that only do 720P without pumping it through an HDMI port?
I would think, given the prices of 4k tv's that you could at least get to 1080P, but like most anime, higher resolution for Nintendo games may not buy you much...
I mean you can pick up an octo-core 1080P tablet with 4GB of memory for under $100 US.
The limited screen resolution isn't due to some technical limitation relating to the display itself, it's a power consumption thing. They could have put a 1080p screen in the Switch, and they could have clocked the Tegra X1 high enough to drive it (they dramatically underclock it), but the battery on the launch model would have lasted around an hour and a half. People already complained a lot about the official battery life of as little as 2.5 hours in the original launch model, and celebrated the 4.5 hour battery life of the later revision (it was from a die shrink). And even achieving that battery life required clockspeeds low enough that it can't always maintain 720p30 in some games.
I suppose you could say it's also a cost thing. These things are built to a cost. It launched in 2017 with a 20nm TSMC processor when TSMC had already been shipping 10nm chips for a while. A new Switch today could probably push much higher than 720p with reasonable battery life if they put a 5nm chip in there, but they won't. They'll use an older die process to keep costs down.
Are there a lot of other "systems" (Score:2)
that only do 720P without pumping it through an HDMI port?
I would think, given the prices of 4k tv's that you could at least get to 1080P, but like most anime, higher resolution for Nintendo games may not buy you much...
I mean you can pick up an octo-core 1080P tablet with 4GB of memory for under $100 US.
Re:Are there a lot of other "systems" (Score:5, Informative)
The limited screen resolution isn't due to some technical limitation relating to the display itself, it's a power consumption thing. They could have put a 1080p screen in the Switch, and they could have clocked the Tegra X1 high enough to drive it (they dramatically underclock it), but the battery on the launch model would have lasted around an hour and a half. People already complained a lot about the official battery life of as little as 2.5 hours in the original launch model, and celebrated the 4.5 hour battery life of the later revision (it was from a die shrink). And even achieving that battery life required clockspeeds low enough that it can't always maintain 720p30 in some games.
I suppose you could say it's also a cost thing. These things are built to a cost. It launched in 2017 with a 20nm TSMC processor when TSMC had already been shipping 10nm chips for a while. A new Switch today could probably push much higher than 720p with reasonable battery life if they put a 5nm chip in there, but they won't. They'll use an older die process to keep costs down.