12-06-2025
Nintendo Switch 2 Review: Fantastic, but Flawed
Let's start strong: the big new feature, in my opinion, is just how good the screen is. It's the first thing you see, and it's fantastic: a 7.9'' 1080p 120hz LCD display that honestly puts a lot of other handheld console displays to shame.
That 120hz refresh rate feels a bit hypothetical at the moment though, as there's no software that actually supports it in any meaningful way, but the 1080p resolution on such a small handheld is really good. We've had other handhelds with higher resolution displays, but they tend to not really be powerful enough to actually play games at those higher resolutions for very long – a densely-packed 1080p is more than enough for a screen this big and a console this powerful, and helps Switch games pop off in ways they weren't quite able to on the OG handheld.
I'm very hopeful that there'll be more games than just the upcoming Metroid Prime 4: Beyond that take advantage of the 120hz display, but we ultimately don't know what else is coming down the pipeline there.
For what it's worth, it feels like the Switch 2 has a lot more power to play with than the previous console. I tried out the original version of Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on the Switch 2, and was baffled by how poor the frame-rate was out in the open world, but after realising I hadn't downloaded the upgrade pack (which we'll get to below) and doing so, it sat at a locked 60fps in both handheld and docked mode, and—low-res textures aside—looked incredible at 4K.
I didn't get a chance to test Cyberpunk 2077 (it's AUD$120, and I'm not paying that for any game, honestly), but performance on that seems to be solid: sitting at a comfy 30-40fps on one of the most technically demanding games of the past few years. We've come a long way from the Switch needing cloud versions of AAA games to work, which I'm praying are a thing of the past.
