Eight years after their last major console update, Nintendo finally released their new Switch 2 today. I put a pre-order few weeks ago and received it without issue today. In this era of convenient shopping from our desk, I no longer get the point why some people would even go as far as queuing in the middle of the night for it.

Let me start with a little background, I am not a heavy gamer. I mostly do casual games on my phones. I owned Sony Playstation 1 and 2 from my younger days, but did not buy any modern gaming console for years. I got my first Nintendo Switch back in 2020, right before the pandemic. Nintendo Switch helped me to cope with Covid lock-downs as well as allowed me to have bonding time with my kids. When Switch 2 was announced, getting one seemed to be a no brainer. I care little about hardware specs or OLED screen and I played Switch almost exclusively docked to the big TV in the living room. There is no minor upgrade that I need to wait for.

On receiving my Nintendo Switch 2, the hardest thing to endure was the wait. Well, today is a work day, so I had to wait before I could even open the box.

When I opened the box, the first thing I saw was the main unit and the two Joy-Cons. Under the main unit I could find HDMI cable and a pair of Joy-Con 2 straps. On the lower layer I could find Nintendo-branded power adapter and USB-C cable. There is also Joy-Con 2 grip (with no charging). After careful unboxing, I found myself connecting the new Joy-Con 2 to the main unit and heard the power on chime for the first time.

I have read multiple warnings in social media that we are not supposed to take off the protective film layer on the screen. While I do see a thin layer of protection on top of the screen, I do not quite understand how some people could assume that is to be taken off? That protection is very clearly intended to stay, given how strongly attached it is. Since I already ordered some accessories from Amazon, I quickly installed my glass screen protector and thumb grips.

During first few minutes of use, I was pleasantly impressed with its build quality. It looks and feels solid. The colour theme is rather too dark for my personal taste, but I suppose this is how Nintendo is trying to convey their message that this is a serious upgrade. The colourful (and playful) Joy-Cons are gone, replaced with black Joy-Con 2 with only a hint of their predecessor’s colours (red and blue) under the stick.

The magnet connection works awesomely. I was worried that magnetic connection would allow accidental detachment during play time. Seems that I do not need to worry. Once attached, it is actually hard to remove the Joy-Con 2, we have to press a button to help detaching the strong magnet. Keen to try the mouse capability, but I do not have any game that supports the functionality.

Initial set up was easy. After following some prompts, the console is ready for data transfer from my previous Switch. This is where it got tricky. I have 4 users in my old Switch. Two of them are connected to Nintendo account (mine and my son’s). The other two are not. Switch 2 showed me warning that all settings and game save from the users linked to Nintendo accounts will be copied to the new console while the non-linked users’ data will get moved. Since I do not have clear plan of what to do with my old console, I’d like all our game saves to be copied. Alas, I had to complete side quest to create Nintendo accounts for my wife and my daughter, linked them to their users, and then resumed the data transfer process.

Next obstacle appeared. Both Switch and Switch 2 ask me to charge the consoles while data transfer is in progress, it showed a warning dialogue that would disappear when it detects charging. The request makes sense, we certainly do not want problems during data transfer because one of the consoles are running out of battery power. So I plugged USB-C cables from my home office to both consoles. The old Switch accepted the charging and that warning pop-up disappeared. The Switch 2, however, appeared to be charging (I can see the battery icon) but the warning stayed. I had to experiment with a few cables and chargers. It seemed that all cables would charge the console, but some of them would not make that warning disappear. After both consoles are charging with the cables (and charger) that they are happy with, the transfer process did not take too much time.

As expected, the new Switch 2 needs to re-download all my games. First gen Nintendo Switch has 32GB of internal storage, Switch 2 comes with 256GB. I had a 512GB micro-SD card in my old Switch, so I was worried if the new console will not fit all my games. Fortunately, I had plenty of time to evaluate which games I never or rarely use. Some of them are quite big in download sizes. After pruning some games I probably will not play any time soon, everything I need can fit in Switch 2 storage.

Normal micro-SD card will not work with Switch 2. It is designed to only work with micro-SD Express, which has significantly faster speed and different number of connection pins compared to normal micro-SD cards. Therefore, we cannot use memory card from the original Switch for Switch 2. Nintendo does sell official micro-SD Express card with 256GB capacity. The price is more expensive than normal micro-SD and so far there is no larger capacity available. I decide to postpone any purchase of micro-SD Express until bigger capacity cards are available at prices I am willing to pay.

It took about 3-4 hours for the download to finish, but technically I could start playing games while waiting for some others to complete download. Obviously my first game would be Mario Kart World, which is a big reason for me to upgrade in the first place. I can confirm that I did have a good time playing Mario Kart World with the kids. Is the new console fast? Yes. Loading time for several of my old games are noticeably faster.

Yes I do feel that there are not many new games available at launch time. But I will not buy multiple games after spending so much on a new console anyway. So Mario Kart World would keep us entertained for a while, and I suspect it would.

I do not have OLED Switch to compare the display, but I can confirm that Switch 2 screen looks so much better compared to my old (first gen) Switch, not to mention that the bigger screen size makes playing so much more enjoyable. Since I would use Switch 2 docked to the big screen most of the time, I do not see any issue with the display. Battery life will likely be a non-issue for my use case, too.

Very good first impression so far. Looking forward to have fun family times with this new console.