With the Switch OLED, Nintendo didn’t just give its handheld console a screen upgrade, it also gave the dock a major facelift with extra ports, better cable routing, and a new white finish. For a while, it was only available bundled with the Switch OLED, but as promised, Nintendo now sells it on its own.
Although not a must-have upgrade and definitely not the long-rumoured Switch Pro, the Nintendo Switch OLED offered several compelling improvements to the five-year-old console including a larger screen with improved colour saturation and black levels that made games look fantastic, and a redesigned kickstand on the back that actually works.
With the Switch OLED, Nintendo also took the opportunity to make some welcome improvements to the dock that both charges the console and makes it easy to quickly connect to a TV. There’s a larger slot on the back cover for cables to be routed through (some HDMI cables can be kind of thick) but the cover can also be completely removed if that’s more convenient. On the inside, the Switch OLED dock has also gained a LAN port for improved multiplayer performance, but at the cost of a third USB port (there are still two available on the side).
The Switch OLED dock originally debuted as a standalone accessory in Europe at the beginning of the month, but it’s now available in the US and Canada through Nintendo’s online store. The original Switch dock sold for $US60 (A$84) on its own, although it appears to be currently sold out ahead of the holidays. The new Switch OLED dock is still available, but its upgrades and new paint job come with a $US10 (A$14) premium, pushing the price to $US70 (A$98), and that’s without any of the cables the Switch and dock bundles include in the box.