The Switch 2 is a big boy. That was my main takeaway from Nintendo’s long-awaited reveal of its next portable. How could you have watched that trailer and left with any other impression? It’s not like Nintendo showed much else. Sure, there was the slide about backward compatibility, but the difference in size between the two systems stood out even there. It got me thinking: How big is too big? And did Nintendo prioritize the wrong design choices?
If you had been following along with all the pre-release leaks, you knew this was coming. I certainly did, but I had still hoped that the rumors of an 8-inch display were wrong. I’m a relative newcomer to the Switch. My girlfriend and I split the cost of an during Black Friday 2024. Since then, it’s become one of my favorite ways to play games, in big part because of its portability.
The Switch OLED is not as powerful as my gaming PC, but I can curl up to play games on the couch with it. It’s also small enough to fit in my 15L backpack, making it great for travel. I also love the OLED screen. It makes every game look better, to the point where I can forgive some for performing poorly on the system.
On paper, the Switch 2 should retain at least some of the OLED model’s portability, but I wonder how easy it will be to transport. Consider that if the Switch 2 ships with an 8-inch display, it will feature a bigger screen than the Steam Deck OLED. The Steam Deck is, like the Switch, a handheld, but I would argue it’s not portable in any true sense of the word.
I once tried to pack the Steam Deck for a trip, but I gave up after I found it impossible to fit it in my duffle alongside everything else I needed to bring with me. I haven’t tried to travel with the Steam Deck since. It’s too early to tell if the Switch 2 will suffer from the same problem and it looks relatively thin, but depending on how much it weighs, I suspect a lot of people will use it almost exclusively in their homes.
That’s not inherently a bad thing, but the genius of the Switch is how it promotes co-op play. I’m almost certainly in the minority here, but tablet mode is one of my favorite ways to play the Switch. On a recent flight my girlfriend and I took to Europe, the Switch was a godsend on a plane with no in-flight entertainment.
I know the Switch 2 will feature a tablet mode just like its predecessor, but I wonder how many people will take advantage of that capability with a larger, heavier device? I can see it going two ways. Either the bigger screen makes that feature more attractive, or more people leave their Switch 2 at home because it’s cumbersome to carry around.
The other big unknown here is battery life. If the Switch 2 features an 8nm chip paired with 1080p LCD as has been rumored, it’s very likely its battery won’t last nearly as long as the Switch OLED’s. Before Nintendo released the “” revision of the original model and later the Switch OLED, battery life wasn’t the console’s strong suit, and I suspect it won’t be the Switch 2’s either.
There are still so many unknowns about the Switch 2, but the thing that struck me about the console’s recent reveal was that I wasn’t fully convinced it would be a clear upgrade over the Switch OLED. Obviously, the Switch 2 will offer far greater performance and what looks like a much more solid set of Joy-Cons, but I’m not too excited about a system that could be bigger, and feature a worse screen and battery life. If those predictions turn out to be true, I’m probably sticking with my Switch OLED until Nintendo announces a Switch 2 Lite or Switch 2 OLED.
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