Adventures Of A Depleted Nintendo 3DS Battery
February 03, 2016
I enthusiastically bought a Nintendo 3DS at launch back in March 2011 and have put a lot of hours into it since. I've taken it cross-country to E3, on trips to visit family, and just with me in my pocket for StreetPassing when I'm out and around. Unfortunately, after five years of adventures, something is going wrong with my 3DS. More specifically, with its battery. My 3DS battery has been showing gradually diminishing returns over time, but when playing Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam recently, I was surprised to find that my fully charged 3DS would flash its red battery warning light after just a half hour of play. That's not right! While the 3DS has always taken a knock for its weak battery (running with full 3D only scores a little over four hours of power), it's never been this bad. Years of use must have tired the battery out, so it's time for a replacement.
Fortunately, several years ago I was given a high capacity battery for the 3DS manufactured by third-party accessory company Nyko. Installing it requires replacing the entire bottom 3DS cover plate with an uncomfortable rubbery plate, so I was hesitant to use it. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I pulled it off the shelf, performed a little 3DS surgery, and plugged the handheld into the wall to charge up. That's when I found that the new battery wouldn't hold a charge and the 3DS would only work when plugged in. That's actually worse than my dying battery since at least that can hold a little charge, so I switched the old battery back into the unit. That'll teach me not to leave a battery sitting around unused for years.
So now I'm back where I started and looking to replace the battery. Nintendo's official online store sells new 3DS batteries for $14.99 plus shipping, but Amazon offers what is supposedly the same battery for $7.99 through a third-party seller (with free shipping!). I've read horror stories of people ordering what they thought were new batteries for other devices and ending up with counterfeit knock-offs of questionable performance, so I'm wary of too good a deal. Have any of you bought one of these batteries from this Amazon seller? If so, was it an authorized Nintendo product? Help a guy out here before I do something foolish like just declare "the hell with this" and buy a New Nintendo 3DS instead. In the meantime, I'll be over here playing Paper Jam while tethered to the wall.