Nintendo quietly announces a new Switch with improved battery life
Not that you'll know from looking at it
Still pondering the purchase of a Nintendo Switch? Well, you have options. Last week Nintendo announced the dockless, handheld-only Switch Lite, and today it has unveiled an upgraded version of the standard console. While it looks exactly the same as the original, the new model – or the HAC-001(-01), if you prefer to use catchy full names – has improved battery life thanks to a more power-efficient processor, now giving you anything between 4.5 and nine hours of juice. Specifically, you should expect to get 5.5 hours when playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The launch Switch was rated at 2.5 to 6.5 hours of battery, so this is a pretty significant upgrade, even if we must continue to use wired headphones for Nintendo gaming in 2019. Grrr. It goes on sale in September.
Matt Tate
Contributor 
