Ever since handheld gaming went mainstream, players have had to contend with one limiting factor: battery life.
Back in the days of the Game Boy, it was all about pestering your parents for fresh packs of AAs, but by the time the GBA SP arrived in 2003, things had evolved – rechargeable batteries became standard, along with the need to tether your console to a wall socket in order to top things up.
Even today, Switch 2 owners have to deal with the fact that battery stamina isn't as good as we'd like, so it's refreshing to see a modder come up with such a creative power solution for one of Nintendo's older handhelds.
Reddit user Bangooh has modded a GBA SP so it can be powered by a DeWalt 162,000mWh rechargeable battery, normally used for insanely high-drain power tools, such as drills (thanks, RetroDeadFred).
For reference, the original GBA SP shipped with a 650mAh battery. According to the rough maths of Reddit user T-Fez, if the OEM battery lasts around six hours (Nintendo says ten, but that should be taken with a pinch of salt), Bangooh's admittedly unwieldy 162,000mWh power mod "should theoretically last 404.16 hours (~16.8 days)." Bastien Nocera estimates that this battery is 72 times the capacity of the original GBA SP one.
"Most RPGs can be played from start to finish on a single charge," says the modder, proudly.
The top comment on the Reddit post says what we're all thinking:
this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen
That being said I want one