Nintendo Switch Teardown Video Reveals Console’s Intricate Innards And Easy Repairability
As iFixit does with just about every major electronics release, the Nintendo Switch has been given a thorough teardown treatment and everything is documented with excellent step-by-step photography and a complementing video.
The outer casing of the Switch is held together by tri-point screws, which are easily dispatched giving quick access to the inside of the device. You are first greeted by a rather large, metal heat shield that does a good job of keeping the console cool in concert with the internal cooling fan and heat pipe. Delving further inside brings us face-to-face with a 16 Whr battery, along with close-up looks of the headphone jacket and game cartridge reader.
Much of the internal components are modular in nature, making for easy replacement should the need arise. The Switch’s 32GB of internal storage comes in the form of eMMC NAND and is housed on its own independent PCB. The motherboard contains an NVIDIA Tegra X1-based SoC, 4GB of LPDDR4 DRAM, a Broadcom Bluetooth 4.1 and 802.11ac Wi-Fi. Even the 6.2-inch display is easily removed (the digitizer and display are not fused together, which also aids in repairability).
The last bits to disassemble include the Joy-con wireless controllers and the Switch’s dock (for connecting to your HDTV). Needless to say, taking these accessories apart was also a relatively simple affair.
Unlike some other devices that we’ve seen come through iFixit’s operating room over the past few years, the Nintendo Switch managed to score incredibly high with its Repairability score: 8 out of 10. So, rest assured, if you somehow manage to damage your Switch, chances are that you’ll be able to make the necessary repairs without needing a shot of vodka first.
