After months of rumours and even a few leaks from supply chain sources, today Nintendo officially announced the Nintendo Switch Lite. This is a new addition to the Switch family and is designed to be portable/handheld only with a nice discount over the standard Switch model.
The Nintendo Switch Lite will come in three different colours, Yellow, Grey and Turquoise but we will likely see more colour options and a few special editions later down the line. This is the long rumoured cheaper Switch model, coming in at $199.99, a full $100 less than the standard Switch, which sells for $299.99.
The Switch Lite is slightly smaller than the original Switch too, the display is 5.5-inches instead of 6.2-inches and the overall dimensions have shrunk a bit to make handheld play a bit more friendly. Since this is a portable-only version of the Switch, the Joy-Con controllers are pre-attached and there is no kickstand on the back. It also doesn't support TV mode, you do get slightly better battery life though, with the Switch Lite rated for between three and seven hours of use depending on the game.
For game compatibility, the Switch Lite will play any game that supports handheld mode on the console, which is pretty much all of them. There are no major games that we know of that only support docked/TV play. The Nintendo Switch Lite will release on the 20th of September.
KitGuru Says: While there have been some promising leaks lately, I wasn't expecting Nintendo to officially announce the Switch Lite so soon. It is coming much sooner than expected and appears to be a pretty good deal too. As someone who primarily only plays in handheld mode, I am half tempted to change models. What do you guys think of the Switch Lite so far? I'm looking forward to learning more about the inner hardware, particularly if it is a revised version of the Tegra SoC.