When sitting down with the one of the best-selling consoles of all time.

I also thought about the games the Switch hosted over its lengthy eight-year lifespan; not just Nintendo’s own hits, but those that came from third parties. There were many that, given the power of Nintendo’s prior hardware, seemed out of the realm of possibility – they were thought to be too much for the little guy to handle. Appropriately, people started to refer to these as “impossible ports.” It was a wonder they were able to run on the Switch, and their mere presence on the platform earned them some leeway in how they performed and how they looked. It didn’t matter that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt wasn't the sharpest thing one could lay their eyes on. That it even showed up to the party was enough.

Now that I've spent some time with the Switch 2, I’m fairly confident the tale this console will weave over the course of its life will be much, much different. Design-wise, we’re a generation deeper into Nintendo establishing what it means to be a home console/portable hybrid. Nintendo has learned a lot and shaped that learning into something more thoughtfully designed. Power-wise, we’re in a place now where this might not be such a problem anymore; where “impossible ports” no longer exist. This thing has the horsepower necessary to not just play modern games, but play them fairly well.

The original Switch sold the dream of seamless gaming both at home and on the go. The Switch 2 is that dream more fully realized, with numerous quality-of-life improvements and far fewer compromises.

It is, in a word, super. Maybe that means we'll develop some super expectations to go along with it. For now, I'm very much liking what Nintendo has brought to the table.

Hardware & Design: It Feels Like A Next-Generation Machine

Nintendo Learned From The Switch To Make The Switch 2 Better

One of the best things about the Switch 2, for me, is its most unmissable change: the larger 8-inch display. I’ve long thought this is the sweet spot for handhelds, PC or otherwise, and it seems Nintendo agrees. Stretching the screen to that size while bumping up the resolution to 1080p makes a world of difference for portable play. It doesn’t hurt that the itself seems of a much higher grade than that in the stock Switch. It won’t please everyone coming from the Switch OLED model, but for an LCD, it’s quite nice.

I also love the fact that, by nature of the whole system receiving a size boost, the Joy-Con 2s are larger. If you’re someone who does play in tabletop mode, or if you prefer having the Joy-Cons as your primary controls while you’re lounging about, you might find your hands and fingers have to do a bit less adjusting. I never would have considered this style of play viable for me on the first Switch. I’m way more open to it on the Switch 2. I take a lot of train rides back and forth between NYC and Central Pennsylvania. Tabletop mode could win me over yet.

Nintendo kept what worked with the Switch and Switch OLED, then refined the living daylights out of the rest.

And it must be said: The Switch 2 feels more . It’s obviously larger and there’s a bit more heft to it, and that likely plays a small part. But the feeling that this is a substantial upgrade comes through in everything, from the more rounded edges of the tablet portion, to its larger, softer, less clicky face buttons, to the magnetic attachment mechanism for the Joy-Con 2s. Nintendo kept what worked with the Switch and Switch OLED, then refined the living daylights out of the rest. The result: A design that is miles ahead of the first.

There are two hardware areas I think the Switch 2 could improve in, and despite Nintendo’s best efforts to fix the gripes people had with the original Switch, my own carries over from that older machine. The first has to do with the joysticks on the Joy-Con 2s: there’s still not a great deal of travel to them. My hope is that the company plans to release a Joy-Con 2 Pro product somewhere down the line. The second is about the triggers: Nintendo, for reasons that are unclear, is still not making these analog. Loads of games – racing and FPS, for example – benefit tremendously from analog triggers, but Nintendo is still not throwing developers, or players, any type of bone here. I suppose this will remain one of life’s great mysteries.

The above two items will go on my wishlist for future iterations of the Switch 2. But while I’m noting them here, I want to make it clear that they aren’t detracting significantly from my enjoyment of the device. I’m still very impressed at what Nintendo has been able to achieve with the Switch 2, especially when I'm actually playing games on it.

Performance: Games Simply Play Better On The Switch 2

Sometimes, Even If They Haven't Received Updates For The New Console

I’ve never wanted so badly to replay The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – all over again, in their entirety, back to back. I do not have time to do this right now, but I desperately want to. The Nintendo Switch 2 has me adding Switch games I’ve already played to my backlog. That is how solidly they’re performing on this new machine.

Loading up these past Legend of Zelda titles, I couldn’t help but feel a little cheated. I wish I could wipe my earlier playthroughs from my memory, as this is now the definitive way to experience both: with increased framerates and stepped up graphics. The kingdom of Hyrule just feels more alive and, where controls go, more responsive, with this newer Nvidia technology powering its machinations. On the original Switch, I played 50-plus hours of Tears of the Kingdom with Ultrahand pouring thick molasses all over the experience. When I called up this ability in the Switch 2 version, the console didn’t bat an eye. This was my first “wow” moment – when I realized this thing has some juice.

I noted this leap when jumping into the Switch 2 edition of Fortnite for the first time, too. There’s undoubtedly some upscaling technology working behind the scenes to bring this, and other larger titles, into a place where frame rates and looks are both agreeable. That doesn’t change the fact that Fortnite on the original Switch was an eyesore at times, and needed to be capped at 30 FPS to handle even that graphical fidelity. Fortnite on the Nintendo Switch 2 looks and plays like… Fortnite. It’s the Fortnite you can play on any other modern type of hardware, so much so that after a few minutes, you might forget about the platform you’re playing on and get lost in the game.

Finally, I experienced this same feeling of awe in my most-played game, Rocket League. I suspect there’s some resolution scaling going on here when you switch to “Performance” mode, because even without a proper Switch 2 update, the performance and visuals on Nintendo’s new system are an immense upgrade over what was presented on Nintendo’s last-gen machine. Where low resolutions and choppy framerates ruled on the first Switch, sharper graphics and much higher FPS counts come easily on the second.

I can now play Rocket League competitively on a Switch. I've never been able to do that before and that, to me, is huge.

My time with the Switch 2 so far has led me to give it one of the best compliments it can get: it plays games like a modern home console. It isn’t throwing every single bell and whistle at you in the way the Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 are, but it also doesn’t feel like you’re giving up a whole lot to have great games available for it. Add in the fact that this is true whether you’re docked or undocked, and the Nintendo Switch 2 becomes one heck of a product. I'm eager to see what more it has to offer.

Review-In-Progress Notes

We’ll continue to evaluate the Switch 2 over the coming days, bringing new games into the mix while also covering some of the Switch 2’s newer hardware and software features. Please check back daily for more, including our final score at the end of the Review-In-Progress period.

Nintendo provided ScreenRant with a Nintendo Switch 2 for the purpose of this review.