Wednesday, June 25th 2025
Nintendo Switch 2 Slammed for Poor Display—120 Hz With 30 FPS Response Times
Despite the Nintendo Switch 2 offering rather modest specifications by today's standards, even for a handheld gaming device, it has already broken console sales records with over 3.5 million sales in its first four days on the market. The on-paper specs claim that the Nintendo Switch 2 is capable of 120 Hz, promising a sizeable upgrade over the 60 FPS display of the original Switch and Switch OLED. Recent testing by Monitors Unboxed and Digital Foundry, however, reveal that these claims may be less than honest, since the handheld console's real-world performance falls short by a fair margin.
The most noticeable issue with the Nintendo Switch 2's display is the response times. Despite having a 120 Hz display, Monitors Unboxed found in its testing that the display achieved an average response time of as high as 33 ms. While testing was conducted at 60 FPS, the response times even fall short of this low bar, with 16.67 ms being the slowest response time required for the pixels to refresh between frames such as to avoid blur or smearing. Even the original Nintendo Switch manages faster response times, with an average of 21.3 ms. This is further exemplified by the Blur Busters test conducted by Monitors Unboxed, where significant loss of detail can be seen in fast-moving objects. Brightness was better on the Switch 2 in Monitors Unboxed's testing, measuring in at around 400 nits, but contrast is less than spectacular, with contrast ratios measuring in at just 1068:1. Color performance was also good on the new Switch 2, with 97.6% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut, however HDR performance suffered from the relatively low brightness and a lack of color management, which makes Switch 1 games seem more saturated than intended.
Monitors Unboxed goes on to theorize that the Switch 2's display is slow because Nintendo has seemingly not enabled overdrive and may be running additional low-voltage settings, likely to conserve energy and extend battery life. The end result of this is that, while the Nintendo Switch 2 may feel more responsive to play on, especially at 120 FPS, it comes at a noticeable sacrifice in image clarity at those higher resolutions. The likely cause of these slow response times also means Nintendo could theoretically address the issues with a firmware update.
Sources:
Monitors Unboxed, Digital Foundry
The most noticeable issue with the Nintendo Switch 2's display is the response times. Despite having a 120 Hz display, Monitors Unboxed found in its testing that the display achieved an average response time of as high as 33 ms. While testing was conducted at 60 FPS, the response times even fall short of this low bar, with 16.67 ms being the slowest response time required for the pixels to refresh between frames such as to avoid blur or smearing. Even the original Nintendo Switch manages faster response times, with an average of 21.3 ms. This is further exemplified by the Blur Busters test conducted by Monitors Unboxed, where significant loss of detail can be seen in fast-moving objects. Brightness was better on the Switch 2 in Monitors Unboxed's testing, measuring in at around 400 nits, but contrast is less than spectacular, with contrast ratios measuring in at just 1068:1. Color performance was also good on the new Switch 2, with 97.6% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut, however HDR performance suffered from the relatively low brightness and a lack of color management, which makes Switch 1 games seem more saturated than intended.
Digital Foundry found similar results in its testing, with the publication similarly criticizing the Switch 2's display for its poor motion performance but also adding that the Switch 2's backlight is disappointingly a single panel instead of using dimming zones or something like a mini LED display, making a "true HDR" experience impossible on the Switch 2's built-in display.
66 Comments on Nintendo Switch 2 Slammed for Poor Display—120 Hz With 30 FPS Response Times
My 2DS' screen was complete garbage even by the standards of when it came out, but I still had plenty of fun with it. In the case of the Switch/Switch 2, you aren't even stuck with using it if you don't like it. Just dock and connect to a display of your choice.
I don't know if the game library will be exceptional, but for people who never owned a Switch, it kind of already is thanks to all the existing Switch titles, some of which are updated to run better on the Switch 2.
Then if you want to play your games on solid hardware, like a PC with emulation, they are coming after you like you are a criminal!
I will never buy anything from them!
GET LOST NINTENDO!
Somehow, I knew that this scenario was forthcoming, as many companies, nOntendio included, have a very bad habit of over-hyping but not delivering on their wild-assed marketing claims for their products....
How many more times does this have to happen before people wise up & boycott these clowns, and any other mfgr that pulls this crap ?
And in a few months, after they gobble up all of the fool's money & all the bad press calms down, they will suddenly come out with the actual, real, finished console with an OLED screen and some other minor changes, and BOOM, they will get even more sucka's to hand over even more of their money....
but no, Nintendo will have your extra-money for the fixed Hall Effect Sticks they will offer soon! and everyone has to upgrade. not to mention the new oled version they will release in 1-2 years.
wccftech.com/asus-explains-why-the-rog-xbox-ally-doesnt-have-an-oled-screen/
For those waiting for the OLED model, the Switch release timeline may be relevant:
Then, It's not a real problem.
1) Green tint/hue on darker colors (mostly gray)
2) BIG PWM (this is bigger issue than the slower LCD)
3) The gray colors (can be seen in the OS with dark theme) are grainy
The flicker is INSANE
I had a few switch in my hands. Nothing which I really like or want. Some of these are just lying around unused by the owner.
I think nintendo is in the quality class like razer and some other companies. May work for two years when you use it carefully.
My brother picked one up, I haven’t messed with it much but generally the screen looked decent. Color was fine, brightness was great, obviously not an OLED, but for playing on the go or comfortably around the house it’s fine.
I’ll probably get one once there are some good titles out (Metroid 4 most notably).
The issue is Nintendo being Nintendo, cheaping out on hall-effect sensors, lcd response time, putting a 10€ price tag on that welcome tour demo or 90€ on MK World, having gamekey cards being too prevalent for third parties etc
All those issues clouding the launch but performance and price tbh they are not really the biggest issues
On TPU people are enthusiasts but it’s unreasonable to expect a tsmc 4NP Blackwell tegra and an amoled from a Nintendo console. i wish it were the case but it’s important to tame our expectations with Nintendo
Frankly I love Mario Kart World and enjoying it, pretty sure it will be the case with DK and Metroid Prime 4 later this year
I wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo isn’t using any overdrive on this panel, or going as far as to undervolt it in some way to save on power. No way should you be able to get a modern panel that’s 120Hz with VRR and supports HDR (barely) with response times this slow. If this is the case, then that could be fixable in firmware but at the cost of some battery life. If they can tweak this in firmware, then it could be an option you could turn on or off, so you can pick between more battery and a slower panel, or worse battery and a much quicker panel.
Nintendo have always compromised on screen quality, the Switch OLED being the only exception. It took them about 14 years to add a bloody backlight to the GameBoy line! All because they wanted to save on power. It was one reason I preferred the Game Gear at the time; at least I could see what I was looking at in full colour even in the pitch black, without needing the power of the sun behind me.
£395 isn’t a lot of money these days, so if it added an extra £100 to the price for a high-quality OLED with proper HDR (1000+ nits) then so be it. You already had people complaining about the current price, which is ridiculous for the hardware you’re getting. People would still buy it in the tens of millions if it cost £495 for the base model. While they would still complain, it still would have sold in the tens of millions.
As for the performance, it’s been great. It’s not an underpowered console whatsoever for its small size and power usage. If anything was underpowered at launch, it was the original Switch. As for the screen durability, someone said here it’s fragile. You must be joking because JerryRigEverything literally hit the screen with a very heavy tool, and it took a good 50 hits before it finally shattered. Scratch resistance isn’t great even without that plastic screen protector over the glass, but the actual screen is a damn tank compared to a lot of other screens.
Skip to 11:40 for the screen durability test. I’d call that durable enough.
But congratulations on managing to bring up ngreedia in a nintendo topic. Don't you take days off?