The Nintendo Switch 2 is out, and I think it’s pretty great. The console’s not perfect, but it’s a worthy follow-up to the original Switch. Its LCD is bigger and features a higher resolution; Nintendo says it supports high dynamic range (HDR). It’s still an LCD, though, which makes it a step behind the OLED Switch’s, well, OLED screen. It looks good to my eyes, but many people have complained about ghosting and blur. The sites Chimolog and Monitors Unboxed have found some alarming numbers while testing the Switch 2’s LCD. I’ve reviewed every Nintendo system since the Wii and am a certified TV calibrator (and PCMag’s TV reviewer), and I’m here to help contextualize what their findings mean.
Gray-to-Gray: How They Tested the Screen (and What It Means)
Whether they’re gaming handhelds, monitors, phones, or TVs, all screens function by constantly drawing pictures a certain number of times per second. This is called the refresh rate, and each individual picture being drawn is called a frame. The original Switch and most cheaper TVs and monitors have a 60Hz refresh rate, which means their screens draw 60 frames per second. As a result, the frame changes every 16.7 milliseconds.
The Switch 2 has a 120Hz refresh rate, which is the minimum for higher-end TVs and gaming monitors, and its frames last 8.3 milliseconds. Ideally, you’d test the screen at that native refresh rate, but that isn’t feasible. You see, benchmarking a screen on a self-contained device like the Switch 2 is extremely complicated. Chimoblog and Monitors Unboxed measured the Switch 2’s screen at 60Hz due to those limitations, recording the panel’s gray-to-gray response time. This is similar to but distinct from input lag.
Gray-to-gray response is the amount of time it takes for a pixel to change from one shade of gray to the next, and is a common way to measure how well a monitor can keep up with motion. The lower the response time, the better the display performs. Monitors Unboxed’s manual testing tool revealed that the Switch 2’s LCD has an average gray-to-gray response time of 33.3 milliseconds at 60Hz. This is very high compared with gaming monitors, a display category with a sub-10ms expected response time, and the LCD Switch’s 21.3ms measurement.
Chimolog used a web-based blur measurement tool, an oscilloscope, an optical sensor, and a camera. That blog measured a 17.1ms response time, which is a little more than half of what Monitors Unboxed found, but still high compared with gaming monitors.
Switch, Switch 2, and monitor response rate tests, recorded by Monitors Unboxed (Credit: Monitors Unboxed)
These numbers likely vary for two reasons. Firstly, the Switch 2 can’t accept external video sources, so benchmarking must be performed manually, using a camera to measure color transitions. Secondly, there can be data variability if two reviewers use different content to perform these measurements, even if it’s consistent with their own testing. I’m going to take what both sites have observed at face value. Note that Chimolog is a Japanese blog, so I’m using the admittedly imperfect Google Translate to read its review.
The other reason the numbers may be different between Chimolog and Monitors Unboxed’s tests is LCD variability. Manufacturing consistency is important, but it’s seldom perfect. Maybe Monitors Unboxed received a Switch 2 with a worse-performing panel than Chimolog. If so, that points to a potential quality-control problem.
One frame of animation at 60Hz on the Switch 2’s screen, recorded by Chinolog (Credit: Chinolog)
Blurriness and Ghosting: Are They a Big Deal?
So, yes, the Switch 2 LCD suffers from blur and ghosting, at least at 60Hz. A bit of smearing across a thirtieth of a second is irritating, especially if you’re a fighting game or shooter fan with a keen eye for the slightest movements. This doesn’t mean the Switch 2 is unplayable, though! I haven’t noticed the blur, which may be due to panel inconsistencies. At worst, the blurriness and ghosting are disappointing, not a complete disaster.
The Switch 2 screen’s native refresh rate means that 120Hz games might not suffer from this problem. The panel is 120Hz, so 60Hz signals are basically half as fast as what it can handle. Both Chimolog and Monitors Unboxed noted they could only test at 60Hz. Mario Kart World and other titles that run at the native refresh rate probably have fewer ghosting issues. The problem is that almost all Switch 1 games, and many Switch 2 games, only support 60Hz. That may not be the only issue, though.
Is the Screen HDR? Well…
Nintendo claims the Switch 2 supports HDR content. However, Monitors Unboxed measured the system’s brightness and contrast and declared that it isn’t an HDR screen. That’s not entirely accurate: Technically speaking, the Switch 2’s LCD supports HDR, but that isn’t the whole story.
High dynamic range means a screen can receive and process video signals that show deeper darks and brighter brights than standard dynamic range (SDR) signals. In other words, there are many more steps of brightness between dark and bright than with SDR. So, there’s much better contrast, the difference between bright and dark.
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Because there’s more data in the signal, HDR requires more bandwidth and video processing to work. HDR is a signal standard (well, a few standards), so any screen that can accept the signal claims to be HDR. However, HDR content is mastered to take advantage of screens that can get very bright or very dark. The most basic HDR standard, HDR10, typically builds content around a peak brightness of 1,000 nits. I’ve tested many budget TVs that display HDR video that falls well short of that. They support HDR, but they don’t really show HDR. The Switch 2 is similar in that regard.
Monitors Unboxed measured a peak brightness for the Switch 2 at around 330 nits, and that’s in line with my own eyeballs. The system lacks video input, but I’m good at estimating brightness up to around 1,600 nits thanks to having reviewed hundreds of TVs. The screen doesn’t get super-dark because the LCD panel lacks local dimming. However, it’s much better at rejecting glare and ambient light than the Switch 1’s LCD, so it looks nice and black most of the time. The Switch 2’s display is way short of 1,000 nits, so it isn’t really an HDR-capable screen.
That’s the technical definition of HDR, one specifically focused on contrast. But the Switch 2’s display still looks very good! It’s about as bright as the OLED Switch’s screen, even if it doesn’t get nearly as dark because OLED panels brighten and dim on a per-pixel basis (the Switch 2’s LCD has a dimmable single backlight array across its entire area).
Color Gamut: The Other Key to HDR (That Isn’t HDR)
The other HDR element is color range. HDR signals almost always reach much farther than SDR signals in terms of how vibrant colors look and how many shades can be shown. That isn’t specifically part of “high dynamic range,” but it goes hand-in-hand with it and is effectively (though not technically) inseparable. This is called wide color gamut.
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Hisense U8QG’s colors in SDR, with HDR10, and with Dolby Vision HDR (Credit: PCMag)
SDR video signals typically show a narrow color range that matches the Rec. 709 standard, the color gamut broadcast television has been tuned to for decades. HDR video signals often reach and even exceed the much wider DCI-P3 digital cinema color space, which theatrical movies employ. I test all TVs for both. The chart above shows color levels I measured on the Hisense U8QG, an Editors’ Choice LED TV.
I can’t perform my usual tests on the Switch 2, but I have very well-tuned eyes, an OLED Switch, and an LCD Switch. The Switch 2’s screen colors reach almost as far as the OLED Switch’s screen, and unquestionably, the newer console has a wider color gamut than the LCD Switch. On the color front, the Switch 2’s LCD is great, though not quite as good as the OLED Switch or a high-end TV with a QLED panel like the Hisense U8QG.
The Switch 2’s screen is about half-HDR, which means it’s comparable with the OLED Switch, at least.
So, Is the Switch 2’s Screen Bad?
No. It’s not great in terms of 60Hz response rates, but it’s bigger and features a higher resolution than any Switch system. Likewise, it has a color gamut almost as wide as the OLED Switch. I’ve been enjoying it. It’s not a terrible screen, just flawed. You may notice some blur in games that don’t use the panel’s native 120Hz refresh rate (and that’s most of them).
What About the Switch 2’s HDR on TV?
Oof, this is going to have to be its own story. There are separate complaints about the Switch 2’s picture in docked mode looking washed out and dim when HDR output is enabled, and I’ve experienced that on my own Hisense U8G.
The short answer is that the Switch 2’s HDR signal seems to be mastered to its screen’s own brightness output rather than the much brighter standard HDR10’s 1,000 nits. This can conflict with how some TVs handle tone mapping from certain sources. For now, if you can find a “dynamic tone mapping” setting on your TV, disable it for the Switch 2’s input and see if that fixes it. More research is required!
Nintendo Switch 2: The Switch Just Got Better
Overall, it’s a bummer that some people are having a less-than-stellar screen experience with the Switch 2. Regardless of the underlying issue, here’s hoping for a fast fix. Hopefully, it doesn’t take the inevitable mid-cycle hardware upgrade for it to come.
About Will Greenwald
Lead Analyst, Consumer Electronics
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