Nintendo Console

Design

In the box with your shiny new Nintendo Switch you get the main console, two detachable controller sides (Joy-Cons), a grip which enables you to combine these controller portions into a more traditional gamepad, two straps which can make them into two individual controllers, and a dock for plugging the console into your television.

You also get a USB Type-C power cable (with a non-detachable power brick) and an HDMI cable for connecting the device to your TV. If you think that sounds like a lot of accessories then you’d be right: we suspect a lot of Nintendo Switch owners will have misplaced at least one or two of these within the space of a few months.

We’ve taken to wrapping our Joy-Con straps around our Joy-Con grip just to keep everything together, but we’d love some way of attaching them to the console so they don’t end up getting misplaced.

Battery

Nintendo claims a battery life of three to six hours depending on the game, the brightness level and whether Wi-Fi is turned on or turned off. Brett tested this for his review last year and found that an hour of play would drain 36% of the battery, while an hour of charging would recharge it by 47% (with brightness set to 100% and Wi-Fi enabled).

Controller

f you want a more conventional controller for your Switch, the Pro Controller is really the only game in town. Luckily, it’s Nintendo’s best controller since the Gamecube’s, with nice, large analog sticks, rubberized handles and less plasticky triggers and bumpers than the Wii U equivalent.

Unlike third-party controllers we’ve seen so far, the Pro Controller also packs in all the tech from the Joy-Cons, including the gyroscopes and accelerometers and the HD Rumble – although since it doesn’t split in half, it’s still inferior for playing Arms.

Graphics

Internally the Switch is using an Nvidia Tegra X1 chip, which is broadly similar to what was found in the Nvidia Shield. That’s not exactly a bad thing considering the Shield is a 4K-capable set-top box, but you have to remember that as a portable device the Switch needs to make compromises to ensure decent battery life.

At launch, concerns over graphical horsepower appeared to be partly borne out, but we wouldn’t call them deal-breakers – we’d say the graphics on the Nintendo Switch appear to be roughly equivalent to the Wii U.