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The Switch Lite review thread (Nintendo Vita)

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
so just how awful is the wifi chip? are they using the same one as the real Switch? i can't see them putting a better one in a cheaper model lol.

inb4 "no problems with mine! i can connect to my wifi from 100 miles away!!!!!"

they had the oppurtunity to fix that joycon drift, I dont think these new analog sticks will alleviate it. after like 400 hours of play your gonna be switching them out yourself or sending the whole switch lite to nintendo.
how can you fix something if it's not broken?

just like any other product things fail at some point. i've owned 10 different joycons with no drift. i've had more problems with buttons getting stuck or lagging.

Are we not all the same family?! :messenger_tears_of_joy:

no. people who own the OG and V2 Switch have a real Switch that can actually Switch.

people who have a Lite have a "Switch" that has awful battery life and will require hugging a wall for 3 hours or be hooked up to a portable battery. OK i get that people prefer playing in handheld (which i do) but limiting the device to only handheld means it's not a Switch anymore. only in name. also for a handheld/portible device having only ~30 hours more battery life than the OG model is pathetic.
 
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Caffeine

Member
so just how awful is the wifi chip? are they using the same one as the real Switch? i can't see them putting a better one in a cheaper model lol.

inb4 "no problems with mine! i can connect to my wifi from 100 miles away!!!!!"


how can you fix something if it's not broken?

just like any other product things fail at some point. i've owned 10 different joycons with no drift. i've had more problems with buttons getting stuck or lagging.
ive already had drift on 3 joycons its clearly a manufacturing defect on some of the analog sticks released.
 

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
ive already had drift on 3 joycons its clearly a manufacturing defect on some of the analog sticks released.
glad you agree it's only "some". like i said, with any product there will be batches that are defective either out the box or after however long.

i have 4 joycons from launch with no drift. 🤷‍♂️
 
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-Arcadia-

Banned
There seems to be a lot of fanboy battling on Gaf, hilariously between Lite fans and Switch fans. Are we not all the same family?! :messenger_tears_of_joy:

no. people who own the OG and V2 Switch have a real Switch that can actually Switch.

people who have a Lite have a "Switch" that has awful battery life and will require hugging a wall for 3 hours or be hooked up to a portable battery. OK i get that people prefer playing in handheld (which i do) but limiting the device to only handheld means it's not a Switch anymore. only in name. also for a handheld/portible device having only ~30 hours more battery life than the OG model is pathetic.

Ooooookay. You have fun with fanboy battles over different models of hardware. I’ll be doing something, anything else.
 

Acidizer

Banned
Hearing the D-pad is very bad, it has trouble recognising directional inputs.

If true this is a deal breaker. You had ONE fucking job Nintendo :messenger_weary:
 

-Arcadia-

Banned
Hearing the D-pad is very bad, it has trouble recognising directional inputs.

If true this is a deal breaker. You had ONE fucking job Nintendo :messenger_weary:

I haven’t spent a ton of time with it, but it seems to be excellent. For what it’s worth on these impressions, and that I’ve generally heard good or neutral things elsewhere.
 

Acidizer

Banned
Hmm did you play any fighting games that rely on accurate directional inputs?

Pro pad was fine in a lot of situations then fell down hard in others, even then I think this was only on some units. Not confidence inspiring to say the least. Switch is king of D-pad games too which makes this all the worse.

Apart from this I really like this hardware, looks a lot better than the OG to me.
 
so just how awful is the wifi chip? are they using the same one as the real Switch? i can't see them putting a better one in a cheaper model lol.

inb4 "no problems with mine! i can connect to my wifi from 100 miles away!!!!!"
I had serious connection problems with my old Switch. It wouldn't connect to wi-fi in my bedroom (on the same floor), so I couldn't play online or even browse the eShop while in bed. My new Switch Lite seems to connect much more easily. It's still not perfect, the device disconnects sometimes after it has gone into sleep mode for a bit, but I have been able to play Tetris 99 and CTR online without any issues. Take it with a grain of salt, this is just my experience after all.

As for the d-pad, I found it great for Tetris, but apparently the issue lies with diagonals, which I haven't been able to test yet. I don't play fighting games, and I don't think I even own a game in which I could test it.

The speakers do sound a fair bit worse. A lot more tinny sounding, which is a shame. Not sure if that's just mine. I haven't seen anyone else complain about this yet.
 
so just how awful is the wifi chip? are they using the same one as the real Switch? i can't see them putting a better one in a cheaper model lol.

inb4 "no problems with mine! i can connect to my wifi from 100 miles away!!!!!"


how can you fix something if it's not broken?

just like any other product things fail at some point. i've owned 10 different joycons with no drift. i've had more problems with buttons getting stuck or lagging.



no. people who own the OG and V2 Switch have a real Switch that can actually Switch.

people who have a Lite have a "Switch" that has awful battery life and will require hugging a wall for 3 hours or be hooked up to a portable battery. OK i get that people prefer playing in handheld (which i do) but limiting the device to only handheld means it's not a Switch anymore. only in name. also for a handheld/portible device having only ~30 hours more battery life than the OG model is pathetic.

Guess what the Lite can do that standard Switch can't? Fit inside a pocket. Nintendo still needs a pocket-sized system to replace the 3ds/2ds.
 

-Arcadia-

Banned
Hmm did you play any fighting games that rely on accurate directional inputs?

Pro pad was fine in a lot of situations then fell down hard in others, even then I think this was only on some units. Not confidence inspiring to say the least. Switch is king of D-pad games too which makes this all the worse.

Apart from this I really like this hardware, looks a lot better than the OG to me.

I have not. Hopefully somebody can get you an answer on that. I know what you mean about the Pro — that seemed fine until I started missing Tetris inputs. I did do a decent run of Super Mario Kart, and a lot of menu navigation, and it didn’t miss a beat once, for what that’s worth.
 

PSFan

Member
so just how awful is the wifi chip? are they using the same one as the real Switch? i can't see them putting a better one in a cheaper model lol.

inb4 "no problems with mine! i can connect to my wifi from 100 miles away!!!!!"

Actually, the Lite seems to have a better wifi chip than the original. It connects in spots where the original didn't.
 

Rodolink

Member
The Vita really did look slick, Heck it still does. It reminds me of those high end mini disk players from back in the day.
Yesterday I took out from a drawer my N3DSXL and my wife said "Oh, your old 3DS, looks so old tech now in comparison to new stuff, your Vita looks more up to date than that" lol shes right, the Vita still holds up slick, I told her the VIta was ahead of its time.
Also wtf when is Nintendo gonna add Bluetooth compatibility for headsets :S
 

Komatsu

Member
The fact that Nintendo forces your "secondary" Switch to call their servers every time you want to play a digital title ("to prevent two people using the same account from a playing a game at the same time") just shows how backwards and frankly anti-consumer this company often is. This was never an issue in any other platform - I could play Castlevania SOTN on my PS3, Vita and PSP at the same time if I so wished, as long as all the consoles were tied to my PSN account.

Not so much here. And to add injury to the insult, even if you want to make your Lite your "primary" Switch and your OG console the "secondary" one (since a lot of us just leave it docked, pinging Nintendo wouldn't be a problem)... doing so is not that easy. The process is not intuitive.

POLYGON: How to use a Switch Lite as your secondary Switch.
 

jts

...hate me...
The fact that Nintendo forces your "secondary" Switch to call their servers every time you want to play a digital title ("to prevent two people using the same account from a playing a game at the same time") just shows how backwards and frankly anti-consumer this company often is. This was never an issue in any other platform - I could play Castlevania SOTN on my PS3, Vita and PSP at the same time if I so wished, as long as all the consoles were tied to my PSN account.

Not so much here. And to add injury to the insult, even if you want to make your Lite your "primary" Switch and your OG console the "secondary" one (since a lot of us just leave it docked, pinging Nintendo wouldn't be a Switch Lite as your secondary Switch.
Takes me a hot second to pull down control center on my phone and turn personal hotspot on. For Polygon that’s something they probably haven’t even heard of.
 

yurqqa

Member
Takes me a hot second to pull down control center on my phone and turn personal hotspot on. For Polygon that’s something they probably haven’t even heard of.
And saves ?
I think you have you account with all the saves that is synchronized with online only on your main console and you can't synchorize your saves with the secondary console.

Maybe you could transfer your saves back and forth between consoles, but that's a very 90-s experience. At least you don't use a floppy disk.
 

Bootyful

Banned
Can we just take a minute to appreciate how funny the term "floppy disk" is? It's brilliant. It sounds like floppy dick 🤣
 

jts

...hate me...
And saves ?
I think you have you account with all the saves that is synchronized with online only on your main console and you can't synchorize your saves with the secondary console.

Maybe you could transfer your saves back and forth between consoles, but that's a very 90-s experience. At least you don't use a floppy disk.
Some game designs ask for no duplication of saves, like Pokémon or Animal Crossing. Ideally these games would save straight to the cloud (no local save) but then you’d have to be online to save and to load.
 

Komatsu

Member
Takes me a hot second to pull down control center on my phone and turn personal hotspot on. For Polygon that’s something they probably haven’t even heard of.

That’s not really an option for those who spent a significant amount of time flying or, you know, live in areas with poor reception.
 

yurqqa

Member
Some game designs ask for no duplication of saves, like Pokémon or Animal Crossing. Ideally these games would save straight to the cloud (no local save) but then you’d have to be online to save and to load.
But you could run only one instance of the game anyway - that's what the online check is for.
And also it could differ on game-to-game basis.

Currently Nintendo gave us a very good secondary console, but the software solution is very rough.

I also don't understand why did they cut the TV-out functionality - it was there even for PSP. That also limits the Switch Lite to "secondary console" status.
 

Sentenza

Member
I have no idea why this thing costs so much, aside for "Nintendo, of course".
I paid the Nvidia tablet this entire console is based on less than 200 bucks three years ago, and that was already bigger than the regular Switch, let alone its LITE version.
Yeah, they added the attachable controllers compared to the Nvidia Shield Tablet, but still... Old hardware that was already available years before the Switch launched and it's selling in far larger volumes SHOULD NOT cost more than the same tech when it was niche and the cutting edge years before.
 
Never.
I think Nintendo purposely didn't include it, so people would want to buy the Pro and/or Switch 2.

Or it's cost cutting, It's common place for phones but those tend to cost a lot more than the switch is right now. Could be a logistical issue fuck knows.
 

MagnesG

Banned
I have no idea why this thing costs so much, aside for "Nintendo, of course".
I paid the Nvidia tablet this entire console is based on less than 200 bucks three years ago, and that was already bigger than the regular Switch, let alone its LITE version.
Yeah, they added the attachable controllers compared to the Nvidia Shield Tablet, but still... Old hardware that was already available years before the Switch launched and it's selling in far larger volumes SHOULD NOT cost more than the same tech when it was niche and the cutting edge years before.
Joycons are expensive to make.
 

Acidizer

Banned
Since the controls aren't detachable, drift and D-pad issues become catastrophic so I hope Nintendo are putting more effort into fixing these ASAP. Seems like they totally ignored the problem before. That's harder to do now.

Without the hardware issues, 200 bucks for this is a no-brainer.
 

Birdo

Banned
I was expecting these to be like gold dust, but there seems to be stock everywhere where I live.

Either they shipped a lot, or it's not selling that well.
 

mcjmetroid

Member
I was expecting these to be like gold dust, but there seems to be stock everywhere where I live.

Either they shipped a lot, or it's not selling that well.

I think it will sell like Gangbusters in Japan but in the west the market they're aiming at is very specific considering it's an inferior device almost all around.
It's smaller + Has a DPad, is that really enough. I know it worked for the 2DS but really some people flat out didnt like 3D whereas not being able to dock to your TV is a far bigger issue.

I'm not convinced of it being an almighty groundbreaking success everyone thinks it will be.
I know it's cheaper but once you spend that much on a product.. 200 dollars or whatever... you're gonna want to spend a fraction more to get a better system.
 
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so just how awful is the wifi chip? are they using the same one as the real Switch? i can't see them putting a better one in a cheaper model lol.

I'd say it's about the same. You need to have either an expensive router, or repeaters throughout your house if you don't want to experience frustration of random disconnects and such.

OK i get that people prefer playing in handheld (which i do) but limiting the device to only handheld means it's not a Switch anymore. only in name.

Who gives a fuck? Do you think people walk out of stores with their new switch lite thinking "oh noes, it's not a real switch anymore!!!" ? Wether a switch is "real" or not only matters to no-life internet losers such as yourself. I'm not even saying this to be mean, but - grow the fuck up, for your own good.
 
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TLZ

Banned
Who gives a fuck? Do you think people walk out of stores with their new switch lite thinking "oh noes, it's not a real switch anymore!!!" ? Wether a switch is "real" or not only matters to no-life internet losers such as yourself. I'm not even saying this to be mean, but - grow the fuck up, for your own good.
Why so serious?
 
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I have no idea why this thing costs so much, aside for "Nintendo, of course".
I paid the Nvidia tablet this entire console is based on less than 200 bucks three years ago, and that was already bigger than the regular Switch, let alone its LITE version.
Yeah, they added the attachable controllers compared to the Nvidia Shield Tablet, but still... Old hardware that was already available years before the Switch launched and it's selling in far larger volumes SHOULD NOT cost more than the same tech when it was niche and the cutting edge years before.
But it's not only related to hardware. There are marketing, testing, design and other types of costs involved, including the design of a new motherboard. It's not just putting the pieces and wiring them together.
 

Sentenza

Member
But it's not only related to hardware. There are marketing, testing, design and other types of costs involved, including the design of a new motherboard. It's not just putting the pieces and wiring them together.
...Are you people doing this on purpose or what?
"Marketing, testing, design etc" are made because they sell the hardware. They aren't doing a favor.
If that's the cost of the hardware for a company who produced it and sold it as a niche luxury do I actually need to explain to you why all the "marketing" in the world doesn't justify a higher price YEARS LATER and selling on a far bigger scale (which is what all that "marketing, testing and design" produced, by the way).

Joycons are expensive to make.
They surely made their best to don't make them look so.
 
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MagnesG

Banned
...Are you people doing this on purpose or what?
"Marketing, testing, design etc" are made because they sell the hardware. They aren't doing a favor.
If that's the cost of the hardware for a company who produced it and sold it as a niche luxury do I actually need to explain to you why all the "marketing" in the world doesn't justify a higher price YEARS LATER and selling on a far bigger scale (which is what all that "marketing, testing and design" produced, by the way).


They surely made their best to don't make them look so.
Present your pitch on how to launch a $200 OG Switch then, with more solid joycons.
 

Weilthain

Banned
I love the comments wishing they could play 1-2 switch and Mario party on the lite. Lol no you don’t. You weasels, stop lying.

If the lite came out first and wasn’t called the switch people would be creaming their pants over a powerful, no gimmicks Nintendo handheld with some of the best games ever.
 

dirthead

Banned
I love the comments wishing they could play 1-2 switch and Mario party on the lite. Lol no you don’t. You weasels, stop lying.

If the lite came out first and wasn’t called the switch people would be creaming their pants over a powerful, no gimmicks Nintendo handheld with some of the best games ever.

Don't think so. It's literally an Nvidia Shield in a different shell. Not really impressive.
 
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