After years of rumors, months of hype and weeks of anticipation, the Nintendo Switch 2 has finally been released into the world. If you successfully pre-ordered a model, then well done, and if you haven’t snagged one yet, fear not. We’ve got literally tens of pages giving you all of the important info, so you can prepare and / or glower covetously at your screen. That includes Sam Rutherford’s detailed preview filling you in on all the details, plus answering if you really need to buy one so soon after launch. The team has also cranked out this list of key questions about all the hardware and software changes in a console they do not call Le Switch Deux in France. If, after reading all of that, you decide to throw your money at the screen, we’ve also got a rundown of which retailers are selling.
I’ll be honest, I nearly joined the pre-order scrum the moment it was announced but opted not to for a couple of reasons. First, I don’t have the time or opportunity to game enough to need to get a console on day one. Second, I don’t think I’ve yet wrestled all the entertainment out of the first-generation Switch. And third, the pain of buying a new console is always in the two- or three-year wait before its games library is muscular enough for it to be worth your while. Which is why I’ll be joining many of you in glowering covetously at the screen, at least for the next year.
— Dan Cooper
Get Engadget’s newsletter delivered direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!
The news you might have missed
It rarely goes on sale too.
Nathan Ingraham for Engadget
Sonos is discounting a number of its speakers through June 15, including its Era 300 smart speaker. You can pick it up for just $359, $90 less than you’d normally spend, and it comes with the usual suite of Sonos tricks in its back pocket. Like its automatic tuning feature, Trueplay, integration with Siri and Alexa and (admittedly) hit-and-miss spatial audio.
Continue Reading.
It’s got more RAM than the equivalent 5060 Ti and still costs less.
Devindra Hardawar for Engadget
Devindra Hardawar has played with AMD’s new Radeon RX 9060 XT for long enough and now he’s ready to share the details. The GPU is AMD’s cheaper alternative to NVIDIA’s RTX 5060 Ti, available for $300 with 8GB RAM and $350 if you opt for 16GB. There are compromises, like slower RAM and limited support for FSR AI upscaling, but they’re tolerable. Especially when the majority of gamers are playing in 1440p and don’t need to break the bank for a 4K card.
Continue Reading.
Naturally, AI is the big selling point.
Samsung
Samsung is teasing a new Ultra model, sharing little beyond an animation suggesting it’ll sit in the body of a Galaxy Z Fold. In a terse blog post, the company said the handset will use AI for all sorts of tasks in your life, optimized to suit the foldable form factor. Given the Z Fold is already the company’s most ultra premium of ultra-premium devices, it’ll be interesting to see just how much cash you’ll have to spend to own one of these yourself.
Continue Reading.
‘Centrism.’
X
X is testing a feature that will ask users what they think of specific posts and how it makes them feel. The hope is to use that information to train an algorithm to surface content liked by users from all parts of the political spectrum. It’s an interesting idea, but given X has been forcing folks with perspectives different from its new owner to leave for blueier or threadier pastures, it might not be as effective as it would have been two years ago.
Continue Reading.
