In under three weeks, the collective eyes of the tech industry will turn to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, the biggest and most important trade show in the world of mobile communications. More than 100,000 attendees from nearly 200 countries are expected every year, and unlike CES in recent times, MWC still regularly manages to entice major manufacturers into announcing their most important devices at the show.
That’s the plan, at least — but this year, things may be a little different. The outbreak of the coronavirus in China and subsequent spread to other countries has claimed hundreds of lives. It’s also disrupting supply chains vital to the development of smartphones, and wreaking travel havoc in Asia, where most of MWC’s marquee exhibitors are based; many countries are restricting flights to and from China. LG and ZTE have already cancelled some plans for the show. It’s hard to imagine there won’t be further disruption.
MWC 2020 was set to feature an even larger Chinese contingent than ever before, with all of the country’s major smartphone brands planning a meaningful presence. As of today, that appears still to be the case. Xiaomi, Vivo, and Honor all tell The Verge that they remain intent on attending. Huawei is also still planning to make announcements at the show despite recently cancelling its Shenzhen developer conference, although sources familiar with the situation say the company is likely to axe certain events and significantly reduce the number of employees who travel. Qualcomm, Lenovo, and Motorola also tell The Verge that plans remain in place for MWC.
The GSM Association, which organizes MWC, maintains it’ll be business as usual in Barcelona. That’s understandable given the show has a big economic impact of 492 million euros this year, and also generates 14,100 part-time jobs, according to the GSMA. The GSMA is an industry trade body that represents more than 1,200 companies across the mobile ecosystem, and MWC is the chance for thousands to gather for partnerships, deals, and product launches for the global press.
“There is minimal impact on the event thus far,” the association said in a statement yesterday. “MWC Barcelona 24-27 February 2020 will proceed as planned across all venues.” The GSMA says it will be increasing medical support and disinfection measures on site and communicating best practices to attendees. Speakers will be subject to a new microphone changing protocol. A “no-handshake policy” is also being advised for all at the show, though that sounds impractical to enforce.
It’s no surprise to see an everything-is-fine statement from the GSMA at this point. MWC has been hit by public transport strikes multiple times in the past, causing chaos as attendees attempt to get around the city, and the association puts out identical press releases ahead of time to try to assuage fears with talk of contingency plans, which in The Verge’s experience tend not to be too effective. All the escalator handrail disinfectant in the world isn’t going to convince people they’re safe from an airborne virus.
Regardless of reassurances from the organizers and exhibitors, it seems inevitable that the coronavirus will have an effect on MWC. Cases have been surging in recent days, with no sign of the spread of the virus slowing down. It’s incredibly easy to get sick at trade shows at the best of times, and this is very much not the best of times. Various authorities are already advising people to avoid public gatherings, let alone events where tens of thousands of attendees are flying around the world to gather shoulder-to-shoulder in the same rooms. With cases of the new coronavirus confirmed in neighboring France and the nearby Canary Islands, a Spanish autonomous community, it’d be understandable if people were to think twice about attending.
LG alluded to that in its announcement, citing “the safety of its employees and [the] general public” and saying it wanted to “prevent needlessly exposing hundreds of LG employees to international travel, which most health experts have advised.” ZTE, meanwhile, said it was cancelling its press conference because it tends to be “an overly courteous company and simply [doesn’t] want to make people uncomfortable.”
It has to be mentioned, too, that Asian people around the world are experiencing a marked increase in xenophobia and racist attacks as a result of the outbreak, as was the case with the SARS virus in 2003. Employees of Chinese companies make up a huge proportion of the hundred-thousand-plus attendees at MWC every year, and racial discrimination is likely to increase at this year’s event. If MWC is to go ahead this month, the GSMA must do everything within its capabilities to crack down on this kind of unacceptable behavior.
Whether or not more companies decide to pull out of the show, MWC 2020 is likely to have a very different atmosphere to previous years. As ever, The Verge is planning to attend as long as we expect there to be news to cover — safely. But we already have two fewer companies to meet with than we thought we would, and we’d be surprised if that number didn’t grow.
Similar to the 2019 Windows version of this machine, Dell is happy to tout its webcam—if for no other reason than that it no longer focuses up the nose. (This is the webcam with externals stretched out in a mock-up.)
Dell's XPS 13 Developer Edition, the company's flagship "just works" Ubuntu-based machine, was recently refreshed. These days Dell's XPS line is not the cheapest Linux option, nor is it the most configurable or user-upgradable. And if any of those factors are a big part of your criteria, this is likely not the laptop for you.
On top of that, many Linux users still have a strong DIY streak and will turn up their noses at the XPS 13. After all, in a day and age when just about every laptop I test seems to run Linux fairly well right out of the box, do you need official support? If you know what you're doing and don't mind troubleshooting your own problems, the answer is probably not.
Yet after spending a few weeks with the latest XPS 13 (the fourth refresh I've tested), it's hard to shake the feeling that this is the closest any company has come to Linux-computing nirvana. The XPS 13 Developer Edition makes an excellent choice for anyone who prefers Linux but wants hardware support from the manufacturer. All these years into its Linux odyssey, Dell continues to stands behind the operating system on these machines in a way that, in my experience, few other computer makers do.
So if you want a computer that runs smoothly and for which you can pick up the phone and get help should you need it, the Dell XPS 13 remains one of the best options out there (maybe regardless of your OS preference). It doesn't hurt, either, that the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition is also a great-looking, solidly-built piece of hardware. If you dream of a Linux rig that "just works" and comes in a powerful, minimalist package that weighs a mere 2.7lbs, the XPS 13 Developer Edition fits the bill.
But wait, which XPS 13 DE to get?
In early 2020, where the decision gets confusing is which Dell XPS 13 to consider. To judge by the number of machines and models available, Dell's Project Sputnik—the company's long-running effort to bring Ubuntu-based hardware to the masses—has been an unqualified success. Not only are there more models and configurations than ever, Dell keeps churning out hardware updates, usually on pace with the Windows models.
That's no small feat considering that this hardware has to undergo a completely different set of compatibility tests from the Windows machines. To be fair, some features have lagged behind in the Linux models; the fingerprint reader is a good example. The Windows version of the XPS 13 released in early 2019 features a fingerprint reader on the power button. The same feature has not been available in the Linux edition until now.
While I was testing the late 2019 Developer Edition update, Dell announced another update. The new 2020 version (the 10th-gen XPS 13 Developer Edition for those of you keeping track), gets Ice Lake processors with Gen11 graphics, and a new, larger screen. This 2020 Developer Edition will also be available with up to 32 GB of RAM, up from 16 GB in the model I tested. Better late than never, support for the fingerprint reader is also coming. It won't be available at launch in mid-February, but Dell says that support will arrive soon after.
As the company has in the past, Dell will continue to sell both the new and previous XPS 13 DE releases this year—this time the two devices just happen to go live four months apart (the 2019 in November; the 2020 this month). Laptop seekers need to know their model numbers: the late 2019 release I primarily tested is the 7390, and the coming 2020 version is the 9300 (yes, Dell told me the model numbers start over at 9300 in 2020—the same model number used in 2016).
Luckily, I had a chance to play with the new 9300 hardware recently at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. (Linux fans will be happy to know: it had a prominent spot on the display, right next to the Windows version.) Even a small amount of in-person tinkering time allows me to make some notable comparisons with the 2019 model.
Enlarge/ Dell's 2020 CES lineup: two of the new XPS 13 laptops next to the new XPS 13 Developer Edition laptop (in black).
Valentina Palladino
What's new: 2019 version v. 2020 version
The XPS 13 line has stuck with largely the same design since it launched. The bezel seems to always diminish by some nearly immeasurable amount, but otherwise the hardware has looked about the same for years now. The 2019 model is no exception to this trend. Side-by-side it's impossible to tell apart from the 2018 model I own, save for one little detail: no more nose cam.
As Ars noted last year when the Windows model was released, the webcam is no longer at the base of the screen staring straight up your nose. Instead the webcam is where it belongs, at the top of the screen.
The iteration of the XPS 13 line I've been testing features Intel's Comet Lake 6-core i7-10710U processor. It's a marginal step up from the previous version, but in outside benchmarks I haven't really noticed a huge speed increase. What I have noticed is that this version runs consistently cooler than my 2018 version (both running Ubuntu 18.04).
So what of those two extra cores? It may not sound like much, but if you push your processor (whether editing video, gaming, or compiling software), you're going to want six cores. I happened to be editing a video while reviewing this laptop and, using Lightworks, what took 38 minutes to export on my 2018 XPS 13 took a mere 19 minutes on the Comet Lake chip.
The model Dell sent for testing had the max 16GB of RAM and a 1TB solid state drive. As configured, the test machine would set you back $1899.99. The lowest model, which has the 1080p display, an i5 chip, 128GB SSD, and only 8GB of RAM, can be had for $975.
The build quality hasn't changed, and the XPS 13 remains a solidly built machine. The construction is excellent and the underlying aluminum frame provides a stiffness that makes it feel solid even though it's so light. The finish holds up quite well, too. My 2018 model has bounced around in my bag, slid across many a table, and scraped over tile counters in the kitchen all without leaving many marks. I expect the same will be true of the latest model.
Though I've been using one for years now, the XPS 13's InfinityEdge display still amazes me, too. No, it's not OLED, but it manages to pack a 13-inch screen into a body that otherwise looks and feels more like an 11-inch laptop. Dell has always sent me the version with the 4K IPS touch panel. You can get the XPS 13 with a 1920x1080 screen, and it will get better battery life (more on that in a minute), but I think the higher res display is worth the extra money.
Previously there were quite a few pain points with HiDPI screens in Ubuntu, but that's largely a thing of the past. The grub menu and boot screens are still impossibly small, and every now and then there's an app that doesn't scale properly—Zoom, I'm looking at you here. But by and large, the combination of work done by the GNOME project, Ubuntu, and Dell have sorted out these issues.
I do find the brightest setting to be overwhelming when working indoors (the XPS 13 maxes out at 472 nits brightness), though it does mitigate the glare somewhat if you're working outside. For me, I'd say this is a screen you want to keep indoors—it's very high gloss and glare is an issue outside. I tend to keep the screen at 70 percent brightness, which helps with battery life and is still plenty bright.
As for the 2020 version of the XPS 13 Developer Edition, again it features 10th generation Intel Core 10nm mobile processors along with a new, larger display.
That new screen is one of those"of course" changes. Once you see it, you'll wonder why it wasn't that way from the beginning. Gone is the Dell logo that used to grace the wider bottom bezel. Instead, you get more screen real estate with a new 16:10 aspect ratio (up from 16:9 on the 2019 and prior models).
It's a small gain, but at this screen size, frankly, anything is welcome. For that alone, I would pick the 2020 model over the 2019 version (model 7390). But evidently the dimensions of the XPS 13 have been tweaked slightly as well. I couldn't tell much difference holding it, but the keyboard keys are noticeably bigger. They're also somewhat springier than previous versions (no, thankfully it's not the same as the 2-in-1 model the Internet loves to hate on).
I can't speak the performance of the 2020 model since my hands-on time was limited, but the 2019 version's 6-core Comet Lake i7 chip brings some speed improvements over prior releases. Another bit of welcome news is the option to get 32 GB of RAM, because really, can you ever have too much RAM?
The other area of improvement is with battery life. Dell claims some crazy numbers for XPS battery life with these updates. The battery in the 1080p version of the XPS 13 purportedly lasts 18 hours. The 4K display must be a massive battery drain because I did not get anywhere near that number in testing mine. Playing back a 1080p video full screen on the loop, the 2019 model managed just over nine hours. That's very good, especially for Linux, but it's nowhere near the claimed max life.
There are plenty of things you can do to squeeze some more life out of the battery though. Under my normal work load—terminal running tmux with vim, mpd, and mutt, a Web browser (qutebrowser), and Slack—with the screen at 70 percent, and Bluetooth off, I managed several hours more. So long as this laptop was fully charged in the morning, I never worried about running the battery low over the course of a workday.
That said, if you're compiling software, editing video, or otherwise pushing the CPU, your battery life will decline. In these use cases, it may be worth considering the 1080p model, though personally I'd rather carry a cord and have the 4K screen.
Another change worth noting is support for WiFi 6. Yes, WiFi has version numbers now. What's being called WiFi 6 is actually 802.11ax and is already shipping in many routers. Unfortunately I didn't have one to test with, but in testing I've done seperately I've seen about 20-30 percent speed boosts over 802.11ac. If you have or plan to upgrade your router in the near future, either of the new models will see the benefit.
It's time for an upgrade to Bionic Beaver.
Ubuntu 18.04 follows the lead set by 17.10 and uses the GNOME interface, but it defaults to the Xorg rendering engine instead of Wayland (which was used in the previous release).
The major interface changes to Ubuntu in 18.04 will be familiar territory to GNOME users—especially those who have used recent Debian distributions and Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark). To those who are used to Ubuntu 16.04 (and liked it), it will take a little getting used to.
Here's the application trays and settings screens of 16.04 and 18.04 side by side to highlight the differences.
Ubuntu 18.04 offers an alternate minimum install that includes just the basics and the Firefox Web browser—an install that makes it simpler to make corporate images.
As with previous releases, you can encrypt the entire boot disk for security...
...and unlock it with a password at power-up.
The full install of Bionic Beaver includes some of the usual software package suspects, including the RhythmBox music application and Shotwell photo manager.
LibreOffice is also part of the default (non-minimal) install.
But full integration of the Snap universal Linux software package installer in Ubuntu's Apps store now means it's easier to add new, containerized applications—without concerns about dependency issues.
These applications are all available as "snaps" now, including Slack.
Can't live without Slack, now, can we?
Livepatch, a feature that automatically applies security patches without a need for a reboot, is now included as part of the Ubuntu LTS default install. It requires creating an Ubuntu One account.
You can opt out of sending metrics back, but Mark Shuttleworth says that the metadata will help guide decisions about future releases and give Canonical a picture of what kind of hardware people are installing Ubuntu on.
What's not new: Ubuntu 18.04
If you want official support for Ubuntu, you're always going to be looking at LTS releases. For the XPS 13s shipping now and in the near future, that means Ubuntu 18.04 will be the default operating system.
While 18.04 is a solid release, recent updates (particularly 19.10, which arrived in October 2019) bring some huge performance improvements that would make these updated hardware profiles even better. I looked at Ubuntu 19.10 for Ars last year, and some of the highlights include much snappier GNOME desktop, experimental support for ZFS, and more default applications shipped as self-contained Snap packages.
Shortly after the 2020 XPS 13 is available, Ubuntu 20.04 will arrive as Canonical's next LTS release. Everything that made 19.10 such a welcome update will be in 20.04, so at least there is that to look forward to. And quite frankly, Dell's hardware upgrades to the XPS 13 might well pale next to the software upgrade that 20.04 will bring. If previous Ubuntu/Dell upgrade cycles are anything to go by, look for 20.04 to come to the XPS line in late Summer of 2020.
However... I am impatient. As I always do with new XPS machines, I attempted to bring my 2019 XPS 13 up to Ubuntu 19.10. Unfortunately, for the first time I can recall when upgrading an XPS 13, I failed. Or rather, I hit enough roadblocks that I gave up.
Somehow in the move from 18.04 to 19.04, the drivers for the WiFi card disappeared, and while the drivers for Ethernet showed up and claimed to work, I could never actually connect to download any updates. I could download the drivers to another machine, copied them over, and then installed them, but honestly, it shouldn't have been that hard. I'd have a hard time suggesting anyone else attempt doing that.
Dell's selling point on the XPS 13 Developer Edition is that it "just works," and to achieve that Dell does not support anything other than Ubuntu 18.04 LTS at the moment.
I would suggest that, if you want that simplicity and the company guarantee, users should stick with 18.04 until the official upgrades arrive. If you are prepared to resolve "just doesn't work" scenarios, then you could try making the jump to 19.10. But if you do, my suggestion would be to do a clean install rather than trying to upgrade through Ubuntu Software.
I should note that I installed both Fedora 32 and Arch Linux without issue. And one thing I definitely think is worth pointing out is how trivially easy it is to re-install the original system thanks to Dell's recovery tools. The ability to recover so easily does make the XPS 13 a good system to experiment on, even if your experiments sometimes end in frustration.
So, upgrade or wait for the 2020 model?
At this point, I would wait the two or so weeks for the 2020 model to arrive. At the very least, whether or not you want the slightly larger screen and new keyboard, the 2019 model is likely to drop slightly in price when a new version hits the market.
Unfortunately, the price of this model may not drop much given its also pretty new and contains some notable upgrades. And if you have the extra cash, I'd suggest going for the new screen anyway. It doesn't sound like much, but it surprised me in day-to-day usage. If you're used to working on a 16:9 screen, it really does give you a noticeable bump in headroom.
Whichever XPS 13 Developer Edition model you decide to get, ultimately you're going to have a lot more configuration options than you used to. Dell has been expanding its Ubuntu-based offerings with every release and currently, the site offers no less than 18 different models and configurations for the XPS 13 Developer Edition. There's a lot more opportunity to customize and tailor the hardware to your needs than there used to be, and these two latest releases seem to address a lot of prior user demands.
Four years ago, security researchers showed how a flying drone could hack an entire room full of Philips Hue smart light bulbs from outside a building, by setting off a virus-like chain reaction that jumped from bulb to bulb. Today, we’re learning that vulnerability never got fully fixed — and now, researchers have figured out a way to exploit that very same issue to potentially infiltrate your home or corporate network, unless you install a patch.
That’s the word from cybersecurity research firm Check Point Software, and the good news is you should already be safe from the worst part of the hack. If the Philips Hue Hub that controls your bulbs is connected to the internet, it should have automatically updated itself to version 1935144040 by now, which contains the patch you want. (Check Point informed Philips in November, and a patch was issued mid-January.) I just checked my own hub’s firmware version in the Philips Hue app, and I’m good.
It’s also nice to know it might have taken a fairly clever, patient hacker to exploit this vulnerability in the first place. In addition to presumably uploading a malicious over-the-air update to a Hue bulb (the technique used in 2016), it relies on messing with that hacked bulb’s color and brightness long enough to trick the owner into resetting and re-adding that bulb to their own network, at which point the hacked bulb overwhelms the Hue Hub with data, taking control of the Hub in turn. Here’s how Check Point explains that part:
The hacker-controlled bulb with updated firmware then uses the ZigBee protocol vulnerabilities to trigger a heap-based buffer overflow on the control bridge, by sending a large amount of data to it. This data also enables the hacker to install malware on the bridge – which is in turn connected to the target business or home network.
But it appears that once again, the bulbs themselves may still be vulnerable to hacks. When that flying drone set off a miniature IoT virus in 2016, companies found a way to solve for that worst-case scenario by restricting those bulb-to-bulb hops, writes Check Point. But “due to design limitations”, the bulb’s vulnerability remained, leading to the new hack — and perhaps other yet-to-be-discovered hacks in our future, as long as these bulbs remain in service. Leaving these bulbs vulnerable might be more dangerous than simply letting a hacker flick on and off your lights at will.
And though Check Point hasn’t necessarily tested other brands yet, its researchers claim this vulnerability may not be limited to Philips Hue bulbs and hubs. It’s in the Zigbee communications protocol used by loads of smart home brands, including Amazon’s Ring, Samsung SmartThings, Ikea Tradfri, Belkin’s WeMo, as well as Yale locks, Honeywell thermostats, and Comcast’s Xfinity Home alarm system.
It’s going to be interesting to see how many of the devices homeowners and businesses have purchased — ones they presumably expect to last for years — might open them up to security vulnerabilities years down the road. And we’re still wondering when the next massive IoT botnet built from insecure gadgets might rear its ugly head, as well.
The regularity with which we have to write the kind of story that follows is unfortunate, but the fact of the matter is that it’s time to alert you once again to the presence of a batch of sketchy and possibly even dangerous apps found on the Google Play Store. It includes 24 apps covering everything from weather to calendar and camera functionality, some of which are malware-laden and request all sorts of potentially nefarious permissions, all of which Google has booted off the Play Store — but not before they racked up some 382 million downloads.
Details about these apps comes from a report via VPNpro, which notes that “Our research has uncovered that they’re … asking for a huge amount of dangerous permissions, potentially putting users’ private data at risk. These dangerous permissions include the ability to make calls, take pictures and record video, record audio, and much more.”
The report’s bottom line is that the apps in question come via a Chinese company that VPNpro says has a history of malware, rogueware and unethical practices. And that these apps also ask for a large amount of unnecessary and dangerous permissions. One of the company’s apps, the report goes on to note, is called Weather Forecast and was apparently “caught collecting user data and sending it to a server in China.” Another of the apps in this batch of 24, called Candy Selfie Camera, reportedly requested the following app permission names:
Access coarse location (A permission that lets apps gather a user’s general location via Wi-Fi and/or mobile cell data)
Access fine location (Even more worrying than the one above. Most apps don’t need this, and it’s a permission that gives more exact data about your location)
Camera
Get accounts
Read external storage
Read logs
Read phone state
Write external storage
Another app, Sound Recorder, wanted access to the phone’s camera. We’ll name all the apps below in just a moment, but what’s also interesting is the Russian Doll-type company structure the VPNpro report found behind these apps, which the report traces to a Chinese company called Shenzhen HAWK. It’s connected to a number of different app developers, the implication being that not having all the apps come from the same identifiable source might make it harder for all the sketchy apps to be spotted.
Back in 2017, the government of India told its military services to get a number of Chinese apps off of its phones. One of them was Virus Cleaner 2019 — an app which is on this new list below.
Shenzhen HAWK is a subsidiary of a major Chinese electronics giant, the partly state-owned TCL Corporation. The 24 apps the report warns everyone to get rid of are the following:
Sound Recorder
Super Cleaner
Virus Cleaner 2019
File Manager
Joy Launcher
Turbo Browser
Weather Forecast
Candy Selfie Camera
Hi VPN, Free VPN
Candy Gallery
Calendar Lite
Super Battery
Hi Security 2019
Net Master
Puzzle Box
Private Browser
Hi VPN Pro
World Zoo
Word Crossy!
Soccer Pinball
Dig it
Laser Break
Music Roam
Word Crush
Image Source: Google
Andy is a reporter in Memphis who also contributes to outlets like Fast Company and The Guardian. When he’s not writing about technology, he can be found hunched protectively over his burgeoning collection of vinyl, as well as nursing his Whovianism and bingeing on a variety of TV shows you probably don’t like.
Despite updates to Samsung's roadmap indicating that Android 10 for the Galaxy S9 and S9+ might be further out than expected, the company has just started pushing the latest Android build to first phones from 2018's lineup. In contrast to the Galaxy S10's extremely slow rollout, the update is already live in the US and a few countries in Europe.
So far, Reddit users say they've received the update in Germany, Lithuania, Spain, and the US (on Xfinity), but since reports are only starting to trickle in, we might soon see Android 10 in many more locations and across more carriers.
The company wants to deploy the new software until at least April, so depending on your phone's variant, you might be in for a longer wait. Head to the Software update entry in your phone's settings to check for the over-the-air update. If you're particularly impatient, you can also download and flash the update yourself from SamMobile's firmware archive, but you'll lose all your data in the process and might possibly end up with a brick for a phone — proceed with caution and only if you absolutely know what you're doing.
We can currently confirm the rollout for the following carriers and countries (continuously updated):
US
Unlocked
AT&T
US Cellular
Australia
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
Croatia
Germany
India
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Netherlands
Poland
Romania
Russia
Serbia
South Africa
Spain
Switzerland
UK
Previous rollouts
US Cellular and more countries
Samsung continues rolling out Android 10 and first people in India, Italy,the Netherlands, Romania, Switzerland and the UK report that they've received the update. In the United States, US Cellular also provides first subscribers with the update.
People in Azerbaijan and the United Arabic Emirates have received the January patch sans Android 10, which could possibly mean that they'll have to wait a little longer for the new OS.
Unlocked US phones and more countries
A tipster confirmed to us that the update is arriving on first unlocked US phones. People based in Brazil, Canada (Rogers), and Russia can also look forward to Android 10 as the rollout has begun in these countries, too.
US Unlocked update screen.
AT&T and more countries
AT&T has officially revealed that it's rolling out Android 10 to its locked Galaxy S9 and S9+ phones, and we've received word from first customers who confirm the update. Further reports say that people in Australia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Poland, Serbia, and South Africa are currently getting the new OS release, too.
Creative director and vice president Dan Houser is leaving Rockstar Games
Dan Houser, creative director and vice president of Rockstar Games, is leaving the company in March. Take-Two Interactive revealed the news in a press release.
While we have yet to hear new details about Saints Row V, you'll be able to play the franchise's best entry on Nintendo Switch when a port of the 2013 classic called Saints Row IV: Re-Elected comes out on March 27th.
If you haven't had a chance to experience it, the story of Saints Row IV is insane. You play as the President of the United States of America as you attempt to fend off an alien invasion. All you really need to know is that one of the weapons you can use in Saints Row IV is a dubstep gun (remember dubstep?) that causes your enemies to dance when you shoot them with it.
The Nintendo Switch version of Saints Row IV will come with 25 pieces of DLC, including the game's two story expansions: Enter The Dominatrix and How The Saints Save Christmas. It will also feature co-op, as well as a new weapon customization system.
While you can pre-order Saints Row IV today for $40, it's probably best to wait for reviews of the port to come out first. Last year's Switch release of Saints Row: The Third was plagued with framerate and input lag issues. Here's hoping Saints Row IV does better.
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