Do we even understand, or realize, the expenses associated with having more power in a portable system? People feel it is a good idea to compare smartphones to the Switch -- but it is not. A typical premium smartphone costs far more than the Switch, and cannot be directly compared to Nintendo's offering. Adding more power to the system would increase the cost to consumer, as well as make the whole thing much more difficult to keep a portable (e.g. impacts on battery power; impacts on portability; impacts on thermal-dissipation; etc.).
I feel people are being hypocritical. If the Switch was the PS Vita 2, people would be going crazy over the amount of power finally available in a dedicated handheld. Yet, because it is Nintendo, we have somehow all forgotten that this is, in terms of form and function, above all a new handheld device (rather than a console). We have to treat it as the dedicated portable device that it is, and if considered as such Switch is a very impressive offering in terms of graphics and price.
I hear people saying that it is overpriced. How so? The closest, graphically, to the Switch in a current smartphone is anything with a Snapdragon 821 (519.1 GFLOPS with Adreno 530). To find a device with a Snapdragon 821 you have to look far and wide to stay below $300. One Plus X with the Snapdragon 801 (166.5 GFLOPS) doesn't even reach Wii U levels (352 GFLOPS) and its official price lurks dangerously close to the price point we set. Nexus 5X only has the Snapdragon 808 (172.8 GFLOPS) and again price wise is not that far from Switch. The Intel-powered ASUS Zenfone 2 with the Z3560 (136.4 GFLOPS) doesn't even reach the other two examples, even if its price is more reasonable. We have to go to the Lenovo ZUK Z2 with the Snapdragon 820 (407.4 GFLOPS) and even then we are nowhere close.
So why are we being unreasonable, in expecting Switch to outbest even similarly priced smartphones -- whilst also delivering controllers, a larger screen, other vital components that do not come with a smartphone (from buttons, to the dock)? The Nvidia Shield Tablet with the K1 processor is very logically priced, but only offers 326.4 GFLOPS, for a performance level that is not even on par with the Wii U -- and it still does not come with controllers, docking features, and very few of its games actually run natively on its 1080p screen.
The only realistic complaint I hear regards the Switch's screen resolution, which could have been bumped to 1080p. But again, the decision to stick with 720p makes perfect sense from a gaming perspective, especially since it would have been unlikely that many titles would run at the higher resolution. Why does anyone need Full HD only for the menus, or to watch a movie? Aren't we all already equipped with several portable devices that we carry around us daily that allow us to enjoy watching a movie in Full HD? Is anyone likely to not bring their phones around anymore after they buy their Switch?
The Switch does not need better specs at the moment. It just needs a future-proof design, in the form of upgrade-able docks, to ensure that as a console (rather than as a handheld) it can stick around beyond 2019. Handheld wise, it has all the power it needs, and in many ways the price is just right.
So, the question: "Would you buy a stronger switch-hardware with better battery and graphics?" is actually pointless. Nintendo wouldn't have been able to release a Switch with better battery and better graphics. They wouldn't be able to keep the price point either. You'd get a more powerful Switch, with inferior battery life, and a higher price point. Unless they also bumped the resolution to Full HD to go along with the extra power, there wouldn't have been all that much benefit @ 720p. So it would have been a pointless increase in power with actual negatives for the end user in terms of power and price.
No, I wouldn't be happy with a Full HD Switch, slightly beefier GPU, and 1 hour of battery life @ $449. That's just me, but I feel the Switch's problems won't have to do with its power -- being a handheld -- but rather with its very form factor. The true question is whether the tablet-form factor is a good idea, or whether people prefer the clamshell design of 3DS/DS/GBASP or the 'traditional' portable design of PS VIta/PSP/GBA and whether Nintendo can entice users to give portable gaming under the tablet factor-format a go.
Switch's real weakness is that as far as portables go, it looks less like the sort of portable gaming devices gamers are used to. Wii U's gamepad was too big and unyieldy and left a sour note in many gamers, myself included. That's where the Switch has a lot to answer.
