Switch 2 Tester Claims 120 Hz Screen Has Response Times Too Slow for 60 Hz Gaming

Oh boy, the new Switch 2 is here and, well, it’s got a screen that’s… let’s just say not exactly winning any awards for speed. So there’s this dude, Chimolog from somewhere over in China, who says the thing’s sluggish. Like, really sluggish. He mentions the screen has this response time averaging at 17.06 ms. To give you a sense of how that stacks up—it’s kind of like trying to have a normal conversation with someone who’s underwater. Or something.

The display specs? We’re talking a 1080p, 120 Hz, 7.9-inch LCD. And I don’t know about you, but I was expecting fireworks—not what we got. Apparently, at its best, it hits 8.88 ms, which sounds… okay, I guess. But then—hold onto your hat—it can lag all the way to 27.46 ms. That’s like a whole century in screen time. And yeah, I made that up, but still. It’s slow.

Chimolog decided to line up the Switch 2 against other monitors, you know, just to see how it fared. In a word? Badly. The closest was this Innocn M2U thing—yeah, never heard of it either—with an 11.06 ms response, making our friend the Switch look like it’s napping on the job.

Now, the contrast ratios and color stuff? Nintendo’s got that covered. Allegedly, the colors are vivid enough to make a peacock jealous, and contrast is downright snappy. We’re seeing numbers like 1309:1 and full coverage of sRGB and nearly everything else, which sounds nice if you care about that sort of thing. But that text readability—here’s the kicker—it comes out blurry because of some special RGB pattern. Why do they do this? Your guess is as good as mine. It’s like looking at something with Vaseline-smeared glasses.

One more thing… they couldn’t even test the 120 Hz refresh rate effectively. So who knows if that’s any good. Maybe it gets better, but I’m not holding my breath.

Despite all this, you’ve got people buying them in droves. Because—surprise—Nintendo’s got the magic key to all those beloved games. We’re looking at a record-breaking 3.5 million units sold in, what, four days? That’s wild. People love their Nintendo games, even if the screen’s response time is slower than my Monday morning.

So, yeah, here’s hoping for an OLED version down the line. Fingers crossed, right? But for now, this is what we’ve got. If you want to play those sweet, sweet Nintendo games, you’re stuck with this display. Sometimes, you win some, you lose some. Or maybe you just endure subpar pixels for Mario. Who knows.