As the Switch 2 was revealed, one of the biggest questions on a lot of gamers’ minds was, “Are the joy sticks stronger this time?”
The first Switch had issues with the joy sticks’ mechanism wearing down over time and causing the stick to drift when not touched. For example, one of my friend’s controllers has this issue, and when we play golf on Switch Sports we need to be conscious of re-adjusting our aim often because over time it slowly moves to the left on its own.
In a new video posted to the iFixit YouTube channel, the company discovered that the new Joy-Cons 2 uses the same joystick mechanism, suggesting that they will likely drift over time. The video mentions that the console can’t use magnetic “hall-effect” sticks since the magnetic connection method in the Joy-Con 2 might cause it to malfunction.
Drift is a problem that seems to affect players randomly, and due to the joystick hardware wearing down, it seems likely that this happens the more you play with your console. For instance, my friend’s drifting controller is from a console bought in 2017. My OLED model from a few years ago has no problems. However, looking this up online you’ll see all kinds of various stories related to drift.
Other teardown channels have also been testing the new Switch 2. For instance, JerryRigEverything put a console through his gamut of testing and came away impressed with the durability of the console itself. However, the soft plastic screen film does scratch much more easily than glass.
Canadian teardown channel iPhone Repair Guru also tore a console apart and took this screen film off his console with relative ease. However, he doesn’t test how resistant the glass is to scratches. When he took apart the Joy-Cons 2, he found out that the vibration motor is much larger in the new model, but the battery is a little smaller than before. However, not by much. The new batteries are 500mAh and the old ones are 525mAh.
When he gets to the joysticks, he notes that there is a small cover near the top of the joystick that he assumes is for keeping dirt out of the housing. This could help with drift issues a little bit, in theory. However, like iFixit, he notes that the main mechanism seems similar to the previous version.
Taking apart the full console was much harder than the controllers and he needed to pull the coloured accent stips off the sides of the console to access a bunch of hidden screws. Inside, he’s found a 5,220mAh battery, which is roughly 900mAh larger than the old Switch. One part that impressed the repair tech was the reinforced USB-C port. He mentions that the old one was a common point of failure, so the new one seems stronger to help mitigate that problem.
Source: iFixit, iPhone Repair Guru, JerryRigEverything
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