
For us, it has to be sleep mode. Sure, things come up as you're trying to play a DS game, but, for us, sleep mode shows a commitment to come back to that game, where shutting down is less of a commitment to come back as soon as possible to the game in question and more of a promise to walk away from the DS and watch TV or blog. So, which is more useful to you?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
4-01-2008 @ 9:18AM
Waffala said...
I usually shut mine down, unless I'm just using the restroom, or have something that I have to do right then. I'd rather not eat up my battery (even though I know it can last a while) by leaving it on. Helps lower my carbon emissions.
I do love that sleep mode though, I remember coming back from doing something sometimes hours later and Pokemon music would still be blaring from my gameboy sitting on my bed or in my chair, ate up a lot of batteries that way.
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4-01-2008 @ 9:41AM
mahmud said...
same.
4-01-2008 @ 9:23AM
Nigeria: Cody ChesnuTT Defense Force said...
I usually, almost always, leave my DS in sleep mode. It's the DS's best feature. Though, I don't think it's too good for the environment. I should really stop using that feature.
Though, at the same time, I wish Nintendo found a way to support GBA games.
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4-01-2008 @ 9:28AM
Roto13 said...
Apparently a fully-charged DS can last for a week in sleep mode, but that doesn't stop me from being crazy and turning it off.
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4-01-2008 @ 9:36AM
Clark said...
I keep mine off unless I know I'm going to be coming back to it to play. I only use sleep when the traffic signal turns green.
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4-01-2008 @ 9:40AM
tamriel said...
Arguments regarding carbon emission vs. sleep mode? For the DS? Please. You might as well collect and eat the tiny dry crumbs of bread that fall from your toast to the floor, in an attempt to buy less bread from the supermarket, therefore lowering the carbon emissions of the transports that carry the grain from the plains to the store. That said, I'll swallow back this snark and apologize if someone comes forth with solid confidence intervals over average battery discharge times when alternating play with sleep versus alternating play with off. Confidence intervals over the total play time should be given along. And from that play time should be subtracted the time it takes from the moment the DS is toggled on to the moment playing actually starts --- unskippable developer and publisher logos and menu navigation don't count as play time to me.
If my point was not clear, I favor the sleep mode. I really only turn the DS off to switch games, which seldom happens.
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4-01-2008 @ 10:06AM
Nigeria: Cody ChesnuTT Defense Force said...
"You might as well collect and eat the tiny dry crumbs of bread that fall from your toast to the floor"
You say that as if it was a bad thing.
4-01-2008 @ 10:25AM
tamriel said...
It's certainly not a bad thing per se. But you don't do it to save on carbon emissions, right? You don't make yourself believe that you are doing your part for the planet when you eat the floored bread crumbs while you let your car run while waiting for somebody to ride with you, or when you forget the heat or the light on as you go to work.
My argument has a tone that is unusual for me and that I am not very comfortable with now I am reading it back. It is just about the law of diminishing returns and the feel-goodness people seem to communicate with regards to little things they do and have them think they are saving the planet while everyone else is letting it go to waste.
4-01-2008 @ 3:07PM
Johnny Comelately said...
Mmmmm... Yanno the technical term is "Toaster Leavin's".
4-01-2008 @ 9:44AM
Luiz said...
Well.. sleep if it is a quick time out... but always use shutdown to save power. What is strange, is that one day I had to go to work and was playing New Super Mario Bros e had it sleep, and forgot about it until night, and then the light was already red, while the my PSP saves more power in sleep than in shutdown mode. Isn't it strange?
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4-01-2008 @ 10:01AM
Waffala said...
I have the same problem, every time I leave my DS in sleep mode, whenever I come back it's red-lighting. I don't know if I just always happen to leave it that way when it's already close to dying, or because I use a slot-2 homebrew set-up (I do buy the games, for multi-cart play with friends and because I want them to keep being made, but I love my supercard, especially for Mega Man II action on the go). that might be just sapping more power than I think.
4-01-2008 @ 9:58AM
TheCoats said...
SLEEP-almost always
between Subs or between classes or just the drive home......sleep mode is genius
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4-01-2008 @ 10:10AM
s.mario said...
you can shut a DS off? never heard of it...mine's either on, or sleeping...
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4-01-2008 @ 10:11AM
nixy said...
The DS has such a quick startup, I usually just turn on and off. I play with the brightness on the third setting, so I get decent battery life, and sleep mode usually takes nothing from that. I use sleep mode all the time, it helps at work or just going to the bathroom or when I remember I have to eat sometimes. The only hangup I have with it is that some DS homebrew doesn't support sleep mode, namely POWDER, which I'm generally playing the hell out of. So even when I close the system, it's still running at full steam.
My only request for the DS as far as suspending games is concerned is that they add a standby mode that will fully suspend your game, like on the PSP. When I realized that I could just stop wherever I was standing in Monster Hunter and come back to that exact moment in time, it blew my mind.
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4-01-2008 @ 10:25AM
Cheese Muffin said...
I normally turn mine off. Then again, I'm fairly complusive about turning light switches off.
I only use sleep mode when I us my DS as an alarm clock.
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4-01-2008 @ 10:40AM
Cameron DS said...
I leave mine in sleep mode almost constantly... sometimes I leave it like that for days on end.
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4-01-2008 @ 11:05AM
wings_for_marie said...
DEYY TRRK URR JRRRBZ
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4-01-2008 @ 11:08AM
libraryman85 said...
Yeah, for the most part sleep mode is confined to either "oh man, I forgot it was in sleep" or to a short break in the game. If I actually intend to go and pretend to be productive it's off.
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4-01-2008 @ 11:26AM
Eleniel said...
I almost always turn it off, unless I'm just putting the thing down for a minute to grab a snack or let the dog out or whatever. I'm pretty paranoid about battery usage, even though there's no real need to be, since the DSL battery lasts incredibly long, especially on the lower brightness settings. Well, the less often I have to put it away for three hours to charge, the better!
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4-01-2008 @ 11:48AM
LordFu said...
DS carbon emissions. Just when I thought I'd heard everything, lol.
I'm about 50/50. I use sleep when I plan to come back to the game soon, or I can't save right then.
Otherwise, I shut it off. I've been extremely impressed with the battery life. The GBA SP was good, but the DS is truly impressive.
My first handheld was an Atari Lynx, and my second was a Sega Nomad, so I'm no stranger to excessively poor battery life.
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