Nintendo unveils the not-Switch Pro with OLED display

Nintendo has unveiled a new Switch, and there’s very little Pro about it.

The new model features a larger 7” OLED display along with “enhanced audio”, which presumably means better speakers. A new “wide” kickstand has also been added to the back, replacing the flimsy one for the original with something more akin to what you’d find on the Surface Pro. The dock has also been designed so its sleeker looking, with a colour scheme to match the Joycons. It also now finally features a built-in Ethernet port for those who prefer the reliability and low latency of wired connectivity. Nintendo only showed off a single colour for the new model, black and off-white. It’s unclear if others will be available when it launches on October 8th. The fancy new display also comes at a $50 premium over the previous model, costing $450 CAD. Which seems a little steep to me.

It’s fair to say that nobody expected this. Numerous pundits, including mainstream business sites, expected the company to release a Pro model at some point this year. One which would feature all new internals that would be capable of running more sophisticated games at higher resolution. And well, in a classic Nintendo move, that didn’t happen.

Sure, we’d heard the rumours about an OLED display, but a lot of people were expecting something a little more. Bloomberg had reported back in March that a new model would feature an upgraded Nvidia chipset capable of 4K graphics, along with the upgraded display. While the new model could very well feature a refreshed Tegra X1 SoC, it looks like nothing else has come to pass.

It just goes to show how little rumours matter. Especially when it comes to the notoriously tight lipped Nintendo. The Switch continues to be a strong seller. And with the ongoing chip shortage, the odds were always against an upgraded Pro system. So far the new improvements should be a nice boon to those thinking about buying the hybrid handheld. However, there seems to be little here to entice current owners to upgrade.