Nintendo Switch: Unboxing & Review | Electronics Showcase

Nintendo Switch

What's going guys, Mike here the DetroitBORG with a look at the very first Nintendo product I've ever reviewed. So, this is the Nintendo switch. This is sort of a combination between a game console and a portable and it has a lot of moving parts which come included with this package which allow you to really do a lot of different things with this console which makes it one of the most compelling new systems we've seen in a long time. Now, at launch there are two different colors to pick from so you have the neon with a multi-color joy cons or just classic gray.

Nintendo Switch

Of course I have both of them so we'll take a quick look at the differences in this video and one is going to a giveaway, which you'll find linked in the description below. So, getting into these boxes the first thing we'll see here when we pop the lid is some instructions along the side. Pretty basic here, they just want you to charge it up and make sure it's ready to go. So lifting up the lid the first thing we'll see here is the 6.2 inch tablet/console on the right and the two joy-cons obviously with the neon version we have these two colors, but if you get the gray version, they're just gray and that's the only difference within the packages. So, this very compact tablet is actually in the plastic bag which slides right out. We're going to take a close look at the console in just a moment.

Read more: How to buy Npintendo Switch

Getting to the joy cons again, they're just in these little plastic bags and they fall right out. So once we get the top tray out of the way in the bottom of the box is a ton of accessories including an HDMI cable which is great so you can connect this to your TV right away. Of course, we also get our power supply. Now the interesting thing here is that it's actually using a usb type-C connector. Of course, there's a lot of batteries to charge, both in the joy cons and within the tablet itself. Unfortunately, it's not a really fast charge. So it does take a while to charge the entire system from zero. Also included here is the joy con grip. So this basically turns the joy cons into sort of a classic game pad setup. The joy cons just slot in the place and you're ready to start using it. Overall, it does feel like a very comfortable gamepad. It's got this nice wide grip for your hands and of course all the buns are in roughly the same location as you might see on a classic Xbox One or PS4 gamepad. Of course, there's even more accessories in the box including the joy con straps.

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So, they slide on to the sides and give you this hand strap that allow you to connect it to your wrist so that doesn't fly out of your hand. But it also gives you additional buttons and controls, which effectively turns these into dual controllers for multiple players. Now these hand straps are adjustable and feel high quality and do include a nice class that keeps it in place. There's also a release mechanism if you want change out these hand straps. And lastly in addition to some brief paperwork we do get the dock which is wrapped in lots of plastic and bubble wrap. So the dock itself is very simple, it's mostly plastic, and it's very lightweight and compact. If you look closely at the inside, you'll find the USB type-C connectors surrounded by a bunch of guides that help to slot the tablet into place.

So all of this helps you to line up the console when you're connecting it. Now hidden behind a door is our cable management and all the connectors, so we'll find our AC adapter, USB and HDMI output. But, also on the outside, we have more easily accessible or USB type A connectors for connecting other accessories. So really what makes the system so unique is the joy con controller design. So, these are removable and independent controllers. Which mount to either to the sides of the tablet or to other accessories or can be used independently.

So this really gives you three genres of gaming types. From the handheld portable, to the standard gamepad, to the Wii style remote controller that uses motion capture and sensing. So each one has their own internal battery and radios we also have a vibration motor. There are a few features within the right joy con that the left doesn't have such as an NFC reader so you can transfer information from Amiibo toys to the joy con controller and it also has an infrared camera at the bottom which is used for motion capture. Now, if you look at the inside ledge of the joy con, you'll see some LED indicators and a pairing button. So basically, this tells us the current pairing status of the joy cons.

Nintendo switch games

The joy cons do have some electrical connections, which are actually kind of hard to see, they're hidden in the bottom edge so when they slot into place they make the connection for recharging the battery, and preparing. So the console itself is basically a 6.2 inch tablet, so we have a resolution of 720p which certainly isn't sharp by today's standard, but it's ideal for mobile gaming. It prioritizes battery life and speed over high resolution and the display does look great. It's an LCD IPS panel. So we have good off excess viewing, it is very bright and colorful with good contrast. Now it shouldn't come as any surprise here that the display is actually covered in plastic rather than glass.

Of course, with a mobile gaming system that's used by family members, you don't want this to shatter when it's dropped. So this makes it a little more durable, but it is more scratch prone. So you're going to run into scratch issues, unless you cover it in the screen protector or keep it out of your pocket with your keys. The other issue here is that the display is very reflective. You're going to see a lot more glare on this panel, so may not be the best system to take outdoors. And there's also an air gap between the LCD and the front panel again for durability but it does mean there is more light refraction which reduces the quality of the display, and of course the other issue with a plastic Panel is that it does like to pick up fingerprints and are harder to wipe off because there isn't that Oleophobic coating which is usually on glass displays now. There is quite a bit built in here.

Nintendo switch bundle

So this is powered by in videos custom, Tegra processor along with 32 gigs of on-board storage which you can expand thanks to a Micro SD card slot that is hidden behind the kickstand. That means you can add up to 2 terabytes of additional storage. Now there has been a lot of fuss made about this kickstand [the] fact that it comes off kind of easily and isn't that stable, but I like how it's designed. It's really easy to deploy and it covers the Micro SD card slot but I think over [time] a lot of people are going to lose this because it's pretty easy to snap off. Along the left and right edges, you'll find those metal rails for connecting the joy cons, and it does look quite well built.

So there's a lot of metal a lot of screws going on here so it looks [like] it should stand the test of time and disconnecting and reconnecting these often. There's also our usb port toward the bottom so you do not need the dock to recharge this you can connect the USB cable directly. Along the top edge, [we'll] find a very flush power button [and] volume button. So they're not easy to trigger accidentally, but they are conveniently placed. Also toward the top, we'll find a game card slot. Now these game cartridges come in these very large containers for their size.

They're roughly the size of a sd card a full [sized] SD card but they are thicker. And of course, they slot into the game card slot on the console. And the great thing here is that you don't have to waste space on the internal storage and you can easily take this card to other devices without having to re-download the entire game. Now, this tablet does have a built-in fan for cooling but it seems to only run when it's connected to a TV running 1080P resolution, so the native 720p doesn't seem to spin up the fans like it does when you're connected to a TV. The fan is otherwise very quiet. It certainly isn't intrusive. We also get a set of front-facing stereo speakers which are etched in the bezel on the front panel, which also exhausts in the back which delivers a much more immersive and fuller sound.

It definitely is very effective, itt's a really good sounding system. When it comes to battery life, of course it will vary depending on the game you're playing. So you should see about 2.5 hours to 6 hours of game time depending on the graphics requirements of that game so with [The Legend of:] Zelda I was getting in about 3 hours [of] play time which isn't too bad. Now, we have a fairly modest battery in here. It's around 4310 miliamp hours. That's not much bigger than a smartphone battery which can hover around 3500 miliamp hours. So, when it comes to using this with a TV it really couldn't be any simpler. Once the dock is connected to your TV, all you [have] to do is drop the console into the slot and it makes the connection automatically, and if the console is powered on this will transfer whatever is on this small screen to the big screen instantaneously.

It will even power on the TV if you have that configured. So once that's docked, you can go ahead and remove the joy cons and continue using the console from a distance right on your big 1080p TV. Of course, this also works in reverse all you have to do is reconnect the joy cons, remove the Gamepad, and the game that was on your screen connects right back to the small screen so nothing is interrupted. Now, to power this off or put it in sleep mode, all you have to do is hit the power button and it switches off everything. Of course, with a higher resolution display [gaming] definitely looks much better versus the smaller 720p screen, but I did run into some performance issues when gaming on the big screen. So sometimes I'll see some hesitation and frame dropping but for the most part it's not a big concern at this point, there may be software updates that improve this over time. And the joy cons work fantastically, and overall graphics do look great on the big screen but they won't challenge something like the PS4 or the Xbox [One.]

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So, just to walk you through the device, one of the great things here is the joy cons. When they connect, you'll see that little animation here that corresponds with a color of the joy con. So in this case it's that neon red color and again I can use that button along the back to release it and slide it back into place. You get that little sound effect now. you just want to make [sure] that it clicks in all the way there's that little snapping sound that doesn't necessarily correlate to the device sound. So you want to make sure it's fully engaged. Now it comes to unlocking this device. First you have to press the power button to wake it up, and then you have to hit any one of these buttons three times. Some of them have actually unique sound effects, so let's go take a listen to that.

Now getting into this interface, it is pretty basic. The main splash screen has all of your games loaded up top right [now] I just have one which is currently running in the background, you can see that I'm currently playing that game so I can tap on it to bring it forward or go back home. You can also quickly jump to my account by double tapping on my icon here so you can see my account list and my friend list and of course not much going on because I just joined. We also have our battery status, so we can tap on that to see the percentage. We have our Wi-Fi indicator, as well as the date and time. We also have our options down here for the news so you can double tap on it to bring up the news. We can go back, we also have our store.

So, this is where we can buy games so you do not have to buy the cartridges You can go ahead and log in with your account and buy games directly from the Nintendo store. You can see the animation to load the game store, [and] there's a lot of sound effects throughout the system which are actually quite nice. So, we can see some of the recent releases which fills up all of one page. So there's not a lot [going] on right now, but you can see [The Legend of:] Zelda is up there and the pricing is identical whether you buy the cartridge or buy the game. But, of course the games are quite large, [and take] up quite a bit of space, So you may want to buy the cartridge. Unless you want to buy a SD card to load them on your device. Now, to purchase these just tap on them.

You can see the information, so you can swipe through some of the screen art or just proceed the purchase. We also have our album, this is for [our] screen grabs. You can double tap to bring that forward. Now, to take a screen grab I want to go back to the game here, just tap on the game and we have a little button dedicated to that so we take a screen grab. We can go back home and see that right here. You can see everything is really fast through the system. So what [exactly] can you do with these images? Well if I bring one up, I do have some editing options so I can add text or I can copy this image or just delete it, but then I can go ahead and post it and I can share this using my Nintendo account. I can share it with Twitter or Facebook, All I have to do is login [to] those accounts unless they come up. We also have our controller. So this is where we can see the battery status for each joy con, including the console, and then we can change the grip order.

So, if you want to rearrange these so you have the options for the joy cons in the vertical or horizontal orientation as well as the pro controller. We can also pair new controllers, and there's several options to do this. You can of course just dock them to the console itself, or view other pairing methods which includes holding the button along the sides of the joy cons. So when it comes to settings we have a few things to take a look at here. So, of course, we do have airplane mode because this is a wireless device. If you want to activate it you go right here so you can turn it on or off. We also have [our] screen brightness, and it does include auto brightness which you can turn on and off. There is a sensor right here which is actually pretty visible. So this will help you adjust the screen automatically. Now, if you want to turn off the requirement for triple pressing the button to unlock the device, you can actually turn this off under settings.

So we go to system settings, and go to our screen lock options. Select on or off depending on your preference. We also have our parental controls. We have our internet settings, so we can see our connection statuses as well as our MAC address. In terms of data management, you can see how much free space we have left on the device and we can also manage the software so if we want to uninstall games you can go here to do so. Under users, we can add [additional] users, so you can have multiple users on this device, which is fantastic. We can also load our Mii account so we can build characters or add existing ones and then we can also transfer our Amiibo information. In terms of themes, we have black or white, and white is default.

And we have our notification preferences. We also have our sleep mode settings, so this console by default will go off after 10 minutes of inactivity. But, you can select never if you prefer if you really want to drain your battery. But, you also have options for when the device is connected to your TV. So by default and the lowest setting is one hour, but you can also select never if you want. We also have our controllers and sensors, so we can change our grip order so you can see the devices that are compatible with this. And we can also turn off controller vibration which will help with value life, but I prefer to keep it on. We also have calibration, so you can calibrate your devices as well.

In terms of TV settings, you can change the TV resolution from 480p to 720p to 1080p so a few options here, but I just leave it on automatic. The RGB range can also vary from automatic, to full range, to limited range. You can adjust the screen size, and you'll have to use your TV to calibrate that. We also have screen burn in reduction. So this basically dims the TV to prevent any damage to the TV when the game is left in pods for an extended period of time. We can also Match the TVs power state, so if the TV is compatible with this it will automatically turn on when the console turns on and turn off when the console turns off. And then we have our TV sound option, so we can go with surround sound, stereo, or mono.

Under system, this is where we have a few options you may want to know about. One of them is console battery so if you want to see the percentage of the battery on your home screen all you have to do is click it on. It's off by default, and then you'll see it up here. So you have to tap that anymore. Now, if you tap and hold the home key, no matter where you are in the system, this brings up your battery status, the date and time, as well as your brightness controllers. So, if you're within the game just tap and hold here. This brings you right to that interface. So, in the end, it's really hard to tell you exactly how this is going to turn out in the end. There's a lot of tools here for game developers to develop games that are really impressive, but unfortunately those games are not here yet so you might want to take some time to see how this evolves before investing into it. But even in that case I think the Nintendo Switch is a really polished product, and it's quite a bargain for everything you get in the box. Alright guys, hope you enjoyed this look at the Nintendo Switch, if you did, please give this video a thumbs up and I'll see you again in the next video.