I got this under instruction from my friend. However I was dubious about it.
In any case I got it and I'm quite happy with it. It's not perfect however.
The good:
It's fast, getting into a game is really quick. Resuming a game is even quicker, the device can be in a standby state for a week, and still have 50 percent battery left over.
Graphics looks quite good on the device it's self. Sitting on the bus or lying in bed, you can have a good game. As far as portable gaming experiences go, it's pretty much the best you can get from a mobile device.
Battery life. I've heard different opinions on this, some people yay it and others moaning. I'm going to say yay and I feel that the naggers have clearly got expectations that are too high. It is game dependent, and of course brightness is a massive impact on it. To give an example, you could play Mario Kart in the dark, brightness low, and you would get 8 hours plus. At high brightness, you'll get about 4. Playing Zelda on the other hand will drain you faster, due to the increased load on the system. If you compare this with high end mobile phone or tablet battery life, it's fairly on par!
The flexibility with the controllers, being able to play with both, or switch to one and give the other half to a friend in acouole seconds is awesome. Battery on the controllers is also great. Having them charge through the main unit is also good.
Having USB type C is great. The adapter of the future, be able to charge it with a phone charger. Can't complain.
The dock. Simply put, this is what truely makes the switch work. It's in the dock, turn on the TV and pick up the controller. Like a PS4 you are in the game in less than 5 seconds due to the resume feature, you're playing your fave game, and then you've got to go. You pick the unit up out of its dock, fire it into your bag and jump on the bus. Pull it out your bag and within 2 seconds you are right back where you were and you can play for hours!
The bad:
The screen is plastic, not glass. I get that this helps prevent cracks, gives it that little bit of shock resistance. However what you loose is scratch resistance and that nice smooth feel you get from a new smartphone. The dock is also made of plastic, which isn't a bad thing. But after a single week of usage, you will be able to see scratches on the screen at the bottom left and right where the dock runs along it. It highlights how prone the screen is to scratching when another bit of smooth plastic can scratch the panel. I recommend a tempered glass screen protector for it as soon as you buy it. You get the protection, and the premium feel as well.
Price of games. I'm not one of these people that have issue buying a £40 to £50 game. But some of the games aren't fully fledged games in m opinion. Tomb raider is an example of a complex piece of software, high quality voice acting, a script, etc. Fully justified a price of £50. Minecraft, great game with a great community, costing £10 to £15 on other platfrms, free on Android, £33 on switch? It's not all games, don't get me wrong. But you could argue that there is a few titles that could be considered mobile games, or experiences. On Android these would often be games you would see for free, or a few quid, maybe £5.
The online experience. Nintendo is well behind the other manufacturers or providers when it comes to their online offering. On other consoles or PC there is entire online communities all easily connected and offering a broad range of features. Nintendo offers nothing in this area besides the basics. It was a free service which was fine, but they are going to start charging for that this month and the offering isn't really improving to justify the charge. Maybe this will change, but for now it just feels like a bit of a slap in the face.
No apps or multimedia abilities. For a device that is effectively a tablet, that even uses a chipset which was designed for high end Android tablets, I find it completely mind boggling that there is no apps like netflix, BBC iPlayer, decent web browser, a media player so that you can pop some videos into an SD card. I spend about 4 hours a day on the bus, when I bought the switch I kind of expected that I'd be able to leave the tablet in he house and use the switch for games and movies.
To finish off I'll touch back on graphics again. When docked, you get to play your games on the big screen. This I were the graphics might start to let you down as the cracks will start to show. It's not bad by any means, in fact there is some really nice looking stuff. But, if you are looking at buying one system, and portability is not something all that important to you, graphics on a console dedicated to the living room will impress to a much greater degree.
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Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 September 2018
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Joycon failed just one month after warranty expired, how convenient. Overpriced junk and Nintendo will not honour a repair.
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Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 April 2018
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Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 January 2018
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