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.

I understand what you're trying to say, because open world games are generally more demanding, so they'll require more power.

However you have to remember that Zelda is 900p 30fps, so there will be games that will not require as much power to hit that target. But less demanding games allow them to attain a higher resolution and framerate, say 1080p 60fps. And in doing so that less demanding game will end up using just as much power and drain the battery just as much.

if Zelda was 1080p 60fps you may have a point, though even then developers would still mostly use all the power they have available... They'd optimize till it ran fine, they won't optimize it just to reduce cpu/gpu usage below 90%+ because they have no incentive to do so.

I don't really understand your point here, on portable mode all Switch games runs at 720p max, sure some will be 60fps and that would drain more battery than if they were 30fps games, but no way a less demanding game will drain the same the same battery as Zelda for being 1080p 60fps because is simply impossible.

Tagging this thread

yes, i'll buy a switch pro if there is. bought XBOX Elite edition since I wanted to. won't buy scorpio or PS4 pro though. Only 1 edition of a home console is enough for me. so if there would be a Switch Pro when I would start buying it, then I'll pick the high-end version one. :)

Well obviously to achieve that it would have to cost way more.

Would it even be as compact at that point though?

I honesty thought they would have gone down the supplementary unit root for the home console mode.

Graphics will be fine.

Battery life is another story

I just bought this:

Portable Chargers RAVPower 22000mAh Power Banks 5.8A Output 3-Port Battery Pack (2.4A Input, Triple iSmart 2.0 USB Ports, Li-polymer Battery) External Battery Bank For Smartphones Tablets more- Black https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01G1XH46M/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_mELRybD6QYSAK

So I'm not worried about battery life.

Would I have liked to buy a stronger Switch, splitting the difference between current spec and Xbone,
perhaps simply leveraging the basic benefits of modern 14nm process for 30% better performance:watt?
Sure.
Does that make sense releasing in 2018 a year after the current spec?
No.
That's just not how consoles work which need install base to justify developing for fixed spec and optimize for that.
Even if they release their "Pro" just 1 year later, every game would still need to run on original spec, excluding the same games.

double post