We looked at the core features, and the controllers. In this post, I want to tackle some of the smaller, more miscellaneous features of the Switch.
Touchscreen
What I thought then - Cool, there’s a touchscreen!
What I think now - Now it works, now it doesn’t - what the heck?
Sometimes the touchscreen works. Sometimes it does not. The only way to tell is to open a piece of software and see what happens.
Generally speaking, I dislike the idea of forcing software to make use of hardware-based features, especially considering that hardware manufacturers are liable to stuff their devices full of gimmicks.
But touchscreens are not gimmicks. Ten-plus years of smartphones and Nintendo DS hardware is proof of that. And yet support for the feature is spotty. At the very least you would think most games would support touchscreen input on their menus. Imagine managing your Spirits in Smash Ultimate using your fingers to quickly sort or mass delete.
I almost wonder if it is in there by accident, as if Nintendo was so used to making touchscreen devices that it just kind of slipped into the schematics without anyone realizing it. Or maybe it was just cheaper to get touchscreens, even if they had no major plans for them.
No Bluetooth
What I thought then - I had no idea the Switch does not support Bluetooth, because the thought never crossed my mind
What I think now - I don’t care either way
I would care about the lack of Bluetooth if the act of syncing Bluetooth headsets wasn’t still a horrible nightmare in the year 2020.
This is another one of those situations where getting mad at something for failing in principle is sometimes not worth the trouble.
Kickstand
What I thought then - This stupid kickstand is not worth the trouble
What I think now - It feels flimsy but somehow it does the job
The kickstand on my nephew’s 2017-made Switch was extremely difficult to pop open. I did it once to try it, and then never did again.
However, my kickstand flips out easily, so I actually do use it a lot. I agree with many people online who say it feels rather flimsy, and yet my Switch has never fallen over when the kickstand is in use. As I said above, it feels fragile, but it somehow gets the job done.
The kickstand is one of the few features on the Switch that is reminiscent of Nintendo’s typical, kid-friendly handheld design. The kickstand is built to be detachable; that way, if it “breaks off”, it doesn’t actually break off. You can just snap it back into place.
Ironically enough, in trying to pull the kickstand off to get this photo, I discovered that the amount of force needed to take it off was enough to cause the plastic on the main unit to start pulling away as well. This implies that it is rather thin, which worries me a bit about the sturdiness of the device as a whole.
Storage
What I thought then - 32 Gb is a joke!
What I think now - 32 Gb is still a joke … but it may or may not matter depending on your needs
This is another example of a flaw in principle, but potentially a non-issue in practice. If you want to go digital only, and you want to play big budget, primo games, then you are going to be screwed by the lack of internal storage.
However, if you are willing to go with physical copies of big budget games, and/or you play a lot of retro games or indies, the 32 gigs may go farther than you think. I have downloaded a number of games that ranged in size from 100’ish - 300’ish megabytes. You can store a lot of those in 32 gigs of storage!
Other Thoughts
There is something about the way the Joycons are shaped such the Switch is extremely stable when at rest:
It tends not to slip or slide if you throw it on a couch or a bed. This is a welcome change after years of playing the comparatively slippery 3DS and PS Vita.