Nintendo Switch OLED

The Nintendo Switch OLED is the same console as the original Switch with a bigger, brighter screen and a wider kickstand. Charging $350 for what is essentially a screen upgrade and a kickstand fix is either insulting or exactly right depending on how you think about product iteration. That OLED panel makes colors richer and blacks actually black rather than the washed-out gray of the original LCD. The difference is most noticeable in games with strong art direction where color and contrast carry the experience. Nintendo has always been better at making hardware that serves its games than at making hardware that competes on specs. The Switch OLED is a clear example of that philosophy. More practical than the screen upgrade, the wider kickstand fixes the original's thin plastic tab that fell off constantly and couldn't support the console on anything softer than a granite countertop. Spanning the entire back of the console, it adjusts to multiple angles, which turns tabletop mode from a compromise into something that actually works. Speakers are improved too, noticeably louder and clearer, though most people play with headphones or docked to a TV. My issue with the Switch in general is that the Joy-Con controllers still develop drift after about a year of heavy use. Nintendo has not addressed that hardware flaw across 3 versions of the same console. Wired ethernet comes to the dock now, which matters for online play, and storage doubled to 64 GB. For $350 this is a hard recommendation if you already own a Switch, but as a first purchase it's clearly the version to buy.