I recently purchased the first Switch accessory that I previously classified as a “nice to have” - a charging stand.
The use case for a charging stand is simple - imagine a scenario in which you might want (or need) to prop the Switch up on its kickstand and use it in Tablet mode. Now imagine that you would also like to charge it at the same time. This is what the charging stand is for; it lets you prop it upright and plug it in.
What I find curious is that this accessory is that there is no “one” design that all manufacturers converged upon. For instance, here is a rather popular third-party stand made by Hori:
And here is Amazon’s knockoff version of the same:
These are basically just pieces of plastic that hold the Switch in place. Their design allows you to thread a charging cable through the bottom and up into the charging port, and a series of hinges allow you to adjust the angle and the height of the screen. It is a simple design, but it is cheap and it gets the job done.
Then there is the official charging stand made by Nintendo:
As you can see, this a much smaller, much different design. It is also more expensive than the other two. The Hori stand is sold for under $15, and the Amazon knockoff is $5. The Nintendo stand, however, is $20.
Normally, I am the kind of person who tries to strike a balance between functionality and affordability. If I can find an unofficial product that does the same job for less, I’ll take it. But there are some times where buying name-brand is the right way to go, and as you can probably tell, this is one of those times where I made that choice.
To understand why, you need to see what happened to my first charging stand, the one I built:
This is a makeshift charging stand I made out of the side of a diaper box, using a design I found online. Despite crumpling a bit under the weight, it managed to do the job, save for one problem.
This here is my USB-C charging cable:
You can see that the connector is wrapped in a very long piece of rigid plastic. So long, in fact, that when I plugged it into the Switch, it caused the entire cardboard stand to lift up off the table:
Yikes.
The first time I saw this, I knew the Hori and Amazon stands would be a bad idea. If my cord was “too tall” for my homemade stand, what were the odds that it would be too tall for either of these products? The only way I would find out for sure would be if I took a gamble on one of them, I’m not in the mood to buy and return stuff until I find the perfect fit.
On the other hand, this would not be a problem with the Nintendo stand. More than a simple piece of plastic, the Nintendo stand has two USB-C connectors built into it - one for the Switch to plug into, and one on the side of the unit that goes out to the wall.
Unless your USB cable is somehow extremely thick, it will not get in the way of the stand sitting perfectly flush.
Similar to the Hori stand, this one is also adjustable. There is a second piece in the back attached with a hinge. When fully closed, you get this extremely vertical angle:
When swung all the way out, you instead get a very laid back-looking Switch:
It reminds me of a good laptop hinge, in that it feels easy to move while also offering a nice sense of resistance. You can tell that this thing is not going to buckle under the weight of the hardware. Speaking of weight, the stand also has a good sense of heft to it. It isn’t weighty, perse, but it feels solid.
It is also fairly small. You can easily put this in your pocket if you needed to, or the side pouch of a bag.
What I am trying to say is that there is a sense of quality to this stand. The size is right, it looks good, and it feels good. Most importantly, its design makes no compromises. You don’t have to worry about whether or not your charging cord will fit. You can just use whatever you already have.
In contrast, the Hori/Amazon design definitely feels like a compromise, or at least a lower quality solution. They look kind of flimsy, being held up by only a handful of small plastic tabs running along the base; if any of them were to break, they would no longer be adjustable. Both stands fold up when not in use, but even when folded they are still arguably larger than the Nintendo stand. I can easily see them being crushed or damaged if thrown in a bag with something heavy (the Nintendo stand feels so solid that I can easily see it taking some knocks without issue).
If these two stands were a person, they would be the dad who tries to avoid paying a lot for an appliance or a piece of furniture by either buying a knockoff, or by buying the “open box” special. He brings it home with his chest puffed out, proud that he stuck it to the man. Then his wife points out that it is the wrong size, or the wrong color, or it is missing something, or there’s a stain, or that it squeaks a lot. Dad doubles down on his insistence that it is just as good as the real thing. Eventually it breaks or something goes wrong, and he grumbles all the way to the store as he gets the thing he should have all along.
Conclusion
The Nintendo charging stand is reminiscent of Apple accessories - it is both overpriced and high quality. On one hand, sure, I wish the price was lower. On the other hand, I hate the idea of possibly wasting time in order to try and save a little bit of money. At the end of the day, I think this one is the right call. It works well, the design makes sense, and I can see it lasting a long time. To me it is worth a few extra bucks.
Other Thoughts
After the NES Classic, Nintendo decided to dial up the use of red in their packaging, marketing materials, etc. It was always there in the logo, but now it was all over. Case in point:
And this:
The packaging for the charging stand has plenty of red, but it also has some other colors:
I only bring this up only because these particular colors remind me a lot of the colors their Nintendo 64-era packaging:
Is it coincidence, or a deliberate callback?
Addendum - Thoughts on USB-C
This is my very first device that uses USB-C. Until now the mere idea of USB-C annoyed me - do we really need another type of cable?
But now that I have used it, I am now looking forward to our brave new USB-C only future.
The connector is far less fragile than, say, a Mirco-USB connector, which you can sometimes break off with just two fingers and some pressure. The connector on my USB-C cord is so sturdy that I can do this without the Switch falling over:
The connection is much more secure and and stable than what you get with old fashioned USB-A connectors, which can sometimes be so loose that they are liable to fall out at the worst time.