 The Switch is Nintendo's new home console, successor to the Wii U, but it's also a powerful and interesting portable handheld device, or you can put it down on a table if you'd prefer. It's actually really cool. With that said, evaluating it wasn't an easy task for me. Sometimes with reviews of things that I really like, I'm hard on them out of love. And with the Switch, you'll see some of that, because I do love it, but you'll also see some criticism that comes from a different place altogether. My time with the Switch has been a roller coaster of emotions, and persons with these conditions probably shouldn't ride. Side by Power's lineup of gaming desktops feature Intel 7th Generation Core i7 processors. Check them out on Amazon at the link below. The Joy-Con controllers are so important to the unique experience of gaming on the Switch that they literally form the logo for it. They both feature normal things, batteries that charge when they're docked onto the console itself, all of the thumbsticks and buttons that you'd expect other than an analog trigger. Then we get into the more unique stuff. They also feature quick releases on the back and pairing buttons between some shoulder buttons. Then the right Joy-Con controller has an NFC reader in its thumbstick for amiibo pairing, and an IR camera for games like Eating Contest, where you hold it in front of your mouth and make eating motions quickly. HD Rumble is a cool concept, and it's definitely better than previous versions of Rumble, but I don't think it's quite as awesome as they actually make it out to be. When playing something like Ball Count in 1-2 Switch, it just gets frustrating. It's not real enough to be genuinely immersive, and it ends up being a tiresome gimmick. Usability-wise, I'd say it ranges from an acceptable to a bad experience. When they're mounted on the side of the Switch in handheld mode, it's on the acceptable end, but not great. The joysticks being off-axis, which I generally prefer, having grown up on the Xbox side of things, sucks in handheld mode, because the right-side joystick being lower on the right Joy-Con, your hand has to be positioned in a really weird way in order to support the weight of the console. And I'm not the only one who felt this way. Yeah, I mean, it's a hell of a lot better than playing on a tablet or a phone, that's for sure. But I think for me, the one issue is, like, with my right hand, if I have to switch up and down, I have to shift my hand a little bit. It feels kind of weird. Mainly the right side of things. Just cause the joystick feels like it should be there, but it's there. And it's kind of weird to grip. I think when they're detached, they're fine, but this is pretty weird. Sorry. The Joy-Con, they kind of, like, crippled the functionality because they wanted to have each thing be its own controller. It's just, it's so twiddly and small, I can't even deal. I think the joysticks, they are probably just not balanced, and it's kind of hard to hold on one side, but I have no reference. So, it's still cool. The Wii U tablet controller had both the joysticks at the top. This made sense. I understand why they did it this way on the Switch, but I don't think it's justified, and I'll get to that in a moment. In tabletop mode, when you have the Joy-Con controllers off the Switch and are playing by yourself, it's acceptable. Two players in that same scenario is pretty bad, however, just due to how cramped your hands are when you only get to use one of these pretty tiny controllers. This is also why they have the thumbsticks off-axis, because it makes it easier to use them when they're by themselves, but as this scenario is just bad in general, it wasn't worth sacrificing the ergonomics of using it as a handheld. Then there's the grip. It sucks, in my opinion, especially considering Nintendo's vast controller design experience. From the giant gap in the middle to the lack of an actual D-pad, to the lousy mobile device-grade joysticks, to the vertical alignment of all the controls when you're trying to use it at once, everything about it contributes to the poor ergonomic experience, which, luckily for Nintendo, will likely drive a lot of Zelda Breath of the Wild players to go out and buy the Switch Pro Controller, which, and again, I'm not the only one who feels this way, actually feels pretty great and can charge over USB Type-C, which is a really nice bonus. It's an awesome controller. Now this I like. It should come with this. But one thing I can see people missing is the linear control triggers here, but other than that, man, the ergonomics feel good. The plastics are just really solid. I like this thing. I think the Pro Controller feels like a normal controller. If I had a Nintendo Switch, this would probably be what I use most of the time. The Joy-Con grip just felt kind of awkward, and this just, hefty, it's got a good feel to it, everything's in the right spot, all the buttons are easy to reach. Yeah, pretty dope. I feel I can get to each buttons and this thing very easily. Like, you can do whatever. It's all in here. This is a lot more normal. Thanks, Nintendo, for giving us options. Okay, let's talk gaming experience now. Handheld mode first. You get about two and a half hours of play in something like Breath of the Wild without any charging, but Nintendo's decision to go with USB Type-C instead of their own proprietary power connector makes it really easy to charge up on the go. I love this decision. Thank you, Nintendo. It wakes up from sleep super fast, getting you into the game almost instantly, and it doesn't weigh that much at 0.88 pounds. Does it replace something like a 3DS? Not for everyone, but for battery bank warriors like me? Maybe, yeah. Next up is tabletop mode. Flip out the kind of weak sauce-feeling kickstand, prop it on the airplane tray or table in the lunch room, and boom, you're gaming. It's really that easy and it's really cool and makes the console that much more versatile. Nintendo seems to have overlooked the importance of being able to run off of wall power in this mode, however. Maybe there's a 3D printing solution to this problem, but most other aspects of it are well thought out. If you apply too much pressure to the stand, it just pops out rather than breaking, and you can put it back on, which is nice. But before we do that, now is a great time to check out the more standard non-proprietary I.O. Who are you and what have you done with Nintendo? This is so weird, but awesome. There's an SD card slot under the kickstand, and this is a huge step forward in mobility, allowing you to pack games onto it to avoid carrying around game carts when the onboard storage overflows. Now, and I understand if you've forgotten by this point, as we've only talked about the mobile experience, but the Switch is a living room console. So if you want to use it as one, you throw it onto a dock that charges and powers the Switch, gives you HDMI output to your TV or something like a monitor, and provides three USB connections for accessories like Ethernet adapters and charging for the Pro Controller that I consider basically a necessary add-on. It's pretty much a glorified USB hub. You'll still be using the power button, volume buttons, game cart slot, and headphone jack from the top of the Switch console itself. And I'll save you the trouble of trying it. None of the off-brand USB-C hubs that I tried worked, and I tried a lot of them. TV mode was a mixed bag for me. 4K TVs are becoming quite popular, and outputting 720p on a 4K display in 2017 feels like a pretty heavy compromise. And this comes from someone who fully understands that the Nintendo gaming experience is about gameplay. Not graphics. And their art style makes up for it a lot. I just can't help but notice that the performance hasn't really come very far since the Wii U. And I also understand how it happened. Mobile performance for them is fantastic. Just having a high-quality upscaler in the dock would have been deeply appreciated. And while we're at it, a working virtual console and Bluetooth headset connectivity would have appeased retro nerds like me and wireless headphone enthusiasts like... Apple, I guess. In conclusion, the Switch is a very interesting idea. Like the Nvidia Shield tablet, but with the expectation that I'll get a killer game library with it. This is a potentially great direction for Nintendo to go in, but I feel like some decisions along the way with the Joy-Con controllers and the dock should have been switched up a little. I feel like they couldn't decide if they wanted to replace the 3DS or not and consequently ended up uncomfortably somewhere in between. Then on the subject of the game library, there's the issue of 1-2 Switch. It's like Wii Sports in the sense that it's good wholesome family fun with mini games that gets everyone into the swing of using the new controller style. Except unlike Wii Sports, it doesn't come with the console. It's a full-priced, half-assed game. You'll have fun with some of the games like Swordfight, Quickdraw, Samurai Training, and Milk. But many of its games feel like near clones of each other, and I believe the right move was to put it in the box, with the console. Breath of the Wild on the other hand. If you have a Wii U and you don't plan on getting a Switch, buy it. If you're getting a Switch, buy it. If you have neither of those options, find a friend that has one of those options and go to their house a lot. It will be worth it. But back on topic, is the Switch worth it? I'm not really comfortable giving an unconditional recommendation, giving the current state of its games library. But man, it's a really unique piece of hardware. That's what Nintendo does best, and as a die-hard Nintendo fanboy, I'm gonna go for it. And I'm really excited. Thanks for watching guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do. If it was awesome, get subscribed, hit the like button, check out the links down below where you can see where to buy some of this stuff, including the pretty much required Pro Controller and Breath of the Wild. Because if you're buying a Switch, you should probably get both of those. Also, you can see where to buy a shirt, which is hopefully being like video edited on top of the shirt that I'm currently wearing. I accidentally took my work shirt home, and this was like a Nintendo inspired shirt, so I thought it was fine, but it's not fine for this part of the video. I'm rambling for way too long.