Let's Talk About Why Some Folks Are Really Unhappy With The Switch 2's Screen
Ever since we learned the Switch 2 would have an LCD screen instead of a fancier OLED panel, discourse around Nintendo's latest console has often turned sour when it comes to its display. Of course, once folks were able to get the new hardware in their hands, the Switch 2 revealed itself to be packing an impressively bright and vibrant LCD. Those do exist; they're still not as great as fancy as an OLED, but liquid crystal display tech is still more than capable of meeting and exceeding expectations for producing a quality image in 2025.
But now a new controversy over the Switch 2's display has emerged, this time wielding scary terms like 'ghosting' and 'refresh rate,' as critiques spread asserting that fast-paced games look blurry in motion and concerns rise from some arguing that the HDR display packed in with Nintendo's new hybrid console isn't really HDR. Are they right? Kind of, yeah! Should you regret your decision to buy a Nintendo Switch 2? Probably not! Let's talk.
I'm sorry to tell you that video games are an illusion. Mario isn't actually moving when he jumps. As you probably already know, GPUs crunch out one image at a time and these images, when played very fast, create the illusion of motion. We're seeing several images of Mario, with each image showing him in a slightly different location. And our screen needs to display those images cleanly, at a rapid, matching pace.
That's a very brisk and incomplete explanation of how video games deliver the visuals we know and love, but it's more or less how it all works. The way the image gets delivered to your eyes relies on coordination between how fast the GPU can pump out images and how often your monitor refreshes, which is measured in Hertz. Should those things be out of sync in some way, you'll spot some screen tearing, which is when there's a mismatch between how many images the GPU spits out per second and how many times the monitor refreshes too (in case you didn't know, all monitors are actually turning on and off at very fast speeds that give the illusion of staying on).
But we can also measure the refresh rate in milliseconds, and that's where we can really lock into some specificity and understand what's going on. The lower the millisecond response time, the cleaner the motion of something moving across the screen looks. Ratchet that response time up and things start to look a little blurry in motion.
120Hz is a swell refresh rate for a gaming display. The problem with the Switch 2, however, is that the millisecond response time of its screen is a bit slow compared to those of many other gaming displays on the market. Compounding the problem is that we actually can't fully test the Switch 2's screen as efficiently as we can other displays.
The Switch 2 doesn't allow for external video input. So, as PC Mag's Will Greenwald discusses in his breakdown of the latest Switch controversy, folks have been taking to measuring how quickly pixels change color on the Switch 2 screen using optical sensors and cameras, among other tools. This is technically not the same thing as measuring the refresh rate as mentioned above, but it does offer insight into how fast the screen performs.
Objectively, the Switch 2's screen might have some shortcomings, but your experience with it is subjective.
The results of these tests revealed a 17.1 millisecond response time on the Switch 2 in a best case scenario, and a 33.3 ms response time at worst. As Greenwald mentions, gaming displays should ideally aim for below 10 ms.
So no, it's not just in people's heads. Maybe they're being picky! But in reality, the Switch 2's response time isn't great compared to other gaming displays. Knowing that fact, though, shouldn't keep you from having fun with your console.
By 2025, many are likely familiar with what High Dynamic Range is: an expansion of how just how bright or dark a screen can display colors. An HDR display (with a signal to match) looks far more vivid and lifelike than an SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) screen does. And it's awesome. To my eyes, HDR is more of an upgrade than 4K resolution could've ever dreamed of being.
But comparing the Switch 2's HDR to a fancier HDR screen is sort of like comparing organic food to certified organic food. Technically speaking, the Switch 2's brightness range at less than 1,000 nits falls short of what is needed to portray a true HDR image. So it's got a Higher Dynamic Range than SDR, but is arguably not true HDR.
Yeah, you know what? Nothing's ever good enough for you. Let's just burn the whole thing down—sorry, I dunno where that came from. Silly me.
No, as anyone who's seen a Switch 2 in person can attest, the screen looks great! Games look bright and colorful as we'd expect them to. Sure, if you have a serious eye for detail and you're a numbers nerd, you may feel the screen could've hit higher benchmarks. And sadly, hooking your Switch 2 up to a better display via the dock doesn't seem to fix the problem as, according to PC Mag, external display output of the Switch 2 seems to stay true to what its internal screen can display.
Coming from someone who has formative, joyous memories of GTA IV, Halo 3, Mass Effect, and BioShock from my old Xbox 360 hooked up to an old, tiny, somewhat faulty CRT in the corner of a basement, inferior tech doesn't always mean an inferior experience. Objectively, the Switch 2's screen might have some shortcomings, but your experience with it is subjective. So tune all the noise out if it upsets you, enjoy another lap on Mario Kart World and stop thinking about all this ms-time and HDR nonsense.
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