Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles - Hey guys, this is Austin. Is the Nintendo Switch Lite worth it? This is an all-new Switch which cuts the price down to $200, which is a fairly significant cut over the $300 current Switch. However, to get to that $200 price, they've had to make some sacrifices. Now in a lot of ways, the Switch Lite is actually more of a successor to the 3DS as well as the 2DS XL. Around the same price, there are a lot of similarities, however, the Switch of course is a much, much more powerful console. However, it's also portable only, just like the 3DS is. For context, the Switch Lite is about the same price as the new 3DS line, which is interesting because of course this is their standard portable console. Now when you put the Switch Lite side by side with the standard Switch, one of the major advantages is really that price. At $300, the Switch pretty much doesn't really get sales or price cuts, so by saving a full $100, I think it is going to be a very compelling deal for a lot of people, as long as you can put up with some of the compromises. This is a Lite version in pretty much every sense of the word. Not only do you have the smaller 5.5 inch screen compared to the 6.2 inch display on the main Switch, but you also lose the backwards compatibility with JoyCons. Is it backwards compatibility? The compatibility in the first place. So of course one of the major advantages with the Switch is you can slide up to do JoyCons, you can swap them out with different colors, however when it comes to the Switch Lite, this is a fixed single unit which is nice for (mumbles) but it is not nice for being able to, I don't know, play in tabletop mode, because this doesn't have a kickstand, either. - [Ken] Or play with your friends. - Friends? Who has friends? Along with this, you are losing a couple of the functions of the JoyCons, including HD Rumble as well as the IR support. Although to give the Switch Lite a little bit of credit, it now does have a full D pad as opposed to the weird four buttons that never really made sense unless you split the JoyCons apart. But you know what, I actually give this some real credit. Because it is now a single unit body design as opposed to having the JoyCons, it actually feels a lot more sturdy. Now that certainly wasn't a huge issue with the original Switch, but because the JoyCons were on rails, especially as the Switch got older, it did have a little bit of flex in it, whereas this actually does feel like a very solid unit. An absolute unit, as the kids would say. - [Ken] S-as the kids would say? - As the kids would say. Look, I'm trying to say an absolute unit as I'm holding a turquoise, like, baby Switch right now. It's really hard to do this with a straight face. (laughter) It's an absolute unit, guys. Oh, boy. The Switch Lite does still use a USBC port, however looks can be deceiving as this is only purely for power. So the Switch Lite doesn't come with a dock, of course it doesn't come with the JoyCons, and because of that, you have no way of connecting this to a TV even if you were able to hook up something like a third party dock. And that's kind of a bit of a shame, I mean I get that this is a portable console. I mean, if you think about it like that it's not so bad. But compared to the standard Switch, you're losing a lot of functionality. And you just literally have to use this as, like, the pocket Switch. Now even thought the Switch Lite doesn't come with JoyCons, you actually can still pair JoyCons that are of course sold separately. Now because there's no kickstand, you kind of have to find something to prop it up on, but normal JoyCons do work just fine. However what doesn't work just fine are, say, the SNES controllers that you can buy from Nintendo online, which are cool, except that you have to use it like this, or Nintendo Labo doesn't also work. Basically you should just use it as a Switch Lite in portable mode, not in JoyCon mode. Or alternatively, I'm sure there's going to be a wonderful range of accessories that will give you a kickstand, and all kinds of other great, fun things for your Switch Lite. But that's actually something I kind of miss, because the kickstand on the Switch is not very good, but it actually is properly usable. Whereas this, like, I like the form factor in handheld mode but when I actually want to set it down, I mean, it's annoying to try to have to find something to prop it up on. It doesn't really feel like quite that same kind of portable experience, even when you do have a couple of JoyCons, or something like a pro controller paired. Now at this point, you might just be thinking that this is a worse Switch. However it's not quite that simple. So first of all, you do have colors. Yes, colors are a feature. So not only do you have this blue turquoise color, but you also have a little bit of a yellow color, and by a little bit I mean a lot bit. And there's also this special edition gray Pokemon version. However beyond just the pure colors, what I like about this hardware is that it feels not only nice and small, I feel like this is a little bit of a better form factor for portable play, but more importantly, it feels more durable. I know I was kind of talking about the JoyCon stuff, but even beyond that, you have to consider that this is probably the Switch to get for kids, or people who are upgrading their 3DS who maybe aren't the most careful in the world. Now, yes, you still have the exposed screen, you're probably still going to scratch it up and what not, but because this has all this matte plastic and it feels relatively sturdy, I do think this will hold up better than the current Switch has. Now when you put the Switch Lite side by side with it's bigger brother, the first thing I notice is that even though this is a smaller screen, it is the exact same 720p resolution, which means that technically, this is actually a little bit sharper with a 267 ppi versus 236. Now the sharpness isn't a massive difference, although it does look a little bit crisper, but something else I noticed here is that this seems to be, to my eye, slightly more color accurate. Whereas my original launch Switch is a little bit on the cooler side, the Switch Lite seems to be a little bit warmer, and they are fairly close on brightness. So if you're worried about sort of making sacrifices by going with the Switch Lite on the screen, I honestly think this is actually a better experience. I find that the bezels look a little bit smaller on the Switch Lite, mostly because, well, they are smaller, but they're also body-colored. However something that I thought was going to be a bigger downgrade but actually isn't are the speakers. So on the standard Switch, you have two front-firing speakers which are facing directly toward you, whereas with the Switch Lite, they're kind of on the bottom, however they actually seem to be sort of oriented toward you. And it is actually very hard to cover these, honestly it actually doesn't really sound all that much worse than the bigger brother. For $100 less, at this point, the Switch Lite is looking fairly straight forward, right<