iFixit is retroactively giving the Nintendo Switch a 4/10 on repairability

is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget. Would you call the Nintendo Switch easy to repair, what with its infamously drifting joysticks, glued-in battery, tiny and easy-to-damage ribbon cables, and lack of official repair instructions and replacement parts? iFixit doesn’t think so anymore. After giving Nintendo’s handheld a rosy welcome at its 2017 debut, the online repair site says the Switch no longer lives up to 2025 standards — and so iFixit is cutting the Switch’s repairability score in half, from 8 out of 10 to 4 out of 10. We’ve never put too much stock into repairability scores, but iFixit’s reasoning (in this blog post) makes some sense to me, as a person who happens to open every handheld game system I test for The Verge. It’s not Joy-Con drift — it’s that the industry has moved on. As of 2025, many handheld gaming PCs are far easier to get inside and repair ... Read full article.