Why don't hand held consoles get hot?

[IWCAS]

I was just thinking about how my phone gets pretty warm after I end a simple phone call, and then wondered why my PSVita or 3DS doesn't get even the least bit hot. Even my SNES has ventilation holes in the back. A processor should generate some sort of heat, especially a graphics processor. Where does all the heat go? Or am I missing some sort of hand held heat voodoo, and they actually produce little to no heat at all somehow?

 

[Shadowstar38]

That would be the heat transfurance pads built under the sections where one would usually place their hands. The heat travels from your hand down your body at slight, unnoticeable doses. The heat will thusly, lower the sperm count of you and your offspring FOR GENERATIONS!

Unless of course you have girls in which case I don't know.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

The main thing is that handheld game consoles tend to intentionally use hardware that is modern but equivalent in power to something two or three generations back. Basically, handheld game system processors use the improvements in microchip design to make them more efficient at power usage instead of faster. Smart phones, on the other hand, are currently locked in the same sort of processor speed battle that home computers were until sometime in the last decade, where we started having to slap more cores on because we were hitting hard limits on how fast you can make an individual core. Battery life is still a concern, but processor speed is at least as big, especially for the flagship models.

Also, handhelds do generate some heat. I've had my DS warm up, for example, although that happens more when it's charging than when I'm playing, which means it's the battery producing most of the heat.

 

[IWCAS]

That would be the heat transfurance pads built under the sections where one would usually place their hands. The heat travels from your hand down your body at slight, unnoticeable doses. The heat will thusly, lower the sperm count of you and your offspring FOR GENERATIONS!

Unless of course you have girls in which case I don't know.

Well, I'm glad you could be mature about it. I was kind of hoping for some specifics, but I guess that'll just have to do. The NVidia Shield seems like it should need more than a heat pad.

 

[IWCAS]

The main thing is that handheld game consoles tend to intentionally use hardware that is modern but equivalent in power to something two or three generations back. Basically, handheld game system processors use the improvements in microchip design to make them more efficient at power usage instead of faster. Smart phones, on the other hand, are currently locked in the same sort of processor speed battle that home computers were until sometime in the last decade, where we started having to slap more cores on because we were hitting hard limits on how fast you can make an individual core. Battery life is still a concern, but processor speed is at least as big, especially for the flagship models.

Also, handhelds do generate some heat. I've had my DS warm up, for example, although that happens more when it's charging than when I'm playing, which means it's the battery producing most of the heat.

Well again, unless I have the wrong idea about it, the Shield seems as if it should warm up. Maybe it would be less noticeable because you don't hold the hardware like you would a ds or vita, but I haven't actually even seen a Shield, let alone gamed on one.

I feel pretty stupid at this point. Thank you for your help though. I don't think there is much more to it other than the fact that handhelds aren't as powerful as a smartphone and are designed to not generate enough heat to make someone uncomfortable.