Are you ready to make the Nintendo Switch Lite switch? (The Daily Charge, 8/28/2019)

Today on the daily charge, taking a look at the cheapest 5G phone yet, how Wi-Fi 6 could change your life and Scott Stein shares his experience with the Nintendo switch lite. Good morning welcome to cnets daily chart. It's Wednesday August 28. I'm Robert. I'm Scott Stein. I am Blumenthal. Let's take a look at the news. The Nintendo Switch light made waves when the 200 all console was introduced in July. Our own Scott Stein got a closer look at the light. Now that you've had some more time with it what do you think. Yes, the second time getting a chance to look at it and I got to spend this time about an hour with it. Anyone who's been thinking about getting a more affordable Switch or has kids doesn't care about connecting to the TV. I think this feels like the better piece of hardware, surprisingly. It feels more sturdy, the smaller size actually is nicer to carry around. It feels less creaky, the buttons feel really good, although you won't be able to swap the controllers like the regular Switch. So those who have reported drift issues TBD. I think it's great and you save a hundred dollars. The only thing is that yes you can't detach the joycons, but the real downside is that is doesn't have the dockability. If you think about that. That sort of takes away from the identity of the brand itself. Nintendo switch. Unless you switch to the switch lite. Essentialy is this a good DS like An upgraded DS [CROSSTALK] the DS, the three DS and two DS models are still around. So yeah, it really feels like a the real successor to the three DS, two DS and it has that kind of feel The question is if you think about that losing the TV out element, it's not just the ability to play on a TV. It's multiplayer. Because when I play at home, we played things like Mario Kart or Mario Party. And it's the multi controller is facilitated that way you can connect other controllers to the switch light but. It's like the joy cons already have will still work it. Yes. You could pair that but But you. [CROSSTALK] Kickstand. But you couldn't connect the light to say like another switch is like a hub as a secondary controller. No. Now you can't use it as a secondary controller. Okay. As far as anything they've said. Like a WiiU type of thing? No. And the other thing is everything about being a two Switch household which I think a lot of people will start to think of that weird is, $200 is not that much money for a second system. The problem is Nintendo has said there is nothing forthcoming on future games sharing revisions or updates. Yeah,. Doug Bowser had a talk with him a while ago, had alluded to maybe something it turns out that that was just them, making it clearer how to do some of their account stuff on the site, which is limited. Basically means you can transfer all your information from one Switch to another. Or you can set one up as a primary, and one as a kind of secondary, which means you have to authenticate online every time you play. Jeez. But basically, yeah, it's annoying. If you have a game card, you're fine. If you have digital Digital versions of the games, it's going to be really painful. So, if I'm a household that has multiple Switches, I have one Switch account and I buy a game like Smash, will I be able to play it simultaneously on the Switch and the Switch Lite? No. And what you'd have to do is, you could be playing on the switch. Well, actually, you could possibly. I haven't actually tried. I mean, would you be able to connect to it and play online on your secondary switch while you're taking the other offline home ago because it wouldn't know you were offline. Yeah, that's the possibility, which was sort of like you could do it. Is set up the original Switch docked at home to be able to check online and play those games as the secondary one. But this- And then had the other on the go. The point is it's a huge pain in the- Yeah, [UNKNOWN] marker illustrate the how far behind Nintendo is when it comes to sort of online, the idea of like Yeah, synchronous usage of devices like that Netflix and apple. All these other companies have sort of embraced like, I feel like Nintendo is just like generations behind everyone. Yeah, and this thing really lingers with this product because I think if you're thinking about this, like an iPad or an iPad Mini or you have family devices, things like what Google stadium is gonna be PlayStation even with some of their, you know, between the visa and the PlayStation four and the way that works, they need to make family account where this stuff is more easily set up. And it seems so odd that they're not doing that at least from the jump. Yeah, particularly because their brand is so family friendly and so family focused, maybe they're going to realize they need to do this either it's in the cards are going to realize that you know The Switch Lite does seem like a secondary option, maybe to reach a different market. But if they want to double down in the same household, it's time they start thinking about that type of stuff. All right, plenty to talk about here, but we've gotta move on. We got a lot of headlines. But it's a great handheld. Next up Sprint showed off the Oneplus 7 Pro 5G yesterday. It's at $848 it marks the cheapest 5G phone from a major US carrier yet. And the phone launch also marked the Expansion of spreading to four more cities, including here in New York. With 5G. So, it's interesting that sprint that is struggling with network quality issues and just a bad rap in general is all of a sudden one of the largest 5G networks in the world. Now. Eli, you had a chance to talk with Sprint and check out the phone. What were your impressions? So the phone was the same as the OnePlus 7 Pro we've seen since around May, I believe is when the first one came out. And we have this here, I'm holding here. The only difference really for those who are listening, It's really just the branding it says one plus 5G on the back. And inside it has support for sprints you know 5G network and yeah as you mentioned is a bit surprising that we're seeing sprint that carry that struggle. The fourth carrier have a 5G network that now these they claim covers eleven million people in New York 1.7 million. Which is impressive. And they work indoors. The speeds aren't as fast as the millimeter wave networks you'll see from Verizon or AT&T or T-Mobile, but you don't have to stand on a street corner to use it. Yeah, although in terms of working indoors, as we discovered here in the office, there is no 5G here on our studio, but if we go out to my office right by the window we can get 5G. So your mileage might vary in terms of coverage right? Yes very much so it's still not as strong as some LTE event. And we may have to wait until what's known as the low band sub 6 that AT&T and T-Mobile are launching possibly later this year definitely in 2020 for coverage that really hits all the places you have a 4G signal today. All right. Also our own Stephen Shankland had a deeper look at Wi-Fi six also known as Wi-Fi ATO to 9/11. AX for all you WiFi nerds promises a triple speed and double the range of coverage. While I love to talking about 5G as Brian knows, WiFi 6 could potentially have a bigger impact on our daily lives. What do you guys think? Like are you excited for the WiFi 6 revolution? I am if we start to see faster speeds rolled out by our Internet service providers or ISPs. Cause that's what really dictates this. Yep. It really goes hand in hand. And you need devices that support wifi6. Which we are starting to see the latest Galaxy phones support the wifi6. I don't know if the switch light does. I don't believe it does. And there are only a handful of actual wifi 6 routers out there, right? Like it's pretty rare. It's very early days for the entire. You know, industry here but yeah it could definitely change people's lives more than you know some other technologies we've seen in the home Or we could just have like a five g home broadband connection store that you wrote earlier see somehow tied it back to five g all right. Lastly fitbit has a new smartwatch that adds alexa and spotify Scott. You checked out the Versa 2. What other features should we know about? Yeah so fitbit did have some models that came out back in the spring that were more like budget updates and reaching like a $150 price. This is a $200 watches going head to head against what we expect to be a sample watch plus a Samsung Galaxy watch active to Maybe other stuff in the fall. So the big addition is Alexa, which you know that you say that and it sounds like a big feature update. And it is in the sense that it has never had a microphone on one of its devices more. But what's interesting is that it's not going to do exactly everything that you think it's going to do. It does a lot of the core Alexa services like getting information online connecting with your smartphone stuff weirdly. So you could like, Turn on lights, whether core connecting to your Fitbit stuff like starting a workout that's not in there yet and it's going to be there by end of year. It's almost like that's harder to do and it doesn't control music so it's a bit of a disconnect doesn't have amazon music. It does, however have Spotify and that was an overdue Late Edition now Garman and Samsung and others have had spotify now flip it has its hip it had music support before but with Pandora, [UNKNOWN] And side loaded music which was not like having music and now this is like really the arrival of a music watch which I haven't tested yet but it will soon. Those are the big features and it's faster. So it's feels a little Zapier, which it should have felt all along the $200. Is that going to be something you want to get? Or do you feel like you're fine with what you've got? What's interesting is that Fitbit kind of hedging, it's bad because it's also getting a subscription service. So this is something that Apple's had a whole year doubling down on subscriptions. Fitbit now is doing this $10 month. Fitbit premium, and Fitbit's already had a coaching service that they had for a while, that was an offshoot of Fitstar. This folds in all the workout stuff, but also cast this wide umbrella where it claims to be able to do health reports to give to your doctor. Nothing FDA cleared, but this is Stuff like eventually weight loss plans, nutrition goals and management, deeper sleep analysis. Some stuff you probably wanna have in the free app. But they're gonna charge for this. And then they're gonna have an additional paid service next year that's gonna be more one on one health coaching. So it almost feels like the bigger splash for them. Yeah, no, definitely seems like they're making a big push of this disruption service. Just like everyone else. For the Daily Charge, I'm Roger Chang. I'm Scott Stein rabies free. And I'm Eli Blumenthal. Thanks for listening.