Thanks, folks, that about answers all my questions. Kind of impressive to hear that the significantly larger screen doesn't harm the clarity of the image. Everything else sounds just about ideal. I wasn't keen on paying out for a version without improvements to the GPU/CPU/RAM, but I play my Switch mostly in handheld mode these days, and also enjoy occasionally setting it up on my desk like a miniature TV, and the SWOLED sounds like a solid improvement in many respects given how I use it.
Currently Playing: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (NS2); Corpse Factory (PC)
@Ralizah
Even though Switch OLED gets a lot of crap for not being a fabled "Pro" version, it's the single best version upgrade I've ever bought. When I said that back around launch many scoffed, but I stand by it.
Even despite same power, the improvements to the image via OLED screen, the larger screen and thin bezels, and the amazing kickstand upgrade (the extra 32gb, Ethernet and quality speakers add just a smidge more value), has provided me with the most contentment of any mid gen revision to date.
New 3DS was close, with the stable 3D and right mouse nub and slight power boost, but you already had a 3D image, even if you had to hold it more still. And we already had Circle Pad Pro. And the power didnt seem to make any tangible difference on the user end for most games.
But Switch OLED? Every single game benefits from the larger OLED screen. Every single game can benefit from the new adjustable super-stable kickstand. Every single game benefits from the double battery life over v1, and even compared to v2, the OLED offers 20-60 min extra battery life in the majority of cases (though there are some exceptions that get less).
OLED is just so good- it's the highest caliber mass-market screen technology money can buy. And once you go OLED, it sucks giving it up. Not that you can't adjust (I'm enjoying my Steamdeck just fine) but you definitely notice the picture doesn't "wow" like games on Switch OLED do (though Steamdeck can wow in other ways, such as graphical fidelity).
And that kickstand... it puts v1/v2 to utter shame. It's solid metal, with extremely durable hinges you couldn't break if you tried. It's rock solid. No more teetering on a popsicle stick that pops off all the time.
But even more substantial than the larger OLED screen and kickstand, is the double battery life. I submit to you that battery life is the most important aspect of any handheld gaming device. It's why Steamdeck comes up short despite excelling in so many other areas. We tolerate short battery life sometimes because we have to. There's no better alternative. When Switch v1 launched, battery sucked, but where else could you play games on par with PS3/360/WiiU in a hybrid handheld form factor that docks to TV, switches to tabletop and transitions to handheld within seconds? Same for Steamdeck. Battery life sucks for AAA games, but it's the best we've got for handheld PCs.
But Switch OLED? It feels like that pink Energizer bunny with a drum. It just keeps going and going. When my brother would come over and play Monster Hunter or Splatoon local wireless, his v1 Switch would die every single time, like clockwork. It happened so much, so reliably, I started keeping a special portable battery in mesh net just for when he'd visit. Now that he has OLED? He never needs to charge.
The cherry on top though is that Splatoon 3 Switch OLED is the sickest console I've ever laid eyes on. Idk why it took Nintendo so long to offer proper paint jobs on the dock and joycon. Up til now it's all been cheap, single color designs like for MHGU, MH Rise, even the DQXIS Switch only had silver logos in the blue joycon. At least they did cool patterns on the back of that Switch. And they're doing it again for the Splatoon 3 OLED. Except this one has super awesome multi-color gradient on each joycon, and has a pearl white back with its own pattern. And the dock? Muah! That faint graphitti pattern with splash of neon yellow ink? Give whoever designed this thing a raise. This is how a collector edition console is supposed to look.
Psalms 22:16 (1,000 yrs before Christ)
They pierced My hands and feet
Isaiah 53:5 (700 yrs before Christ)
He was pierced for our transgressions
Zachariah 12:10 (500 yrs before Christ)
They will look on Me whom they pierced
@JaxonH Honestly, the biggest improvement in the New 3DS was how much snappier it made going in and out of games. Which, besides the eye-tracking 3D, is the one system-wide improvement that console benefited from. The other improvements don't really count since most games didn't make use of them. Aside from a handful of exclusive ports (and Hyrule Warriors Legends, since it was nigh unplayable on the base hardware), you only really saw significant improvements to Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate.
Battery life is important, but not so much that I wouldn't be happy sacrificing it for other things. Given a choice between a Switch with the V2/OLED battery life and current performance metrics, and a Switch with the V1 battery life, but which was able to hit native res (or near native res) in a lot of the system's more demanding games, I'd opt for the latter every time.
That's mostly because I play Switch at home, though. When I changed my phone recently, I actually downgraded from a beautiful Galaxy android phone with a 1440p QLED display for a much cheaper Motorola one with a 720p display and weaker internals. Why? Because the Motorola phone was designed to last an obscenely long amount of time on a charge. I can't play Genshin Impact on it very well, and the screen is unimpressive compared to what I had before, but the switch justified itself every time I'd forget to charge my phone and still be good on power well into the next day. I went from carrying my portable battery with me everywhere to actually not even knowing where the thing is anymore.
Don't get me wrong, though: I'll be stoked to eventually own a Switch that doesn't require life support after a couple of hours of playing a demanding title.
Yeah, tbh, while I'm looking forward to the improvements the OLED will yield, I'm mostly looking for excuses to justify buying that gorgeous Splatoon 3 system. I was planning on holding off until BotW2 releases in 2023, but I really fell in love with the design of this console.
Actually a bit anxious, since I'm afraid pre-orders will go live while I'm occupied, and I'll get screwed over by scalper bots. So I've set up my twitter so that it spams me with notifications about all of Wario64's posts, since that's the one account that reliably seems to get news out ASAP.
@Ralizah Another benefit of SWoled to keep in mind is how the battery life is improved even when compared to V2, because of the energy saved by not lighting the black parts of the screen, which can easily give you about half an hour more in some games, which, when combined with the already excellent battery life, makes battery almost a non issue even on trips or places with no immediate access to a power source.
All in all, as most have already said, the Oled model is a really nice upgrade over the regular one. It feels like a premium, sturdy, ergonomic device actually designed for adults and not a cheap toy for kids. And the kickstand is just so reliable and sturdy, you will love it!
My brother works at the same company I do, and he stopped by my office today to check out the Steamdeck (he has one on order but hasn't gotten it yet).
He loved it, but he was astonished at how large it is. I pulled out my Switch OLED afterward to show him some Portal 2 and Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak video clips, and he was like, wow, Steamdeck makes Switch OLED look next gen by comparison. The better quality screen, the smaller size, the super thin light weight profile... and he's not wrong. Picking up the OLED after using Deck really makes you appreciate its design (this is not to take a jab at Deck, because it's very nice and I'm loving it, this is just to highlight how great Switch OLED is as a portable device).
Psalms 22:16 (1,000 yrs before Christ)
They pierced My hands and feet
Isaiah 53:5 (700 yrs before Christ)
He was pierced for our transgressions
Zachariah 12:10 (500 yrs before Christ)
They will look on Me whom they pierced
@JaxonH
There's definitely something to be said for good I/O being able to close the spec gap. Especially for portables where you don't have controller or displays you can swap between. To use an extreme example, I'd rather play a racing game from the late 360 era at 1080p on a large OLED screen with a controller that had analogue triggers than a current gen racing game on a crappy, small TN monitor with a controller that has no analogue triggers. I haven't grabbed a Switch OLED because I'm cheap and I'm waiting for the next thing..... but I have no doubts in my mind it's a significant upgrade
@JaxonH it's these sorts of things that put me off getting the Steam Deck tbh. For them to announce it without an OLED screen at a time when Nintendo of all companies was giving us a premium screen...it was a bit of a buzz kill.
And while I appreciate the portability I'm afraid it won't "just work" as well at the Switch does. A lot of the appeal of the Switch isn't just the portability but the convenience factor. How do you find docking compared to the Switch? And are there any issues with suspending games and coming back to them days later?
Although I don't own a Steam Deck, I really struggle to get the appeal because it seems so damn uncomfortable for handheld play. Even if the ergonomics are good (which I doubt, this thing is massive, and there are people with small hands) the Steam Deck is about 50% heavier than the Switch iirc, which by itself makes it impractical.
I have pretty big hands for an average guy and even the Switch is on the border of being too heavy for play sessions longer than 30 minutes. If you use a grip or some 3rd party joy cons then the Switch is decent for long play sessions, but I can't imagine the Steam Deck, with so much additional weight being comfortable.
And with the Swoled, at least you can use tabletop mode, which is very serviceable, especially with the vibrant OLED screen, but with Steam Deck you don't have that option.
And I am not even talking about taking this beast (Steam Deck) outside of the house, which seems straight up impossible (too big to fit comfortably anywhere, low brightness, low battery)...
Maybe I am just spoiled by the Switch, which offers so many different ways of playing, that the Steam Deck seems to have such a small and niche usefulness.
@Buizel
There is no dock. Valve was planning to make one but it's been delayed indefinitely. I had no intentions of docking anyways. Can just fire up my desktop PC connected to my TV and rely on cloud saves to bounce between.
It's not as convenient as Switch. But it's the most convenient PC gaming has ever been. Press the power button once to suspend, press again to wake. I've never left it suspended for multiple days so I can't say. It's super quick and easy though. Works just like Switch.
Psalms 22:16 (1,000 yrs before Christ)
They pierced My hands and feet
Isaiah 53:5 (700 yrs before Christ)
He was pierced for our transgressions
Zachariah 12:10 (500 yrs before Christ)
They will look on Me whom they pierced
@JaxonH ah that's a no deal from me then unfortunately. I have a gaming laptop for most of my non-Switch gaming needs. It's somewhat portable and I benefit from the extra power, and it's not like I have a shortage of games to play on my Switch if I fancy convenience over power.
@Buizel
I have a bunch of different consoles in front of my TV for non Switch games.
I like to collect and play different things, it was like having mini Arcade at home.
Looking back, I think Goldeneye may be the N64 game that aged the best over time. I mean the FPS and TPS genres nowadays are basically "Microtransactions: The Game" outside Splatoon (even then there's a possibility Splatoon 3 falls into that trap) so plenty of older FPS/TPS games before the era of microtransactions in console games really shines bright.
@Buizel
Ya, it won't be for everyone. But I absolutely love it. It's not perfect, but it's a massive step forward for gaming.
I predominantly play Switch because of the convenience factor, the portability and gyro aiming. I hardly ever touch PS5/XSX or even PC, because it's such a ritual turning everything on and switching inputs and yada yada.
But Steamdeck is soooo quick and easy to jump in and out of games. It's just like Switch. Tap power button once and it wakes from suspend. Tap again and it's back in sleep mode. That is absolutely huge for me. And because it's running Steam, all games can easily map quality gyro aiming within seconds from the Steam Controller config for each game.
Playing Monster Hunter World at work yesterday was a dream come true. With gyro aiming activated when pulling left trigger. Same for Mass Effect Legendary Edition. Finally able to play those games handheld.
It's basically the perfect complement to Switch OLED. It fills in the gaps for all the games that don't come to Switch, and makes them just as easy to jump in and out of, without neglecting gyro aim. I never liked laptops since they're so big and heavy and require a separate controller. And to be clear, I have enough games on Switch to never touch another system again in my life. But it's never really been about need for me. It's about want. Being able to play some of the best games that miss Switch in handheld with gyro... it means I'll actually play them now. God knows I never play them when tethered to a TV on an inconvenient power platform.
Psalms 22:16 (1,000 yrs before Christ)
They pierced My hands and feet
Isaiah 53:5 (700 yrs before Christ)
He was pierced for our transgressions
Zachariah 12:10 (500 yrs before Christ)
They will look on Me whom they pierced
I mean the FPS and TPS genres nowadays are basically "Microtransactions: The Game" outside Splatoon (even then there's a possibility Splatoon 3 falls into that trap)
I hate that you've put that thought in my head now. I highly doubt it would happen since the main thing microtransactions are used for in FPS games are cosmetics and the cosmetics in Splatoon actually give you a gameplay advantage so I would imagine Nintendo would be in some very hot water if they ever went down that route but it's annoying that I can't rule it out completely.
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