. I can get several hours (never measured as it's never run out while using) out of my ASUS TF101 that's running a larger screen and a whole load of processing too. To produce a simple screen that can't last more than a few hours on batteries is pretty amazing engineering. Maybe they are just using a really power-consuming wireless system? It's not Wifi N as the range is only 8 metres.

 

[wco81]

Again, they should just have made it work with other tablets. I know, no physical controls.

But if you wanted physical controls, they shouldn't have done this stupid WiiPad controller in the first place.

 

[(((interference)))]

How pathetic, a tablet with SD resolution, no onboard processing, ancient resistive touch tech and it only has a battery life of 3 hours. I wonder how the fanboys can stand Nintendo's relentless penny pinching.

What do they expect you to do, wait 2.5 hours for the battery to charge again? Can you use the controller while it is charging? How long is the charging cable.

 

[Grall]

A Nexus 7 gets 9 hours of h.264 playback according to that Tom's Hardware article.

A tablet's internal volume is like 70-80% battery, so no wonder it gets 9 hours. Wuupad's battery is more along the lines of a cellphone battery, IE much smaller. We've been over this haven't we? Wuupad's non-impressive battery life isn't exactly news, they gave estimates way back at E3 LAST year for chrissakes.

Do we have to be so negative about everything Wuu that we need to re-iterate the things we were negative about a year ago already?

 

[Grall]

I wonder how the fanboys can stand Nintendo's relentless penny pinching.

Can't speak for anyone else, but THIS particular fanboy cares more about good Nintendo games than the absolute power of the system. If you don't give a crap about Nintendo games, buy something else to play games on.

That said, I do wish Nintendo had spent more on the hardware, but in the end it's the games that count.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

A tablet's internal volume is like 70-80% battery, so no wonder it gets 9 hours. Wuupad's battery is more along the lines of a cellphone battery, IE much smaller.

? Existing tablets show it's quite possible to get hours and hours of battery even from fairly demanding hardware, proving this isn't a limit beyond Nintendo's unwillingness to put a decent sized battery in there.

We've been over this haven't we? Wuupad's non-impressive battery life isn't exactly news, they gave estimates way back at E3 LAST year for chrissakes.

I don't remember battery life being talked about prior to this, and Google doesn't throw up any battery life estimates from E3 2011 (other than guesswork like 9-10 hours), or at any point prior to this.

 

[BRiT]

There were times in the multiple WuuPad discussions where the extremely low battery life was mentioned and briefly commented on, some of them directly by me. However, it was generally ignored as the dreamers opted to continue to ignore anything negative said about their beloved system. Some even muttered "Who games for more than 3 hours anyways?".

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I could excuse a 3 hour battery life if the Wuublet was just for gaming. But as Nintendo seem to be wanting this tablet off around the house doing other things as well, 3 hours doesn't cut it. Plus the limiting factor seems to be Nintendo's cheapness regards the battery! Put in a larger battery - problem solved, and there's certainly room for it in that case.

 

[Billy Idol]

The more hear about Wuu, the less interested I am. I hoped for a Nintendo system which I can finally buy again after the ridiculous Wii...will wait if there is a killer app available for the system...

PS: and yeah, 3h is such a joke, that I still don't belief it is true...can't be true!

 

[BRiT]

I won't excuse anything less than 6 hour battery life for anything unless the battery is easily swappable.

What's even worse on the WuuPad is the recharge time is 83% of the play time.

 

[V3]

How pathetic, a tablet with SD resolution, no onboard processing, ancient resistive touch tech and it only has a battery life of 3 hours. I wonder how the fanboys can stand Nintendo's relentless penny pinching.

What do they expect you to do, wait 2.5 hours for the battery to charge again? Can you use the controller while it is charging? How long is the charging cable.

So true.

And I can't buy the second controller at launch because Nintendo said no game supports it yet. Really Nintendo, really? I like having two controllers, so I can use one while the other is charging.

I'm guessing, Wii U games doesn't require the Upad to play, so that controller pro suffice, so I think I'll pick that up as well.

What games are you guys picking up ? So far Nintendoland and Mario U. Maybe Tekken Tag 2. Is Pikmin 3 launch game ?

 

[Megadrive1988]

. Is Pikmin 3 launch game ?

Pikmin 3 is not a launch game, it's been pushed back to, I think, spring 2013.

It might still be considered 'launch window', though.

 

[orangpelupa]

the battery life of Wupad really interesting. it took 2.5 h to charge and dead in 3 h.

so the battery is big right? because it need that much time to Charlie's

 

[RudeCurve]

the battery life of Wupad really interesting. it took 2.5 h to charge and dead in 3 h.

so the battery is big right? because it need that much time to Charlie's

Longer time to charge doesn't always mean it's a big battery. It could just as well mean the charge rate is lower to prolong the life of the battery. Fast charging lowers the life of the battery so batteries are usually charged at <1C rate where it's equal to 1 times the capacity of the battery per hour. So for example a 3000mAh battery will get charged at 3 Amps or less...@3A it would take 1hr to fully charge and @1A it would take 3hrs.

 

[Megadrive1988]

First Look at 2K Sports NBA 2K13

Looks really good, very smooth. The developer comments are fairly interesting.

 

[(((interference)))]

So true.

And I can't buy the second controller at launch because Nintendo said no game supports it yet. Really Nintendo, really? I like having two controllers, so I can use one while the other is charging.

I'm not sure whether you can use the tablet controller when it's charging or not.
I'd assume you should be able to - it's a basic feature every other wireless controller has, so you'd expect a $150 controller to be able to as well, especially when the battery life is a pathetic 3-5 hours.

It's also quite poor that Wii games will not be upscaled and just be displayed in SD, the Xbox 360 managed to run Xbox games at 720p with 4xMSAA so that's disappointing, especially when you consider that the CPU is apparently 3 enhanced Broadway cores or similar, not the x86 to PPC shift the 360 emulator had to deal with.