Please talk to me about handheld games consoles for 8 year olds, am clueless!

[IndecentFeminist]

As per title really, we are thinking about getting ds a handheld console for his birthday next month. Most of his friends have switches, which seem to come out top on reviews etc.

But these are the best part of £300 plus games.

Then I have seen the Lite, which is around £200 plus games.

Or for £100 plus I could get a decent 3ds XL . These seem to have good reviews as well, but I'm worried about whether they're a bit crap and he'll get bored of it?

I think a few of his friends have switches and so can play together remotely, but not sure we can stretch that far at the moment.

Any words of wisdom? 🤞🙏

My 2 go back to their nintendo ds consoles every so often. Also good for long car journeys, if we ever get to do them again! Ds (13) is currently replaying a pokemon game on his. Dd(16) has a switch but ds hasnt shown much interest in it.

As the mother of two teenage boys, I’d say it is always worth going with whatever console friends have. The switch is great. We have two, and one of them was bundled free with a phone upgrade with virgin recently. In fact one of our PS4s came via this method too.

If you could stretch to the switch lite then I think he could still play online with his friends.

But yes still expensive as these things always are.

My 6 year old had a DS before his switch but he didnt like it as the screen was a bit too small for his liking.

I bought my little boy (nearly 5) a switch from
Amazon warehouse. It was a lot cheaper because the box was damaged. I would recommend it as you can do a lot more with it than on a ds and have access to older nes games. Amazon warehouse might have some offers on the lite too. I always check it for games which are sometimes half the price because they have been sent back.

We bought our DS7 a Nintendo 3ds for Christmas and he loves it. I suppose it depends what you want it for as we chose a ds because I didn't want him playing online with friends- I think he's too young and parents of his friends think the same.

We never use the 3D screen aspect of it but he loves the games. He has Mario Kart, Mario World and a Lego one that he's currently obsessed with.

Nintendo is definitely best for this age group, there is a huge range of games available including Mario and Pokemon.

My 8 year old DD has a switch lite and uses it for almost all of her screen time. I managed to get it cheap and bundled with games on cyber Monday but I would definitely pay full price for it.

I would definitely go with a switch if you can a light if

They group like this, with each group covering the same games:
Oldest, 2000s: DS/DSi - £30ish
Oldish, 2010s: 3DS/2DS of various shapes - £100ish (will play all DS games too)
Newest, current: Switch, Switch Lite - £280/£200

All of them are excellent with a huge range of games each. Jumping in at the Switch Lite level would be amazing if you can afford it, but the cost is a lot for an 8yo to look after. I'd probably go for an older 3DS and see if that survives.

All of them take cartridges, and all of them have some games available on download too - though getting a DS on wifi is hard now, it only supports crappy deprecated encryption! For the Switch, every game can be download. 3DS is in the middle. Cartridges mean you can resell games, swap with friends, and lost them because they're tiny.

Dts are getting switch lies for their 8th birthdays. We looked t the DS but they I'll be obsolete very soon.

You can get some good Nintendo Switches second hand on Facebook marketplace for much less. We got one for our 8yo DS at Christmas and he loves it. All the games are totally appropriate for that age

Switches seem to be out of stock everywhere right now. Some availability of the Lite version.

The Switch is definitely good enough to be worth it's price, I think. Especially during lockdown! We've had ours over a year, if we were buying now I'd probably get a Switch Lite as DC mostly play individually and handheld rather than through the tv.

if you can id get a switch over the switch lite as you can use it on the tv so you can all play together.. if you are only able to get the switch lite then id prob just go for a ds. the switch is well worth it. so much fun.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I bit the bullet and ordered a lite from Smyth's with a game for £209 which seemed competitive. I found £146 in my Quidco account so that covered most of it!