Zack Nelson of the popular JerryRigEverything YouTube channel is more used to putting smartphones through his demanding durability test, but he clearly couldn’t resist doing the same with Nintendo’s just-released Switch 2 handheld to find out if it’s a “pass” or “fail” when it comes to hardiness.
“Out of the millions of Switches made, you kinda gotta feel sorry for the one that ends up on my desk,” Nelson says at the start of his video, suggesting that the device is in for a pretty rough time.
And it doesn’t start well for the Switch 2, with Nelson’s scratch test on the display showing marks at level 3, confirming a plastic screen. “There’s a permanently installed plastic layer on top of the Switch 2 display,” the YouTuber notes, adding, “Anything metal that comes into contact with this screen will indeed leave a mark,” while it should hold up fine against plastic objects.
Next up is the wince-inducing section of the test where Nelson drags a box cutter blade over the device, starting with the plastic Joy-Cons. Sure enough, the controllers do not come out well. What emerges, though, is how Nintendo has again inlaid the white letters into the buttons, so no matter how much they wear down over time, the letters will always remain visible.
After more scratching and scraping, out comes the naked flame, which takes only 10 seconds of close contact with the LCD display to darken a bunch of pixels. The good news is that they quickly recover, leaving little to no trace of what just happened.
And then comes the part that many folks look forward to in Nelson’s durability tests — the bend test. It’s pretty straightforward, with the YouTuber applying force to the device with his bare hands to see if 1- it bends, 2- it cracks, or 3- it splits in two.
Some smartphones have actually suffered the indignity of 3, but how would the Switch 2 fare? Well, as Nelson gradually increases the level of force, the Joy-Cons simply pop off, something he described as “a good thing” as it protects the rest of the device from experiencing more stress. Reassuringly, the Joy-Cons coming away like that (ie. without using the release levers) caused zero damage to the internal pins or port that secure them to the main device, and to Zack’s delight these parts remained intact even as he repeatedly forced the Joy-Cons off of the display.
“The Switch 2 would have to go through some extremely wild and crazy situations beyond what we do here to sustain any permanent structural damage,” Nelson concludes, adding that the handheld is nevertheless susceptible to cosmetic damage.
