Leaving Switch in sleep mode for 12 hours, it only drained 1% of the battery. We also tested Switch’s standby mode when it’s outside the dock, which wakes as soon as you hit a button as fast as my iPhone 6. You could easily take it down a notch or two to increase battery life, and disable wi-fi. Looking at the slider, we’d estimate the default brightness is about 70 percent, and it’s more than adequate under normal circumstances. It took a few minutes of charging in the dock before it could wake up in TV mode, but resumed where I had left off, which was slightly after my most recent save.
Switch puts itself into sleep mode before the battery dies completely, so unsaved gameplay can be recovered if it’s connected to power relatively soon. There were notifications of low battery at 15 percent and 5 percent, and then a warning to connect to power at 1 percent. Playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in handheld mode with the default brightness and volume and wi-fi enable, our Switch lasted for 3 hours and 6 minutes before entering sleep mode. Stevivor has put that to the test and found it to be spot on.
Nintendo says Switch’s battery lasts between 2.5 hours and 6 hours in handheld mode, compared to 3.5 and 7 hours for 3DS XL, depending on the application running, with Zelda pegged at 3 hours.
