Alright, a bunch of people from the gaming media had some hands-on time with the upcoming OLED Nintendo Switch last week, with impressions now coming out.

• The new Switch has few core changes save for a new fancy 7-inch OLED screen, up from 6.2 inches.
• Not much else has changed, and it’ll be $50 more for a $350 console that’s still hot.

Check it out:

• Some leaks out of the event seemed to have occurred, with Japanese YouTuber HikakinTV, unboxing it with white gloves, while Nintendo Prime also obtained some video of someone with a US-based OLED Switch, unboxing it as well on YouTube.

What they’re saying:

• A bunch of the reviews say the screen is a big improvement, not just because of the shrinking bezels and larger screen overall, but it’s brighter and nicer looking. It’s still 720p, though.
• From Axios Gaming: “Last week, I played the upcoming “Metroid Dread” on the OLED model for 90 minutes and got sucked into the game, quickly forgetting about the screen. That’s what good games do. Only when I looked over at my original Switch did I again feel the impact of the screen size. Games on that one now feel like they’re playing in a picture frame.”
• CNET praised the screen (“It was immediately obvious that the new screen is a big deal”) but made a bigger point of how good the new, full-width kickstand is way better: “Instead of a wobbly strip less than one inch wide, the new kickstand runs almost the entire width of the system. Instead of snapping into one position, locked in at a specific angle, it’s highly adjustable and stays put at any angle along the way.” Hooray! That is a good improvement.
• Otherwise, the same Nvidia Tegra X1 chipset is in place, and no change to the Joy-Cons. The Switch OLED does come with double the internal storage, at 64GB, and the new dock has a built-in LAN connection port for reducing lag.
• No indication of long-term battery life, given the demands of the bigger OLED panel.
• Also, The Verge and others focused more on the coming Metroid Dread, which everyone at the press event seemed to play, and impressions from an hour or so of play seemed to be good.
• The official release date for the OLED Switch and Metroid Dead is October 8, though keep your eyes peeled as they seem to be available early if you’re crazy lucky?

🔜 We don’t have Android 12 available yet (any day now!), but Android 12.1 features have leaked: A ton of foldable improvements incoming (Android Authority).

💊 Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 specs reportedly leak for upcoming budget tablet (Android Authority). Also in tablets: HMD Global has announced plans to introduce a new Nokia tablet on October 6, so that’s all confirmed now (Android Authority).

🍟 Wendy’s (Canada) has an Android phone now in the darkest of timelines (Android Authority).

💻 Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 review: Ninth time’s the charm, as the popular business-focused device moves to a 16:10 screen and upward-firing speakers (The Verge).

🍎 iPhone 13 Pro teardown from iFixit tracks what’s new in internals, including the larger L-shaped battery (iFixit).

😬 One of the outcomes of the WSJ’s Facebook Files is now Instagram announcing it is “pausing” work on Instagram Kids (or, Teens) just ahead of a Senate hearing on Thursday (The Verge).

👉 Trump pushing Microsoft to buy TikTok was ‘strangest thing I’ve ever worked on,’ says Satya Nadella (The Verge).

💰 Wow: Alibaba apps are starting to support Tencent’s WeChat Pay which a year or two ago, would’ve been crazy to think about. Now, the Chinese government is tearing down walls even on the super apps (CNBC).

📦 A new wall-mounted Echo, a drone, and everything else to expect from Amazon’s big hardware event later today (The Verge).

⌨ Honey, I shrunk the keyboard: Logitech’s MX Keys now comes in a Mini version (CNET).

📺 Beloved 90s sci-fi show Babylon 5 is getting rebooted, with J. Michael Straczynski at the Helm (Gizmodo).

🏎️ Former Apple designer Jony Ive and co-founder Marc Newson have their first public clients post-Apple: Ferrari. No details as to what will come out of the deal, yet (ferrari.com).

😬 Imgur has been acquired by MediaLab (The Verge).

👕 Why robots can’t sew your T-shirt: textiles bunch and stretch as they’re worked with, but companies aren’t giving up (Wired).

📡 Researchers use Starlink satellites to pinpoint location, similar to GPS, without any help from SpaceX. Really smart stuff (Ars Technica).

🔴 Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is spinning faster as winds have picked up (Gizmodo).

🤼‍♂️ Hakuho: Sumo wrestling’s greatest champion retires. Truly the Michael Jordan/Wayne Gretzky/Don Bradman of a sport that goes back centuries (BBC). A bunch of informed comments in this Reddit thread (r/sports).

🤔 “Forget questions, what’s your favorite answer?” (r/askreddit)

Here’s something quite cool; the Earth’s Submarine Fiber Optic Cable Network with a 3D viz of the globe with data from submarinecablemap.com:

• So many observations here — just how much flows through Guam, for example, the mess of islands/nations in the Caribbean, and how much effort Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon are themselves putting into new cables.
• And it’s topical today because Facebook’s 2Africa cable is set to become the longest subsea cable in the world by adding another 5,000 miles or so of cable to connect more regions of Africa to the world.

Cheers,

Tristan Rayner, Senior Editor