Nintendo Switch 2 Review

Lenovo

The switch 2 is a great improvement from its predecessor an offers great performance with its new custom Nvidia T239 GPU with Ampere GPU architecture and Ray Tracing with 20 gigarays/sec performance. Graphics and frame rate has greatly improved for the AAA games such as Hogwarts Legacy which can be seen on this review from Digital Foundry, Hogwarts Legacy Swich 2 Review. Although it’s not an OLED screen, it is a bigger and brighter faster screen than its predecessor with higher resolution and VRR.
The down side is that it doesn’t support VRR in docked mode. The joycons can be undocked to function as mouse which offers better aiming and movement, but I wouldn’t like to play all the games with this. They unfortunately they have physical contacts instead of magnetic ones to read stick inputs, this puts wear and tear on the Joycons over time. Switch 2 weighs around 1.18lbs quite light to other consoles, the Legion Go S weighs in at 2.03lbs but both feel good in your hands, although the Legion Go S is a hefty beast.

New games like Zelda Tears of the Kingdom have been greatly improved with higher resolution and faster frame rates from 30fps on the Switch 1 to 60fps on the Switch 2 and now it also supports HDR and 4k when docked. There is room for a SD reader on the Switch 2 so now SD Express memory upgrade cards can be used.
Games also come on the new game card system, so now you can have the game physically on a memory card so you can swap them with friends.

The console supports Bluetooth connectivity so you can connect your headphones. The switch 2 also supports 5.1 surround sound when docked via the HDMI connection. There are also the key cards which unlock the game so you can download it. The Switch 2 battery life lasts from 2 to 6.5 hours on a full charge. Graphic intense games will use more power because of the resources used like computing power placing more demand on the GPU. Turning off 120Hz on games that don’t benefit from high refresh rates, and disabling HDR can make a difference on saving battery life. Now for the tech spec low down:

CPU 8x ARM Cortex A78C
CPU Clocks 998MHz (docked), 1101MHz (mobile),Max 1.7GHz
GPU Architecture: Ampere
GPU Clockss 1007MHz (docked), 561MHz (mobile), Max 1.4GHz
Memory Bandwidth 102GB/s(docked), 68GB/s(mobile)
Battery 2 to 6.5hrs on a full charge, charging takes 3hrs
Memory System 3GB (9GB available for games), supports 256GB SD cards
Display 7.9 in (20cm) LCD touchscreen with 1080p resolution (279 ppi) and HDR, which supports VRR of up to 120Hz when docked, and 1440 at 120Hz or 4K resolution at 60Hz with HDR.
Sound Linear PCM 5.1 channel surround sound when docked via HDMI

So the pros and cons of the Switch 2 are that it has only a few games and many of them are spin offs from earlier games compared to Steam O/S and Xbox apps available on other handheld consoles Switch fails on its games catalogue. With only 2 decent games exclusive to it of writing this review, Kirby and the Forgotten World. The game key cards are also frustrating to use the Joycons dont feel as good as of other consoles due to the physical contact inputs which causes ear and tear and drifting after heavy use. The good points are that the console itself feels like a quality build. The premium games releases, Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong so far are great. I think the console is a little over priced especially for the limited games available at £409 with Mario Kart World

Available on Amazon for £409

Nintendo Switch 2 + Mario Kart World from Amazon for £409.00