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Nintendo Switch Teardown

fictiv.com

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Re: Nintendo Switch Teardown

#51

Post by frik »

The Nintendo Switch seems like a nice tablet form factor game console.

I am a bit underwhelmed by their decision to compromise the usability of the right Joycon - moving the analog stick below the digital buttons is certainly bad for US/European bigger hands, bad for ergonomic reasons, an unreasonable trade off.

I am underwhelmed by their decision to add no additional fan to the Dock. It's just s piece of very cheap locking plastic that might scratches your screen. It could have cooled the Switch and get out more performance out of the GPU (now they have to underclock it).

I am a bit underwhelmed by the Joycon grip, that is not very ergonomic for larger hand, and is just a piece of cheap plastic. The Pro controller looks good, but it costs extra $ 70 ($ 20 mote than PS4/X1).

I am a bit underwhelmed that the Joycons have no analog trigger buttons. Already with Wii U the analog triggers were greatly missed in e.g. Lego City Undercover, the car acceleration was all or nothing which pales compared to GTA gameplay on PS4/X1/PC.

I am a bit underwhelmed about the tear down, while good executed it lacked the final tear down and analytics of the core components like the "haptics engine" and the SoC board incl ARM chips.

I am looking forward to a revised model at the end of 2017 that fixes things. Maybe even a XL or XS version would be great - like the New 3DS XL which was a greatly improved and better for larger hands. The ergonomics of the Wii U gamepad better than the Switch too, maybe they can adopt ideas in a revised version.

Re: Nintendo Switch Teardown

#52

Post by M_Grey »

gdulli wrote: post #26
overcast wrote: post #3

The dock is pretty underwhelming from what I've seen. There is no protection for the screen, sliding in between two pieces of plastic. Pretty cheap, for a premium priced, and well engineered hybrid device, that will be taken in and out. Semi-relevant. Breath of Wild looks like such a fantastic game, but it's completely ridiculous that the performance is often times WORSE in the docked mode. I'm hoping this is just cr…

I don't know how they justify selling it at the same price as the current gen consoles. You also have to pay extra for a real controller.

Because they have legions of rabid fans who not only buy their products regardless of quality, but act as an army of apologists for them. The result ironically, is that unlike Sony's harsh lesson learned around the PS3, Nintendo has no such backlash to fear.

The worst they can do is just own the portable market, and sell a few iterations of a console to their diehards, which are numerous.

Re: Nintendo Switch Teardown

#53

Post by M_Grey »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #7

I showed up at Target at 4 am and was second in line. Some other poor soul had been there since 11 and out of the 50 units available there were probably 10 people at opening. Not sure if that suggests demand isn't that great or what. It's hard to figure out. Check out the unit next to the Wii U tablet and the latter looks very much like a clunky cheap toy. Everything here seems well-designed (don't scratch your scree…

Early adopters... I do not understand you at all.

Re: Nintendo Switch Teardown

#54

Post by [deleted] »

M_Grey wrote: post #53
aaron-lebo wrote: post #7

I showed up at Target at 4 am and was second in line. Some other poor soul had been there since 11 and out of the 50 units available there were probably 10 people at opening. Not sure if that suggests demand isn't that great or what. It's hard to figure out. Check out the unit next to the Wii U tablet and the latter looks very much like a clunky cheap toy. Everything here seems well-designed (don't scratch your scree…

Early adopters... I do not understand you at all.

[deleted]

Re: Nintendo Switch Teardown

#55

Post by grapeshot »

knodi123 wrote: post #29
aaron-lebo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the docked mode is grating at times. You've got these great mechanics and beautiful world but constant input lag. Very frustrating. I'd prefer to be able to sit down and play on a TV at a higher resolution, but it's a worse experience. It effectively makes it a mobile game. It's 2017! 1080p or 60fps should be the minimum. To be fair that's not doable at $300 on a mobile gpu, but as a console that's rough. re: sc…

> v2 should be nice Has there ever been a v2 of a nintendo console?

They've done at least one revision of most of them, usually with significant cosmetic differences and less features. There was the top loading NES, the SNES Mini, the GameCube was revised and the digital output port was removed, and for the Wii there was the version with the GameCube ports removed and the Wii Mini with all the remaining ports removed.

Re: Nintendo Switch Teardown

#56

Post by aaron-lebo »

developer2 wrote: post #47
aaron-lebo wrote: post #7

I showed up at Target at 4 am and was second in line. Some other poor soul had been there since 11 and out of the 50 units available there were probably 10 people at opening. Not sure if that suggests demand isn't that great or what. It's hard to figure out. Check out the unit next to the Wii U tablet and the latter looks very much like a clunky cheap toy. Everything here seems well-designed (don't scratch your scree…

>> Does anyone else have an impression? That if you don't like upscaled 900p at 30 fps, you shouldn't be buying a half-assed device that pretends it can be called a next-gen "console", when in fact it's a glorified tablet?

This is for all intents and purposes Nintendo's console now that the Wii U has been discontinued. They are advertising it as such and it's gonna get those comparisons whether they want it to or not.

But really I just like trying new tech.

Re: Nintendo Switch Teardown

#60

Post by starky »

kbumsik wrote: post #16

It's a bit shame that there is no chip part information. I am particularly wondering which microcontroller they use for the remote controllers. I will wait for iFixit's teardown review.

In general I find Fictiv is a really poor source of information. They seem to be mostly focused on 3D printing, have next to no electronics knowledge and their knowledge of high volume manufacturing is dubious (these teardowns are always full of weird errors, e.g. in the Switch teardown they didn't even identify a heatpipe correctly).
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