Looks more comfortable to hold. Moving the sticks out a bit looks less sexy, but is probably much more ergonomic.
Having the Start and Select buttons up there makes more sense than having them at the bottom, but it's still less than ideal. The only good place to put Start and Select buttons is in the middle of the controller. Anywhere else ends up being awkward.
I was okay with circle pads. If the rumors are to be believed, though, these sticks are clickable, so there's that.
Nice to see they learned from the 3DS and put the stylus back in the place where it's convenient for 90% of the population.
I forget, are the shoulder buttons with Zs in the name the ones on the top or the bottom on this one? Whatever, I'm just gonna call them triggers and bumpers. The triggers look like they might be slightly analog this time around, but probably not, which would be a shame.
Those square buttons look more like just those rubber squares on the DS, but put in places where they don't make any sense.
Light-up Home button is cool.