the last time we saw the Nintendo switch
we were very impressed with this repair
ability and scored it an 8 out of 10
this was mostly due to its use of a ton
of modular components including the
battery which is easily replaced today
we're tearing down the new version the
switch light and we hope it'll be just
as easy to fix but there's only one way
to find out and that's to tear it down
standard Philips and less than standard
white triple zero screws hold the rear
case in place and with a little brute
force we reveal the cover under the
cover this metal shield is hiding the
guts of the switch light but once
removed we get to look at this familiar
but slightly redesigned switch the
biggest changes we notice are slightly
smaller battery and some interestingly
redesigned speakers the battery is the
first to come out and boy is it stuck in
place the adhesive is strong but it's no
match for our opening picks this battery
is a three point eight volt thirteen
point six watt hour battery which is
slightly less than the original sixteen
watt hour battery but according to
Nintendo you'll get more playtime out of
the lights smaller batteries than you
would on the original removing the
heatsink allows us to access the
headphone jack game cartridge combo unit
and the fan and once we've dispatched
the left and right triggers and all the
buttons we can finally lift out the
motherboard the motherboard is home to
the NVIDIA Tegra x1 base system on chip
the now soldered on flash storage in
four gigabytes of lpddr4 XD ram the
switch light speakers seem to have the
same driver as the original switch but
we found the stereo speakers enclosed in
a case that directs sound out of the
bottom of the device the enclosure could
also act to protect the speakers from
water and dust turning our attention to
the switch lights joysticks we hope to
find out whether or not they've been
improved the original switches joysticks
caused some controversy with their
problems with drift which is when they
register movement even without being
touched while things didn't immediately
seem too different we did notice some
new trace routing a narrower stick click
button and slightly wider looking metal
sliders how much of a difference will
this make in the long run we'll have to
wait and see we're left with a 5.5 inch
LCD display that has a resolution of
1280 by 720 with our switch light fully
disassembled it's time to talk
repairability
the Nintendo switch light scored a 6 out
of 10 and here's why on the up side
screws rather than adhesives secure most
components many components including the
joysticks fan and headphone jack are
modular and can be replaced
independently the battery though
strongly glued down
can be replaced shortly after removing
the rear case the digitizer and display
are not fused but are firmly glued in
place and on the downside the flash
storage and SD card reader are now
soldered directly to the motherboard and
uncommon tripoint screws hinder all
repairs