Topic: Nintendo Switch Lite Announced

@BlueOcean Super Mario Maker 2. Mario rabbids Kingdom battle. Splatoon 2. Yoshis crafted world. Kirby star allies. Mario tennis aces. Snipperclips. Rocket league. Smash ultimate

I'm curious to see if the Lite actually does have the ability to output to TV. Did they remove it from the board/port or is it just 'disabled'? Or if you modify the dock/Lite so you can connect them if it will still work.

It's lighter and a bit smaller, and has less parts to lose. I'm not a fan of the color options right now, though, nor do I like how the battery life isn't much better. I guess they were already pushing it as far as they could with the Switch to begin with...

I think it should have been made with the option to sit in a dock to output to TV. Especially since other controllers can be paired to it. Seems pointless to have the controller option then. The absence of Bluetooth audio is still strange. Have they came out and said why this isn’t available?

Wish I whould have been a bit smaller, and whould have a better battery life.
Now Im not interested in it, maybe if it gets a deep sals

Apparently, both the Switch Lite and the normal Switch that will be available for purchase later this year (not the rumoured Switch Pro) will have a revised version of the original chip. This means that it will be slightly more efficient, which means a light power and battery life boost. Something like Xbox One S compared to Xbox One or the recent PS4 Pro models compared to the original PS4 Pro. On top of that, Switch Lite will still have longer battery life because is not charging the joy-cons and using Bluetooth for game input (unless you connect additions controllers) but has integrated controls connected to the board.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/07/11/nintendo-switch-fcc-proce...

I have Super Mario Maker on 3DS and Wii U but I would definitely get it on Switch too.

We will not know until it is released and people start tweaking it. I think that a third-party cable would be able to send the signal to the TV in case this feature hasn't been deliberately cut from the board/port. Everybody wants to know more about this but the truth is that nobody knows because Nintendo wouldn't admit it and nobody outside Nintendo has a Switch Lite in their hands.

@BlueOcean Not like 1S vs OG X1 - that was actually a somewhat significant power boost. OG X1 was a dog. Not enough to make it a semi-new platform like X, but still significant. More like X360 base to X360 Jasper revision. A quiet model revision that nobody would know if they weren't reading tech sites, but it was a new SoC design that ran significantly cooler, and as a result slightly faster. Or Jasper to X360 Elite, that was technically the same system, but it had a SLIGHTLY faster GPU by virtue of a die shrink This is more like that.

Also, the normal Switch, will use some power keeping Joycons charged, true, but keep in mind when the Joycons are attached, it's not using them wirelessly, not using Bluetooth, and not actively using the Joycon batteries (beyond a trickle charge keeping them topped off.) They actually are connected "hard-wired" when you have them docked to the console - so no battery difference there. However rumble is a big battery user. Lack of rumble will equate to longer run-time....though...it comes at the cost of actually having rumble on a handheld.....

As for TV out (also @Cotillion) keep in mind the Switch TV out is encrypted. There's an authentication module in the dock. This is why most of the DIY dock solutions involve ripping the board out of a real Switch dock to make a hackneyed dock cable/stand, and why the name brand 3rd party USB-C TV-out cables have had problems with bricking consoles - they're reverse engineering the chip, like a Tengen NES cart, except they haven't been getting it 100% right, and I'm betting firmware changes make it a moving target.

The Switch Lite explains why Nintendo is so restrictive about keeping the TV out encrypted. To make sure only approved Switch models can do so.

So, TL;DR, 3rd party options using stripped out official dock boards will probably be findable at least for a while until too many people buy them up. Named 3rd party mfr models will probably show up, but may or may not brick consoles. An official solution or a normal Android/iOS/PC USB-C to HDMI will never work.

Also keep in mind, with the Lite, it's smaller, it's lighter. It's meant only to run handheld mode. As such, it does not need as substantial a cooling solution as the model meant to run docked, and it's designed to be as cheap as possible to produce. As such, it VERY likely has a much smaller copper heatsink/heatpipe and/or smaller/slower RPM fan. Even if you could force it to run docked mode, the extra power draw and TDP of running in "full power mode" for games may exceed the displacement the Lite's cooling system is designed to handle, thus overheating damage would be likely. Yoshi's Crafted World runs cool and quiet, handheld. But in the dock it jumps in resolution and spins the fan to max and puts out a fair bit of heat. Rigging a Lite with a smaller cooling solution to a 3rd party dock that tricks the console into running docked mode, with a smaller heatsink and fan could probably fry itself in an hour or less with that game.

@BlueOcean My only problem is that the Official Nintendo website already gave the rundown for the battery life, and the difference seems to be miniscule...

@CanisWolfred Charging time is the same but it says that you can play four hours of Breath of the Wild instead of three. That's not a minuscule difference.

@NEStalgia Exploding stories aside, how do you know that the power boost will be that insignificant? According to Digital Foundry the revised chip is 25% faster (GPU at least) and data miners think that the battery in Lite is smaller and still gives 33% more battery life. That it's a huge difference in power usage especially considering the smaller battery and the Lite would be cooler (not hotter like you suggested) because of the more efficient chip. It also says that compatibility is not an issue, that's why some Switch games run at lower or higher speeds depending on gaming mode.

The Lite and the the normal models available later this year will benefit from the new chip and compatibility wouldn't be an issue so the developers don't need to develop a different version of the game but the games will reach their 30 or 60 fps target more easily and those that use dynamic resolution will output higher resolutions.

Source:

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2019-switch...

@BlueOcean maybe in the normal model it'll get a slightly better fps stability. Though i suspect that's more for the real hardware refresh, and they will just underclock the chip more than on the current model (remember the current one is underclocked already). Lite will probably be heavily underclocked so that it's more power efficient with a small battery and doesn't need the full speed at all... And with it, a smaller, lighter, cheaper heatsink and fan since it doesn't need to run docked mode. The chip may be faster, stock, but that doent mean the implementation will let it run at that speed.

@BlueOcean It's 1 hour, which, yes, is 33% more...but it's only 1 hour. It's a portable-only device. Ideally I'd like it to last a plane trip, or at least a round trip on a long bus ride. Something more like 8-10 hours. I know that's asking a lot more from modern devices, but this is why I still bring my older handhelds when I actually want portable gaming...

@CanisWolfred I'd suggest investing in a portable battery. You'll get a LOT more mileage out of your Switch on a long trip.

I really liked this comment on one of the Switch Lite articles by @Ludovsky. I think it does a good job of showing the niche Switch Lite can fill that the original Switch cannot:

“honestly I was originally unsure about a Switch Lite before it announced but the more I mull it over the more it makes total sense.
With the nature of the Switch, it more than succeeded at it's job of replacing the WiiU which means that ever since every sales have been just a plain bonus. But the 3DS line still needed an appropriate successor and honestly the Switch Lite is genius in that regard because it's both a perfect successor to the 3DS and remains entirely compatible with the Switch software environment which can means a lot in term of online/wireless/etc multiplayer by truly unifying home and portable console even when they're exclusively handheld because ultimately they remain exactly the same console.
And in a way the day it was announced the Lite would be smaller than the Switch regular it was clear it wouldn't be TV compatible because part of the thing with TV mode is that the Switch actually overclock itself for some of the TV games(it's why when there's no in-game sounds the Switch vent will be more audible when docked, in fact). The dock is important there in how it helps shape and apparently enhance airflow that's critical to be able to run at this performance.
A smaller Switch just wouldn't fit in the dock properly and not only that, but the console itself needed a newer more energy/heat efficient processor to be able to have the smaller cooling vents that would allow to make the smaller(and slightly more portable) size possible at all. Which in itself meant a smaller screen which probably plays a lot in the new console being more energy efficient than the original Switch in handheld mode.”

I....honestly forgot those were a thing. I haven't used one since I was a kid, back when they were really bulky. I might consider that...

@NEStalgia Obviously, it won't run at full speed but the current chip doesn't run at full speed in the current Switch either so the aforementioned improvements apply anyway.

@CanisWolfred I know what you mean and I don't disagree so stay with me, these are my thoughts about Switch Lite. I love my New 3DS. Last time I checked it the battery life was 4 hours and 38 minutes. If Switch Lite plays Breath of the Wild for four hours according to Nintendo then it's not impressive but it's not bad either. Unfortunately, you need a really good device like a Surface tablet to get an impressive battery life and they are a bit bigger and thus have a bigger battery. I'm not saying that the Switch Lite is a revolution but running a 3D game for four hours with less heat and less noise it's quite an improvement over Switch.

I play on Switch, it's not mine but I play on it. As a Wii U owner I don't see the appeal of a reiterative device that only plays Switch games and that doesn't even improve resolution. If the ports were cross-buy, heck yeah, I would applaud and thank Nintendo but overpriced ports in the same generation? No, thank you very much. Some Wii U ports have a higher resolution on Switch and that's an improvement I guess but I mean the new games like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 or Wolfenstein that have an atrocious low resolution on Switch. I don't see the point in playing Switch on the TV in sub 520p (or whatever) and then boot the Xbox One X and play in 4K.

As a portable device, Switch would be more interesting if battery life was longer and the full thing was lighter and smaller. This is what I have been saying since it launched. Many people think the same, Switch is too big, too heavy and battery life is rubbish. The joy-cons are not that great and HD rumble is an omitted feature. Switch Lite is not the best thing ever but it's closer to the 3DS concept: smaller, lighter (30% lighter than Switch!), less heat, less noise and decent battery life... a proper handheld. Should developers include a font size option in Switch games? Yes, it's not the same playing on a big TV than on a handheld. The price is still relatively high, especially in EU and UK, and it could have had TV out for that price (as a bonus feature), not with a dock but with a cable. I don't think that Switch Lite is perfect but it's closer to being a proper handheld like 3DS or Vita. No, it doesn't have an ugly-looking dock to output sub 720p to a HD or UHD TV (a nice thing to have as a bonus) and no, it doesn't have tiny joy-cons that make the cheap Wii Remote look premium, but at least it succeeds at one of its two purposes instead of being a failed attempt at both.

@BlueOcean surface pro doesn't have great battery life. I love sp, best laptop i ever had, but battery life isn't fantastic... Just passable... Like switch. Nature of the beast there.

As for switch, it's not meant to be appealing to wiiu owners more than being a total replacement of wiiu as though wiiu never existed and we can pretend. It's meant to appeal to non wiiu owners.... Which is basically all of earth except nl members

@NEStalgia Funny how us Wii U owners use a lot a console that it's not supposed to exist. It reminds me of Dreamcast or Vita.

Um, I live in Japan which Switch should i get? The Switch Lite for $199 or the dock less Switch for $226. I think i'll go with the one that gives me the option to replace sticking buttons and joysticks has motion controls and a tabletop mode and the option to upgrade to home console later if i want. But then again i must be crazy?????

@BlueOcean yeah... For those that bought it and liked it, it was great.... Shame nobody actually bought it.... I don't think the second screen idea really jives with a public that sees games as a type of tv show (naughty dog=gaming).... And while the idea is very Japanese, Japan doesn't do home consoles. It was a cool toy without an audience. Or not a big one.

I see where switch created bitterness with big wiiu fans.... It was an undo. A replacement attempt at 8th gen... The first one discarded. Personally i like both. Switch is a dream. Not perfect but a dream. But i liked wiiu, too.