GBA SP / DS Lithium battery replacement...

[Turrican]

Hi!

I'm drooling over that new, shiny backlit GBA SP, because I'd love to play my Color / B&W games on the go.

However, one thing that bugs me about SP is the lithium battery - at some point, it will fade out and a replacement will be needed, unlike the trusty AA batteries GBA.

So the question is: are these lithium batteries standard? Can they be purchased everywhere, or do I need a special "nintendo-made" battery, that no doubt will go out of production at some time, making the whole SP a pretty lump of garbage? And, is it easy to replace the battery? Anyone tried this?

Of course the same question is valid for DS too, since that's lithium as well.

[VNAF Ace]

You can buy the batteries at Nintendo's Online Store.
http://store.nintendo.com/

How to replace the GBA SP battery.
http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/system ... attery.jsp

How to replace the DS Lite battery.
http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/system ... attery.jsp

[grahf]

I think this is going to be a problem for a lot of modern electronics. For most people it wont matter, but those of us who like to collect old video games might have some trouble in the future. At the very least, we'll be able to use our DSs while they are plugged into the wall.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

A couple of years ago, I went down to my local CompUSA store and was browsing the Nintendo GBA aisle and saw a 3rd-party produced GBA SP replacement battery for sale. (Normally, I hadn't even seen such a Nintendo 1st party GBA replacement battery for sale in normal retail distribution channels i.e.: Best Buy, Circuit City, Toys-R-Us, Gamestop, etc.)

I knew that sooner or later that the original GBA SP's lithium-ion based battery would not charge as well when first bought new so a replacement would be needed if and when the need arised. Eventually that day arrived, and it was time to change the ol' GBA SP original battery and replace it with this new 3rd-party GBA battery...works like a charm indeed! ^_~

A special minature GBA SP screwdriver tool was included with this new 3rd-party battery to better faciliate putting in a new GBA SP battery...very smart idea to have thought of for the GBA SP end user..... ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Turrican]

Thanks guys - those faqs solved all my doubts. It's a little depressing to discover that SP, DS and DSlite all use their own unique battery type.

For the time being, I guess I'll stick to my DS and GBPlayer for the older games...

[Ceph]

For what it's worth, I also got a 3rd party battery as replacement for my GBA SP, made by BigBen. No problem at all and pretty cheap, too.