Created Switch specific Gmail accounts just to make a Nintendo account for UK and JP each. *forgotten what my old accounts I used for Wii, plus they're just for checking out extra content anyway, not for purchasing anything*

Downloaded free demo of Snipperclips from US eShop, DragonQuest and PuyoPuyo Tetris demos from JPN eShop.

Also weighing options for portable powerbanks. So far the only promising ones are either USB-PD (Power Delivery) certified ones like the RAVPower USB-PD 26,800mAh powerbank (available now), the Razer 10,800mAH powerbank (also USB-PD, but not released yet), or powerbanks with power plugs on them, like the Omnicharge Omni 13 or RAVPower Powerstation. Was playing LoZ:BOTW while being plugged to the AuKey 20,000 mAh powerbank, but the Switch was trickle-charged so slowly that it went to sleep mode until charged back in dock. Turns out, the Switch's charger uses USB-PD profile to "negotiate" charging request of up to 39W (15V 2.6A) in dock mode, and 15W (5V 3A) in portable mode. These power profiles are specific to the Switch, and very few powerbanks or external 3rd party chargers support these charing profiles. DO NOT charge them using any powerbanks with Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0 or any other power delivery profiles like AiCharge for the Aukey powerbanks and such, it will either not charge or charge very slowly, or worse, damage your Switch because of the rapid power request "negotiated" from these profiles.

Until then, looks like we're stuck with 3 hours battery life until someone does a deeper dive on the power charging profile the Switch needs and match it with specific charging device(s), other than the official Nintendo charger of course.

Also, charging using your current powerbank with USB-A-to-USB-C cable means you're restricted by the lower power delivery profile of USB-A (the old standard USB) of 12W (5V 2.4A). To avoid this, you need a USB-C-to-USB-C cable to bypass that power restriction. To makes things complicated, not all USB cables are made equal, need to refer to Google's Benson Leung for cables that are manufactured properly to meet certification to deliver the full up-to 100W (20V 5A) power delivery so that you dont fry your Switch with faulty USB-C cable. Link for more info: https://www.engadget.com/2016/02/03/benson-...sb-type-c-test/

there's even a "Benson Approved" USB-C cable site that links to Amazon on which cables meets certification of not frying your devices. http://bensonapproved.com

To users here, the safest route would be Apple's USB-C-to-USB-C cable, also widely available here locally, although the price isn't cheap. And you can thank the proliferation of cheap China-made cables for this mess. When manufacturing made without standards, quality control or guidelines, other than just to "make it work", this is what you get.

EDIT: Also, I dont see the option to move installation option to SD card, the "Storage" setting is so bare. Unless I miss something..... got a 200GB card in there.

Gamer Nexus just posted these 11 minutes ago, including a close look at the battery.



This post has been edited by stringfellow: Mar 4 2017, 06:35 AM

As it stands right now, how my dashboard, or "Page" as how Nintendo call it, looks:





This game is a sleeper hit for me. I've been itching for an F-Zero-like racer for a while and this game delivers in spades. Provides its own twist to the genre as well.

DragonQuest 1& 2 demo is horribly frame-paced. Smooth on one occasion, choppy the next. This is while panning the camera around, gets worse when there's enemies on screen. The PC gamer in me cant take horrible framepacing, I dont mind low framerates for underpowered devices as long as the framepacing is steady.

PuyoPuyo Tetris is well....PuyoPuyoTetris.

The amount of power this thing gulps is kinda scary. Played Fast RMX for around 90 minutes last night in bed in portable mode before going to sleep, and the battery already dropped from full charge to 45%.

Also, BOTW looks much crisper in portable mode than docked mode, probably because the game looks native on 720p on the Switch screen itself, but looks upscaled in 1080p. More jagged edges while in docked mode.

Yep, portable mode. I dont really like DQ anyway too, since its a free demo, wanna see what's the Switch is capable of.

Fast RMX really impresses me. For something this graphically intensive, and keeping a LOCKED 60fps is impressive indeed. This stage also has weather effect, but I couldn't capture a screenshot of it, it's only available in championship mode and I passed that. Rain was pouring down and splashing around, and the Switch kept up with it without missing a frame. The sense of speed is real too. Really impressive.




Imagine that rainforest drenched in rain, with thunder and lightning in background. For 20 dollars, it's a steal.

Just placed an order on Play-Asia, for a Hori slim case, tempered glass SP and game cart case. After looking around and asking around from local game stores, there aren't any concrete answers on stock availability. Should be here on Tuesday.

Contemplating ordering that RAVPower 26800mAh USB-PD powerbank. Either personal-shopper from US or 11street it. Hmmmmmm

Must be USB-PD version. Normal USB-A version or USB-C with no USB-PD profile won't charge at 30W (15V 2A).

Anything without USB-PD (charges via USB-C out and have at least 15V 2A charge profile) will only charge at maximum 12W (5V 2.4A). QuickCharge or whatever speeding up charger won't work with Switch, so when you use these it'll either defaults back to the maximum USB-A charger can do (5V 2.4A 12W), worn charge at all or worse, damage your Switch battery.

Also works: Omnicharge Omni 13 and RAVPower Powerstation. Google those. Those are camping/travel hiking off-the-grid chargers that works because they have standard 3-pin power outlet port on them.

Cost a bigger bomb to repair your Switch pairing it with a non-compatible powerbank.

Or it won't charge or charge so slow that you can't use it while outdoors.

Picking up Pro Controller next Monday. That'll reduce these hand cramps and taking the JoyCons in and out.

Scoured BTS and LYP for powerbanks. The best bet was that one particular store in BTS whom are very proactive about advancement in portable charging. The best they had was the Anker Powercore+. Tested on the spot, didn't work. Rated at 5V 6A 30W equivalent but even through the wattage is the same as 15V 2A powerbanks, power delivery profile isn't matching what the Switch needs. The store knows about RAVPower brand I asked them about, but it's more on a matter or RAVPower supporting their own region only (USA) than interested to ship their products outside of continental US.

I'm not sure if I should be the guinea pig and buy the RAVPower blind.....

This in the link below. A good indicator is that it'll charge the 12" MacBook.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LRQDAEI/ref=cm...i_LTRUybHVKQ5MM

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Mar 4 2017, 09:06 PM

Bear in mind, the current powerbanks dilemma I brought up only applies to playing and charging at the same, if your usage pattern revolves around leaving it in sleep mode and charging it while it's idling on the Switch dashboard/"Page", your current powerbanks will charge it accordingly, because power draw at idle isn't any different than the power draw of your smartphone. If you're gaming and wanting to charge to either maintain battery life parity, stopping it from draining, or charging it at a reasonable rate while playing, current smartphone powerbanks won't cut it.

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Mar 4 2017, 09:31 PM

The Shinen guys truly are gods. Look at those weather and particle effects! On a portable system no less!

It will charge, but will it charge fast enough compared to the battery drain induced by the games? I'm charging using my my Aukey 30000 mAh powerbank as well, but because it's using USB-A, that's 12W max (5V 2.4A).



If I play mild games like PuyoPuyo, the power draw may be low and your current powerbank may be able to mitigate the power drain by compensating with its own power charging. If the game and its resultant power drain only requires 12W from the battery and your powerbank can supply the same 12W charge, your battery percentage will not budge. If the game is less demanding, your powerbank will charge even.

The newer generation USB-C powerbanks with USB-PD allows up 30W, and that is only 9W shy of the official Nintendo charger rated at 39W.

So it all depends on what you're doing with the Switch: if you're just spending time in the dashboard, that won't drain out 12W and any powerbank can charge your Switch no problems. Play simple games like PuyoPuyo, you may even get away with current phone powerbanks. But do anything more intensive than that, you need powerbanks like the RAVPower.

Your Xiaomi and my Aukey powerbanks are USB-A out only. That tops out at 12W. Sure there are QuickCharge mechanism in some powerbanks but the Switch doesn't take advantage of that, and will drop back down to taking 12W maximum from the older gen powerbanks.

When charging your Pro Controller, I'm guessing that it's picky about your 5V 2.4A charge ports. Have you tried charging using a PC USB port and does it charge? If it does, then the Pro Controller doesn't like your 5V 2.4A ports and only will take a charge from 5V 1.5A USB ports. Check your Switch official charger. See the rating? 15V 2.6A and 5V 1.5A. The first rating is for the Switch on docked mode, that takes 39w (15 x 2.6), but the second rating is for the USB ports in the dock itself, which is used to charge your accessories including the Pro Controller and the Charging Grip.

That's good news then, in my case I couldnt get my Switch to hold the charge without draining with my Aukey, and its also 5V 2.4A maximum. I tested this with Fast RMX, I didn't play much of Zelda yet. Unless there's a way to measure wattage drained out of specific games, my guess is that, in portable mode, Fast RMX is power-hungrier than Zelda?



Recent teardown by iFixit. They didnt elaborate on the PCB on the dock though, I was more interested in that than the Switch teardown.

Pro Controller takes 5V 1.5A from the USB ports on the dock. The dual rated Switch charger shows that. One for the Switch(15V 2.6A) one for the dock to charge accessories using the USB ports there (5V 1.5A). If you dont match the rating, it wont charge.

Here's the link to the external charger and powerbank testing thread on Reddit and the layman terms to explain it. https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/com...erbank_testing/

Particularly this GoogleDoc spreadsheet for the results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hEg...dit?usp=sharing

In short, getting the RAVPower 26,800maH with USB-PD is like using almost as good as using your official Nintendo AC charger, albeit you're totally portable. Unless future games consumes more than 30W of power draw from the Switch, you'll be charging your Switch happily while gaming from the RAVPower powerbank.

Any powerbank is good enough if you're charging it while it is idling. Depending on the complexity and graphic-intensiveness of the game, the Switch will ramp up its power needs between 12W (5V 2A-2.4A) to the theoretical maximum 39W (15V 2.6A), although it is unlikely it will do so while being portable, to conserve power. Your mileage may vary, depending on what games you play. Fast RMX eats battery power for breakfast, PuyoPuyo didnt. I test mine with both, while playing Fast RMX, Switch cannot match the power drain playing that game while being topped up by my Aukey 30,000mAh 5V 2.4A powerbank. PuyoPuyo on the other contained that drain, and even slowly charges the Switch even while playing.