OPINION: There have been plenty of big tech headlines in the world this week but here are the ones that caught our attention.
There’s rarely a dull moment here at Trusted Reviews but the last seven days have felt particularly jam packed with the latest Apple tech having arrived in the office (keep an eye out for our reviews in the near future), and a much needed State of Play from Sony to justify the future of PlayStation and why gamers should invest in a PS5 Pro.
We also got our first look at the all-new Meta Orion AR glasses which, despite being a tad chunky, seem like they could be a product that finally delivers on the promise of true augmented reality, and in a form factor that’s more comfortable to wear long-term than a VR headset.
Still, none of these stories made our top picks this week so keep on reading to see what came out on top, and what’s lagging behind.
Winner: Nintendo (and Switch owners)
In the ever-raging debate about whether or not the PS5 or Xbox Series X/Series S have delivered enough exclusives in their generation to justify their existence, I think that gamers have forgotten just how impressive the Switch’s library has been, and continues to be.
Case in point, although we know the Switch is at the end of its lifecycle with the long-awaited successor set to arrive sometime in 2025, Nintendo is still putting out top-tier titles like The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom.
I absolutely adored the game and felt that it easily earned a 4.5-star rating, winning me over with its different take on combat and highly compelling puzzle solving. It’s an absolute gem that I recommend Switch owners of all ages should pick up.
The fact that we also have a new Mario Party title, the first new Mario & Luigi game in years, as well as the eagerly anticipated Metroid Prime 4 still to come, it’s impressive to see that Nintendo has no plans just yet to wind the Switch down in its final stages. As someone who’s had the Nintendo Switch since its 2017 launch day, I know that I’ve had plenty bang for my buck in a way that my other consoles have sadly yet to deliver on, and it sets a great precedent going into the Switch 2.
Loser: Fitbit
Another week, another slide in the ongoing downfall of the Fitbit brand that has been occurring ever since it was bought out by Google. This time it’s the news that Fitbit’s own website is scheduled to be sunsetted on October 10th.
Heading over to the website right now shows a banner at the top declaring that the ability to buy Fitbit products will move over to the Google Store completely. While it does make sense as a means of streamlining access to Google’s collective product lines, it is yet another sign of how Fitbit’s identity has been slowly swallowed up by its parent company.
As a reminder, since its acquisition, the ability to download and stream music offline on the Fitbit Sense and Versa smartwatches has been removed completely, and the same goes for several of the social features previously available in the Fitbit app.
At this point it feels as if Google only really bought the Fitbit brand to give the Pixel Watch line more credibility in the area of fitness tracking, and not too dissimilar to Apple’s approach with Beats, Fitbit hardware will only live on in the budget category as a means of enticing though who can’t afford a full-fat smartwatch. Suffice to say, Fitbit’s days of defining the fitness tracking movement are long gone.
