skywake

Just saw the WAN show, thought I'd make a comment regarding something @LinusTech said that wasn't accurate. It's definitely worth noting that, for this round of legacy devices at least, all of the devices being made "legacy" bar the boost (which is just a WiFi repeater) and the CR200 (which is a controller) DO have AUX in. Which makes sense because all of these are products that launched before 2009, before Spotify's launch in the US. When these products launched Sonos was mostly about internet radio, playing music from your iPod and playing music off a network share. Music streaming services were a novelty The Play3 was their first "no inputs" speaker in 2011, launching not-co-incidentally around the same time that Spotify launched in the US. That speaker and every product after this is not in the list of obsolete devices. Here's a graph that probably explains why this is, only two products SKUs on this graph are part of this group of legacy devices (note there were multiple Connects & Connect:AMPs). Node that both "legacy" devices have 32MB storage & RAM. Clearly they wanted a new feature they couldn't fit in 32MB Honestly, it's pretty easy to get a bit worked up about this one. As someone who has multiple Sonos products I certainly was when I first skimmed through some of the posts about this. But the more I dig into it the less concerned I am. As someone who cares about the Environment does obsolescence by firmware update worry me? Of course. But honestly, there are far worse offenders for far less reasonable reasons than this.

Who cares, you have a phone don't you? It makes a far better mp3 player. Same deal with Netflix. If you care about either of these things in any way you have devices that perform these functions already Complaining that the Switch doesn't have these things is like writing a review on a toaster: "1 star, on my sandwich press I can also scramble eggs on the hotplate"

Yeah, if you don't know that you need the expansion options you probably don't need them. Honestly most people can get away with a pretty entry level board as long as it's compatible with the CPU you are looking at. I personally would go a tiny bit above bargain basement just to get an extra 2 RAM slots and a second x16 PCIe slot (even if it's wired for x8) purely for a bit of expansion piece of mind.

I wouldn't hold my breath for newer optical media standards as we more-or-less just got a new one a few years ago with UHD BluRay. And with UHD BluRay we're at the point now where we have a format that exceeds the quality that movies are usually captured at and more or less exceeds the spec of any TV you can buy. In terms of relevance to PCs? I think it's only something that matters if you have a large collection of BluRays already and want to copy them to some network attached storage. That's the only reason I can think of why you'd want an optical drive on a PC in 2019. And for that any BluRay drive will do unless you're specifically wanting to get into UHD discs. If you're just wanting to causally watch a couple of movies? Use a streaming service or buy a BluRay player....

Actually there are almost twice as many games on the Switch than there are on the 3DS and as others have said the 3DS is basically dead at this point. It may be different in other regions but none of the bigger shops here have it in stock anymore, at least not new. And I can see 5 games released for it in the last year looking on metacritic. Even on quality the Switch wins hands down. As much as I like the 3DS' library the Switch has incredible depth beyond the first party staples. The 3DS you brought for Zelda, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Pokemon and Animal Crossing. The Switch has that.... but also Overwatch, Skyrim, Rocket League, Bayonetta, Okami, Diablo, Doom, Transistor, Thumper, Dark Souls, Overcooked, Witcher 3. The Switch is like if the Wii U, 3DS and Vita had a baby and that baby was selling well and attracting third party support

Been Nintendo + PC since forever given that, to be blunt, Nintendo is the only platform that offers something drastically different to PC. Especially since the start of the HD era. Over the last 15 years we've gone from a world where basically everything was exclusive to a world where basically everything is multi-plat. So, aside from old "gaming" PCs I still have.... - Gameboy - Gameboy Color - DS Lite - 3DS - 3DS XL - SNES - Wii - Wii U - Switch I only have my Switch plugged and/or charged and ready to go ATM. Everything else is in a box. But I do have a SNES Mini plugged into my TV as well as the Steam Link app. Other than this, my TV is pretty much Switch only and will remain so for a while. If you are wondering about the gaps, growing up my brother was more into Sony/Sega so he took those consoles: - Sega Master System - Playstation - Playstation 2 and I guess for completeness on his side I guess technically my Niece has: - GBA - DS Lite - 3DS - Wii - 360 - PS4 - Switch Dude, you're just making anyone over 20 feel old.

As others have said gaming in and of itself isn't going to chew up much bandwidth. But you really want more bandwidth for downloading the games themselves as well as updates etc. Also consider the fact that if you have a very slow connection and someone is watching Netflix or something your pings will skyrocket. So while you might only need a few Mbps for the game itself you want a fair amount of headroom. I'd say 10Mbps is the bare minimum as it's enough that an update can start without killing your pings. In terms of how that number scales with additional people? It's not quite as simple as saying that "10Mbps is the min for one, 20Mbps is required for 2". Bandwidth requirements per user follows more of a curve because of the way that spikey nature of network traffic. Kinda like how much traffic a highway needs to support for a given number of people you know are going to use it week to week. It doesn't need to support ALL of that traffic in one burst because people are going to leave at different times etc. Watch your network traffic while loading a youtube video for example, you will see that after buffering the first section most of the time your connection is idle. There are a whole bunch of variables you can throw at it but at a quick guess, it'd probably look something like this:

Not really a like for like comparison though, relatively speaking the PS4 wasn't as low spec or priced as a 2200G at launch. The fairer comparison would be to say something like good luck playing AAA games on a 2600 with a GTX1660 in 2025. Something at a similar price now to what the PS4 was at launch. Consoles may have a good 6 years in them but typically it's ~6 years from launch, not 6 years from time of purchase. Really this is kinda the main difference in price/performance between the two models. And I say model rather than platform because the PS4 and XBOne are basically PCs at this point anyway. Both of them have about a 5 year shelf life for "playing AAA games" because both models demand a 5 year upgrade cycle if you want to keep in touch with the newest titles. The difference is the console model locks you into the manufacturer's cycle while the PC gaming model is constantly moving. Consoles start out being far better value for money but over time that balance shifts back to PC. Almost like clockwork I've upgraded my PC every 5 years since I was in High School (Duron -> A64 -> Core2Duo -> i5 -> Ryzen 5). I've never really brought into the "PCs are upgradable" bit because for me it's pretty much always an entire platform change anyway. So "upgradability" isn't something I use as an advantage. What is an advantage is that I can choose when to upgrade, whenever that is, and still have a relatively decent platform for 5 years. If I was to buy a PS4 right now? Even if it was the Pro SKU it's already quite a bit behind and odds are in two years there will be new games that it can't play. So yeah, if you don't care about any of the productivity side of PCs and just care about gaming? Buying a console near launch isn't much different from buying a comparably priced PC. The problem is that with console gaming launch day not the day of your purchase is when the clock starts ticking

True, but on all sides not just on PC. And even within a platform people will mindlessly defend one option over another because of time/money/emotion invested. Quite litterally what being a mindless fanboy is. When people have locked themselves into something they will naturally defend and justify that decision after the fact. The Wii U litterally has a Wii built in for full backwards compatibility. But it's somewhat limited in what it can do and, officially, can't play Gamecube games. I assume because it lacks the memory card slots and Gamecube controller ports. They also stripped GC compatibility from all of the later versions of the Wii for the same reason. But it's definitely something that people have enabled via homebrew. Not sure if it's reading the discs themselves or off a HDD but.....

Technically the cable categories are just a measure of bandwidth over distance so it's a bit more complicated than that. The numbers you are quoting here are for 100m which is quite a bit longer than what you'd expect in a typical run for a house. Yes Cat5e for 1Gbps speeds because it easily meets the spec and is basically the cheapest cable you can get. But for "future proofing" to 10Gbps in a typical house you can probably get away with Cat6 rather than Cat6e because in a typical house you runs will be well under 50m. And Cat7 is complete a waste of time, don't bother with it. With that said @Rhaemond is only talking about connecting to the internet so all of this discussion is completely useless anyways. Even if they had a super fantastic internet connection I highly doubt they're going to anywhere near saturating 1Gbps. Hell, even if they have a file server and are asking about transferring files, even then the value of 10Gbps at this stage is pretty slim. Put simply, anyone who is unsure about what cable they should get? Very unlikely they'll know enough to actually be able to take advantage of 10Gbps so probably best to just go with Cat5e.

It's easy to get lost in the "this brand performs better" talk. The reality is that at specific price points there isn't really much of a gap between any of them. Whether that's AMD vs Intel or AMD vs Nvidia. Even when AMD's CPUs were super bellow par, they were super bellow par at significantly lower price points. With consoles there's also the fact that they can probably get a better deal if they go with AMD for both CPU & GPU than they would if they were AMD/NVidia, Intel/NVidia or Intel/AMD. So it kinda makes sense that in the generations since AMD acquired Radeon (2006, post R&D phase for the Wii/360/PS3 gen) it's been pretty much entirely AMD/AMD with the exception of the Switch with its Nvidia SoC. The Wii U was PPC based. Easy to laugh at it now with 20:20 hindsight but when you take your head back to ~2010 when they made that choice you can see why. By going PPC they maintained full backwards compatibility with Wii. They also made it easier for companies to port from 360/PS3 at a time when the PS3/XBOne were still a few years away. One of the many things that bit them in the end but... still worth remembering

I love the idea of portable displays but I kinda struggle to find the use case. The only thing I can really think of that'd work for me is taking it on holidays for media consumption. The bit in this video where they were playing mobile games in particular looked pretty compelling..... But then I remembered that: 1. I have a small tablet for this purpose 2. Pretty much all holiday destinations have a TV with a free HDMI anyways 3. I have a Switch which is FAR more compelling for portable gaming than a phone connected to a screen ..... now if I was into camping? Then sure. If I was always on the road? Then sure. But it's a hard sell anyways

The only way I'd bother "future proofing" for 10Gbps is with cabling if you're doing any kind of permanent cable run. Of course as tech enthusiasts we sometimes do things because we can rather than because we need it, particularly for personal use. But 10Gbps is a really tough sell ATM. Pricing it out just now it'd cost me at least $500AU for me to have 10Gbps between two of my machines (2x 10Gbps NICs and a switch with 2x 10Gbps ports). In reality it'd actually cost a lot more because I'm ignoring the fact that my NAS isn't upgradable in terms of networking capabilities so I'd have to buy/build a new one of those also. And for what advantage? After I rip a BluRay it would take ~10 seconds to copy to the NAS instead of ~2mins? Sure that'd be cool and I'd laugh manically everytime I wanted to copy a file. And you can bet your ass I'm looking forward to the day it becomes the standard. But in terms of "fun" how much is that actually worth? Probably not hundreds of dollars. I'd get far more "fun" value out of buying some higher spec access points or adding some security cameras to my network. Or buying something else entirely, pretty much anything else really.

Adding to what everyone else has said there are also scenarios where you might want the two cables to be two different things. Not just VLANs or more bandwidth necessarily. You may want one to be powering an access point or a camera via PoE. You may want a direct 10Gbps link between two devices but not want to have to buy multiple 10Gbps switches. You might even want to play around with one of those HDMI over Ethernet devices. Speaking for myself? I did a single run to every point I wanted networking and it's certainly workable. But there are certainly some locations where more than one run would've been handy. Honestly, if you're doing this make a point of overdoing it a bit and you'll save yourself money/effort in the long run. I ran my cables about 5 years ago, 5 runs in total all 1 cable. At that point that was pretty overkill because I had basically one device per run with the exception of my TV room. I now have only 1 room with 1 device, everywhere else has 2-5 wired devices. So 5 & 8 port switches in every room. I also have two rooms which have access points which are powered via PoE and I have to use a PoE injector rather than a central PoE switch. Also even though I don't need it at all I've toyed with the idea of 10Gbps but to do that the cheapest option would be to do more cable runs. First world problems for sure, having 1Gbps to every room alone is pretty amazing compared to the speeds I used to get across the house on WiFi. But if you're doing cable runs do at least two for every location. The cost/effort of running a second cable while you're doing it anyway is pretty trivial. If I had done two runs instead of 1 everywhere I would currently have: - 3 more spare power points around the house - my UPS backing up power to both access points instead of just 1 (and more flexibility in where I put my second AP) - A couple of hundred $ cheaper upgrade path to 10Gbps between my NAS/PC if I wanted to ..... also if I was to do it again I would've done separate runs for my APs and mounted them on the roof instead of ghetto mounting them on the wall after the fact. Something which I am thinking of doing anyways

The way I see it the main selling point of game streaming has always been that you can have high end visuals on low end devices. Think of the NVidia Shield or the Wii U GamePad. Despite the lack of commercial success the entire point of those products was that you could have relatively high spec visuals on a semi-portable device. Laugh at the Wii U if you want but in 2012 the idea of having Assassin's Creed on the Wii U GamePad was pretty compelling given how far behind the Vita and 3DS were. The issue I have with Stadia though is that this key selling point isn't as compelling as it was 5-10 years ago. Worse it's getting increasingly less compelling as the years go on. Think about it, what makes the Switch less compelling today than a high end gaming PC or an XBOne X? Not really the games it can run so much. More the fact that the Switch is only doing 720p/30fps most of the time and those higher spec machines are pushing 4K. But with Stadia, because it's streaming, you're giving up framerate and resolution anyways. So why not just leverage the increasing power of the mobile GPU in your devices instead?

Those were VC releases not remasters. Also the emulation on Wii U VC was pretty average overall. Other than save states and lower latency on modern tvs with HDMI vs the original no reason to bother with them on Wii U. Go with the 3DS versions

And yet you included the PS2, Gamecube, OG XBox and Pro versions of PS4 & XBOne but not Wii U and 3DS. I mean I can forgive you for forgetting the Wii U even as someone who has one and always used to defend it. It isn't available for sale anymore and it sold worse than anything else on your list. I can also kinda understand including the PS2 in here even though it's discontinued and has been for years given that globally it's still the best selling console ever. But ignoring the 3DS is a bit rough given that it's still available on store shelves, unlike Wii U, and sold more units than half of the stuff on your list. Especially when you're for some reason including different SKUs of the PS4 & XBOne. I don't count the PS4 Pro or XBOne X as "different consoles" to the originals. And if they are then the DSi and New 3DS should be included. And if you think it would have been stupid to have included them then.... you understand my point about the PS4 Pro and XBOne X You don't have to say this in every thread and in any case this really isn't true anymore and hasn't been for a while. In the first half of 2017? Sure, this was arguably where the Switch was in comparison to the Wii U's library. But now you're just starting to sound a bit crazy when you say this. This would be my list worthwhile Wii U exclusives left without something equivalent either on Switch or upcoming: - Pikmin 3 - Super Mario 3D World - Zelda HD remasters And this is the reverse of that, stuff that's on Switch that has no Wii U equivalent: - Super Mario Odyssey - Arms - Mario + Rabbids - Pokemon Lets Go - Pokemon Sword/Shield - Link's Awakening - Animal Crossing - Astral Chain (I'm pretty hyped about this one TBH) - Bayonetta 3 - Fire Emblem - Actual third party support - Pretty much all of the indie games If you had a Wii U and loved it? You clearly like Nintendo's stuff enough to have got the Wii U. As such at this stage you're really going to start missing out on a LOT by not getting a Switch. If you are a fan of Nintendo there's no reason for you not to have or at least want a Switch. Anyone who says otherwise, anyone who says that the Wii U is enough, they're fooling nobody but themselves at this point.

I'd say probably neither. I wouldn't get Overwatch on PS4 purely because it's really not the sort of game I'd bother with on consoles. I'm not much of a "PC Master Race" kind of guy but for not particularly graphically demanding but very fast competitive shooters I'd draw the line. If you have a laptop or any PC that's not a complete potato and a mouse of some kind you'd be better off getting it on PC. And with the 2DS and Mario Kart? As others have said the 3DS line is on its last legs and isn't a platform I'd buy into at this point. Sure you can get some amazing games at very low prices but that's also because it's a system on its last legs. Literally the only upcoming 3DS game I'm aware of is Kirby's Epic Yarn which comes out next month. There's new Pokemon, Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem coming out this year but they're all coming to Switch only. I got a 3DS in late 2011 and upgraded to a 3DS XL a couple of years after that. I was considering getting a 2DS because the hinge on my 3DS XL has seen better days but TBH? I haven't touched the thing for over a year. If you're on a budget I'd go for the 2DS I guess but.... with the kind of visuals it's capable of (or not capable of) and the complete lack of any upcoming titles? It's hard for me to say it's a "good value" in 2019. Honestly if I was you I'd buy something else on your PS4, anything else really. Well anything except competitive shooters which are garbage on consoles

Always been a Nintendo + PC person so in chronological order..... [not "my" console but my brother had a Master System] - SNES - Gameboy [again not mine but my brother got a Playstation around this time] - Gameboy Color [Built my first gaming PC around here so didn't see a reason to have a console] - DS Lite - Wii - 3DS - Wii U - 3DS XL - Switch

To put it another way, people will always want to try and convince themselves that the decision/platform they are invested in was the correct one. When you've spent thousands of dollars on a platform and have a collection of content that can only be played on that platform? You will inevitably keep telling yourself that the platform you picked was the right one. And the longer you stay with that platform the more you have to loose by swapping. It's the same thing with anything where there are multiple options and picking one means not picking the other. Not unlike how I'm knee deep in the Sonos ecosystem. When I'm looking at reviews of other "multi-room audio" solutions all I see are the things they don't do. Purely because for me there's a much higher bar those devices have to clear, buying into something that doesn't play nice with the ~$2000AU of Sonos gear I have would be stupid. Equally when I see a review of Sonos gear I see criticisms as either the reviewer not knowing something or a valid criticism I've had to learn to live with. Without me knowing I ignore the negatives of the thing I have and notice immediately the negatives of the alternatives.

Yeah, it has kinda turned around again in the last couple of years. It used to be that buying an older model or a cheaper model meant you were missing out on a lot of features. These days even entry level phones have 720p 5" screens, wireless AC, 4G, 2GB RAM, ~8MP cameras. For what I use my phone for i.e. messenger, email, web browser, occasional photos, gps and music? That's enough for me.

My first phone was a motorola c201 "coke phone", I believe I got it the same year @LinusTech got his. It was part of a promo with Coke here in Australia where you could get a phone on a Telstra Pre-Paid Contract for I believe $50 if you brought in a certain number of labels from bottles of Coke to a post office. I believe it had Snake, don't remember what the other games were.

Played Overwatch more than anything else again but probably my favourite game I played in 2018 was Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Honorable mention to Thumper:

@Stefan Payne Completely useless test given the ALDI TV was the best performer. As said multiple times, the only thing that you can't do with the built in functions of most TV is playback videos from optical media. For these purposes the XBOne is a class above the others and a reasonable addition to most setups purely for the inclusion of UHD BluRay playback. End of discussion.

Something worth adding here that was deleted when @SansVarnic cleaned the thread. It is worth pointing out that the XBOne S actively converts surround signals to Dolby Digital 5.1. This won't matter if you don't have a surround setup or if you have a "proper" surround setup but for some setups this is a pretty big deal. For example if you have something like a Sonos with two rears as I do you are limited to what can be pushed over HDMI ARC or optical. HDMI ARC only supports Stereo PCM or Dolby Digital 5.1, so DD 5.1 is the only option if you want surround. My other non-4K BluRay player did this, the new UHD player (Panasonic DP-UB420) I got instead of an XBOne S as a way to save a bit of money does not. It will only downmix Dolby signals to DD 5.1 and DTS-HD to DTS but also anything to Stereo PCM. So I'm in this interesting position where most BluRays, which have a DTS-HD track, don't work in surround for me but all DVDs do and a lot of newer UHD disks with Dolby Atmos do also. I still have my old player so I can get around this but still, as far as I'm concerned an XBox One is not only a good option for a 4K BluRay player but it's one of the better options.