Last week's Nintendo Switch 2 presentation was a big one, full of new games, technical details and more, but despite months of persistent leaks there were still some really interesting surprises from a specs point of view.
The Switch 2 was a console that we'd seen from every angle before it was ever unveiled, but despite this, Nintendo was still working on some impressive changes that might pay dividends in the long run. While we knew that the Switch 2's display, for example, almost certainly wouldn't be an OLED panel, the fact that its LCD screen will have improved HDR and 120Hz refresh rate capabilities was a boon.
Still, as I reflected over the weekend on the many announcements made, I couldn't help but think that one unsung hero was revealed in the presentation – the new dock. Nintendo showed us the dock from behind for the first time, revealing that it's actually got a bit more going on beneath the hood than in previous generations.
Like the Switch OLED dock before it, it retains an ethernet port, as you can see above, alongside an HDMI slot and USB-C for power, but the bigger tweaks are in the hidden section they all plug into. Namely, Nintendo has upgraded the dock's output capabilities in two ways.
Firstly, it can now output at 4K, using HDR and at frame rates of up to 120fps on compatible displays. That's a huge resolution and refresh rate bump, one that could have massive benefits in well-optimised games and Nintendo first-party titles in particular. Best of all, it'll support auto low-latency mode (ALLM) to let the best compatible TVs adjust all these settings without you needing to worry, which is super handy.
The big addition that makes some of this all work is that Nintendo has added fan cooling to the dock, a tweak that lets it un-throttle the console a little further to let it reach its maximum potential without melting into lava. It's a change that was always on the table, but Nintendo's managed to pull it off in style, with a really small fan that you wouldn't even know is there.
Obviously, there are more headline-grabbing things to focus on with the Switch 2, and I can't wait to play some of the games shown off in the Direct presentation. Still, I'm a big fan of how Nintendo has iterated on its console, and it looks like the new dock might just be a secret weapon moving forward.
