Arg, they make the screen look absolutely huge with that large front glass panel during most of the video and I was thinking to myself, nice! But then at the end they actually show how large the bezels are underneath the glass and it is quite disappointing. Someday we'll have modern smartphone like mini-bezels (a few mm at most) in our handheld gaming consoles, but I guess not yet.
well, first, the Switch does have a touch screen.... =)
but I think parent poster is referring to the somewhat common situation with portable devices where you're watching/playing in bed and the device is propped up on a pillow or blanket or something
I’ll never understand why people hate bezels so much. They have no bearing on the screen size, but merely offer a basis for comparison when you’re looking at the screen.
Personal opinion, but I didn't really have that reaction. That screen is still significantly bigger than the Switch 1.
Honestly it looks like a great size and if the bezels were smaller, it might be a problem to grip the device (with joycons detached) without hitting the touch screen.
The switch isn't a handheld though. It's way too big to be a viable replacement for a 3DS in that regard, Nintendo just gave up on that market segment for whatever reason.
Microbezels are aesthetically great but practically horrible.
Having some practical space to grab onto wins at the end of the day, we presumably use these things instead of having one sit looking happy on a bookshelf.
It's a portable device, at some point or another I'm going to handle it without the side controllers. Having some place to grab the thing is basic ergonomics, much less something designed with kids in mind.
Where you touch it when not in use doesn't matter. You're not going to use it that way, because nothing uses the touchscreen for gameplay.
[edit] originally I said it didn't have a touchscreen, but I've been reminded that the original does actually have one and it's just never used by anything because ever requiring it in a game would be really dumb when the entire premise of the switch is that it's dockable.
>Where you touch it when not in use doesn't matter.
Being able to easily grab something is always important, especially anything portable. I'm going to pull it out of a bag, move it across a table, etc. and having microbezels gets in the way of that by reducing the useful grabbing space.
Smartphones are the epitome of horrible here. With silky smooth glass and/or sheer aluminum/plastic on all sides with nanobezels (or no bezels at all...) and razor thin thickness, they are a fucking pain to grab and handle without dropping them. Most of us put them into a case to give them the necessary girth and friction for practical handling.
Mobile device design and design in general nowadays focus on aesthetics way too much to the detriment of practicality. People handle and use them at the end of the day, they aren't for oogling.
> I'm going to pull it out of a bag, move it across a table, etc. and having microbezels gets in the way of that by reducing the useful grabbing space.
I think this is a weird you thing. You're allowed to touch the screen. It's not made of lava.
Screens are smooth and decidedly fragile compared to the rest of the chassis. You especially don't want to put much if any pressure on it, which you might need to do for a firm grip.
You also probably don't want to put too much handgrime on the screen, further incentivizing an unsecure grip.
Seriously, big bezels are great. I don't care how great something looks as decor if I can't handle it practically.
Clubhouse 51 has a section of games that utilize the touch screen, such as air hockey (along with others that're nice to be able to go between the touch screen and joysticks for, like the card games where the touch screen's a lot faster to use for moving cards around).
Do we know if the aspect ratio is the same? Maybe they're demonstrating Switch 1 games that have a slightly different aspect ratio, but can be updated to fit the new screen in the future?
