Every time I have to charge my switch I am worried about the dock scraping against the screen. I may have been affected by Jeff mentioning hearing of several people scratching their screens on it but I don't know if it's a legitimate concern, or how common/easy it is to do it. Have you been taking care when you put the switch in the dock?

Yes, but only because I've heard the same things as you. I dock the switch really really slowly.

put some felt lining or strips of microfiber cloth with thin double sided tape on the extruding plastic "rails" for lack of a better word. should be adequate.

i'm worried my first attempt where i wrapped both sides in fairly thick microfiber may have warped the switch slightly where it looks curved, but i may be imagining things. it also runs a bit hot in the dock but i think thats normal and not due to anything i did.

using the dock as is didn't scratch it yet though, even when i put it in a tad haphazardly. there is a very tiny mark on the top of the screen already :( but i doubt the dock did that.

e: also get a screen protector. alex needs to get his illuminati conspiracy money!

This seems kind of crazy. I have no idea why they didn't use gorilla glass. It's not that much more expensive than iPhone glass.

A plastic screen doesn't crack or shatter, so it's sort of better for children who don't necessarily mind a slightly scratched screen. But that doesn't excuse Nintendo for not having a soft lining on the inside of the dock.

@isomeri: That's not an excuse of anything. Plastic can crack as much as anything else. It's not unbreakable. Scratches are far easier to occur than complete destruction.

@ripelivejam: I hate screen protectors. I hate putting them on and how they look. Since my plan is to eventually sell this and buy the next revision I probably should though.

I put felt inside my dock just incase, but it's hard to imagine how people could actually scratch it.

There's no point in being in a rush to put in a dock because you might miss the USB connector, so just slide it down slowly with the device tilted back a bit, there's no way the screen should be touched.

A nice benefit of having felt inside is that if it does make contact with the screen it's going to give it a bit of a wipe down.

I'm putting a glass protector on mine tomorrow so I might remove the felt anyhow.

Plastic cracks and that's it, glass completely shatters in an area and can extend from the initial impact in time.

A crack in either would ruin the screen for me but if I had to choose between living with a cracked plastic or a glass screen, it'd be plastic. I would have preferred a glass screen myself because I tend not to drop things.

I may have found a solution. I have a Nexus 6P, which uses a USB C port. I'm charging on that and it seems to be working fine. This way I will only have to use the dock when I want to put it in TV mode! Which I don't think will be too often.

I could of course use the USB cable that came with the dock but then I would have to run it back through every time I wanted to use TV mode which is a bit of a hassle.

@alistercat: Hey, this is what I did:

There are two plastic rails that face the front of the Switch as you slide it into the dock. I've taken two strips of Scotch tape and adhered them to the full length of the rails, covering the rough texture of the rails. You can't see the tape unless you look for it. It's quite snug in the docking unit - maybe a few microns between the Switch and the rails when it's in the dock - otherwise I'd put felt in there, but this seems to work fine. I hope this helps!

Plastic is not unbreakable, but it's much more durable towards cracks than glass. How many cracked phone screens did you see back in the days of old Nokias and Motorolas when all the screens were plastic?

Admittedly, the main reason why Nintendo have chosen to go with plastic is probably lower cost. I guess the message is, if you don't want scratches buy a screen protector. Maybe they'll start including one in the box instead of fixing the dock.

But I'll definitely wait for the first revision on the Switch hardware before buying in.

If you look at the Switch when it's docked, there is still quite some room between those plastic rails and the screen. I think if you don't tilt it and then jam it in there, you should be okay.

That being said, I'll still use a screen protector and felt lining, because I know I will destroy it sooner or later.

Most of these concerns are probably totally exaggerated, though. I still remember the rumors about the Xbox 360 scratching discs like crazy... BUT only if you shook the system violently while playing.

I also hate screen protectors. I bought two of them because I messed the first one up and I still have a few small dust particles under the screen but you can't really notice them when the screen is on and I would rather that, than scratch the screen. That being said, I have docked and undocked it a lot and the screen is still pristine.

I saw on Reddit some people suggesting that some people might have narrower docks than others but I have no idea if that's true. I'm very careful when docking but I have been trying not to think about it when I dock it because if I do, I'll get super nervous and fuck it up some how.

Yeah those few with faulty systems are always the loudest. I think that the silent majority doesn't have those kinds of problems. Also dead pixels? Happens with every type of screen. There are guidelines concerning the amount of dead pixels that are allowed for a certain type of screen. If yours exceeds that, return it.

Does it have to be docked?

Wrong, I remember scratching several discs simply by carefully moving the xbox while it was playing. Which you could totally do in the previous generation.

Yeah my Mega Drive can totally do that. I still remember that I used to carry it around all the time while playing. I just don't remember why.

@infantpipoc: you never have to dock it, it's just the way they intend you to charge for the most part.

@infantpipoc: you can use it without ever dockin'.

@guthwulf: Nice sarcasm you got there. I clearly ment the ps2 and xbox generation.

@dudeglove: didn't we have a bunch of ps4 failures reported at launch? and that seemed to fade away. people seem thirsty to throw nintendo under the bus for the same thing. i don't deny the launch hardware issues but that video reeks of sensationalism and it sounds like the vocal minority once again. if this same stuff is happening months down the line after supply's been restocked, then i'd worry. so far i'm issue free, though i preemptively modded my dock.

don't really trust the crowbcat guy after he took all of gb's content about vr out of context.

It's getting pretty boring seeing this dogpiling now, dead pixels affect everything, that is in no way Switch related whatsoever. Every time you buy a TV, monitor, phone or tablet you should be worried about dead pixels.

Do you know who Crowbcat is and what he does every console launch? I guess people just want to listen to the people with issues and not any of the ones that have none.

@zeushbien: Yeah Yeah, I know. The problem occurred mostly when you where moving the 360 from a vertical into a horizontal position WHILE a disc was spinning in the drive.

Which to me is an act of total lunacy.

Still, hundreds of thousands of dimwits cried about it, and since Microsoft is an American company they clearly had to do something about it. That still doesn't make it a real problem.

Same goes for many other so called problems. As long as there's a group that is big enough and loud enough, many things will be treated as real problems even if the true origin is a lack of common sense. The companies just don't want the bad publicity, and sadly the internet today is awesome at blowing things out of proportion.

@guthwulf: Again, that was not my situation, so basically you are talking about something you know nothing about..

I've had mine since launch (all three days) and I haven't picked up any scratches yet, the screen seems pretty robust to me but I'm still taking care to dock carefully.

I'd be more worried about throwing it into a bag or something so I can take it with me on a flight. Someone is going to make a fucking killing on travel cases.

@zeushbien: I know exactly what I'm talking about. People are doing stuff that common sense should prevent them from doing, then they complain when bad things happen.

I own a majority of the disc based consoles released in the last two decades. And do you know how many of them can be moved around while the disc is spinning? Me neither, because it's fucking stupid to do it.

I mean...like...the fact that the dock has real potential to scratch the screen seems insane either way. I don't doubt that the vast majority of owners probably haven't scratched their Switch yet and probably never will, but I do doubt the notion that anyone who has scratched it is just chucking the thing into the dock from across the room or some shit.

This shouldn't have even been an issue in my opinion as I feel like the dock should have been lined with some sort of padding. They're trying to sell this thing to people of all ages, especially kids. Kids are real good at accidentally fucking shit up and it sounds real easy for a kid to fuck up the Switch's screen with something that comes in the box and is a large part of the appeal (like...half) of the entire Switch experience to begin with.

@isomeri: Having to buy a screen protector to protect the screen is like needing a gun to stay safe: it doesn't solve the problem at its root and creates new ones by itself.

Whatever their reasoning may be though, I do not have to like it. I think it is a poor solution to a potential problem that the entire Switch doesn't seem to be designed around anyway. If you drop that thing, those controllers apparently are busted extremely quickly. The system itself is also not very resistant to it. Trying to protect the screen in all that but nothing else seems pointless. I want better shit than this.

I think it's true that the Switch could have been a little better in that regard, still I am fairly sure that it is not as big of a problem as some people make it out to be. I somehow also feel that the Switch is geared more towards an adult audience than all the other systems before it.

@dudeglove:

Some percentage of electronics will be DoA, it's disappointing but that's just how it works.

I do respect the decision to include a fan in the device, because you can't have consistent 3D rendering without consistent heat exhaust. However this is a no-no for tablets. Everyone who has ever owned a laptop long enough, knows that fans are just a time-bomb, sooner or later they either need to be replaced, cleaned or re-greased. At least the device seems easily repairable without the need to glue or pry things apart.

Without the TV / hybrid functionality they could use a kind of G-sync on the mobile screen, but they haven't because you have to support every HDMI TV out there. So 30 - 20 FPS Vsync is all you get. Three batteries that's thrice the battery anxiety.

I hope they release at some point a Switch TV - that's just a console with an ergonomic controller, without the tablet gimmick. Sort of like The X-box one, without Kinect. You could do it probably for like a 100 bucks, without the screen and the the big tablet battery.

This probably deserves it's own thread but it seems approriate here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/5xz9u0/nintendo_switch_dock_has_been_pulled_from/

Store page for the dock is straight-up gone right now. This could mean a lot of things.

@dudeglove: It was the capacitive Eject button that was the problem on mine at least, kept ejecting dvds. Plus it was terribly noisy and the wireless adapter for both wifi and bluetooth failed on it. I sent in for repair and got one back with proper buttons.

Reading that the switch has fan inside would worry me more if not for good consumer laws in Norway, if it breaks within 5 years of purchase they have to fix that shit. As @eurobum mentioned, fans in devices like this has a tendency to fail. When I worked in computer repairs and warranty we had at least one broken laptop fan a day.

Thinking about it tho, in most of the consoles that I got in for warranty the problem was not the fan. It was usually power supply, the DVD laser or broken video outputs. This was also true for most wii's we got in, although my personal wii had a broken fan. But now I'm digressing about home consoles and not portable systems so it may not apply.

I dunno dude, having so many of the exact same issue so quickly? Kinda crazy. I sell laptops for a living. We don't see many dead pixels outside of old systems. I think I've personally worked with about 3 instances of dead pixels on new systems in the last two years. And with a video that shows so many different people experiencing about 3-4 common issues like GPU Artifacting (thermal issues?), screen failure, etc.

There are too many video documented cases showing issues within the week of the release for you to be writing them off so quickly. There are more videos of this thing failing in the same couple of ways than there were reported cases of Samsung's exploding phones.

There's no way to know if these issues are as severe as it seems or legitimate at all but there's also no way these should be ignored given the situation.

I was going to talk my roommate into buying a Switch with me for Zelda but now I'm staying the hell away from it until the various QC and even just design issues get worked out. The Dock is clearly poorly thought out, the shoulder risers on the Joycons are absolutely mental and don't seem to have ever been even slightly tested, and the system itself seems to be having at the very least some serious software issues that might actually be hardware issues.

@guthwulf said:

Their guidelines are "These are normal and should not be considered a defect" so you won't be able to return it to Nintendo. Nintendo has similar problems with the 3DS, you would sometimes get brand new units with dust under the screen, different white balances, display types(IPS, TN) etc on each screen.

@expensiveham: I agree that their stance is pretty shitty, but I was talking about actual laws (at least in Europe) which state for example that for a screen with 2 million pixels (1920x1080) two are allowed to be dead OR stuck, otherwise the manufacturer has to take it back no matter what they say.

@opusofthemagnum: You know what, maybe I give Nintendo too much credit, I'm also just very cautious when it comes to complaints about something like that because it's almost always the case that the people who are unsatisfied with something tend to be more vocal about it (and rightfully so) which can through the power of the internet skew the perception of the issue.

@adequatelyprepared: What do you think it could mean? That there is something wrong with the docks or that they realised the overlooked some things in it's design?

This and the joycon strap fitting on backwards is blowing my mind here. How the shit did this get past the first 2 prototypes? Let alone make it to release? Jesus, Nintendo.

@pompouspizza: Most of the other launch day faults just seem like errors in production rather than just poor design. Not so with the dock. Given how widespread the scratching issue is being reported, maybe Nintendo is actually going to already release a revised model of the thing. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into a simple delisting that could have happened for any other number of reasons.

Just a warning to people considering using a screen protector film on their Switch - there are reports of people having their protector develop "bubbles" caused by the heat generated by the device.

I've also been worried about the dock scratching thing as well, and hate screen protectors. I found this solution on reddit and liked how it looked so I tried it out using the exact same velvet paper from Michael's:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/5xj3ne/tutorial_cheap_diy_fix_for_the_scratching/

It was pretty easy and it came out really nice, though docking the Switch now feels a little tight, even though I only did the front facing pair. It still slides in easily, but the added width to the rails in the dock now make it impossible to not slide against them. I'm still debating whether this is better than it was before, but I'm gonna try it out for a week or so and see.

i've seen one pic so far, that seems to have whipped a lot of people into hysteria; mostly just anecdotal evidence. if you're concerned enough about it you can buy some microfiber cloth and double sided tape and be done. not convinced that it's an actual thing yet but it was limited effort on my hand so i did it anyway.

I cut up a pair of my girlfriend's pantyhose and stretched a piece over the front of the dock while I wait for my glass screen protector to arrive. So far, so good! No scuffs or scratches.

@ripelivejam: I do think that there is something to the scratch concerns. The Crowbcat video is just the usual anecdotal nonsense, and he/she had made a similar one for the PS4 Pro. I don't know why the statement of 'Hey, maybe don't buy hardware on launch day if you can't accept having a faulty unit' is being hailed as this incredible message that's really sticking it to modern gaming.