The Hardware is Awesome
First and foremost, the Switch is a gorgeous and exciting piece of kit. Forget the Fisher Price feel of the Wii U gamepad with its loose rickety buttons and budget-looking screen, the Switch feels like a quality engineered product. It has a sleek, mature aesthetic to its design, much more closely aligned to modern tablets than the plastic-fest of the Wii and Wii U. Its thumb sticks feel nice and tight, the unit has a good weight to it, and the Joy-Con controllers slide in and out with a satisfying click. The screen itself is of a far higher quality than what we’ve seen from Nintendo in the past. It still isn’t glass, but it’s much better than the Wii U and the 3DS, with colors that are well calibrated, making games appear vibrant and bright.
Even the color of the Switch is all grown-up if you want it to be. Muted in dark gray and black, it looks right at home next to your iPhone or Android device, appropriate enough for suited business on the commute home as it is younger audiences. But there’s still that Nintendo charm factor if that’s more your thing thanks to the colored Joy-Con option. Blue and Red Joy-Cons have since been joined by Splatoon-themed options, and there are other colors available if you want to import from Japan.
Of course, the Joy-Cons can be played attached or detached from the console, which takes advantage of the motion controls and HD rumble features. It’s neat that the Switch lets you play to your preference or mix things up depending on which game you’re playing. Speaking of which, thanks to the flash memory card setup, at last, a Nintendo console has the capability to store plenty of different games, even if it isn’t proprietary.
