Despite significant delays from the initial launch date and an email to backers suggesting that it might never come to market, Taki Udon, creator of the SUPER5 series of mods for the Nintendo Switch and Switch Lite, finally showed off a working prototype of the HDMI mod, which was promised last year.
Switch Lite SUPER5 OLED & SUPER5 HDMI: A Brief History
In the middle of 2024, Taki Udon surprised a number of people in the community (including the author of this article) when he decided to address a perceived weakness in the Nintendo Switch Lite by introducing a screen replacement called the SUPER5. The SUPER5 was an OLED screen with an increased color gamut (compared to the Switch Lite’s standard screen) alongside the traditional features of an OLED, which include things such as richer colors and deeper blacks.
As well as the promised HDMI mod, the SUPER5 was able to be bought with a bunch of accessories, including high-quality replacement shells and drop-in Hall-stick replacement Joy-Cons for upgrades across the system. Prior to shipping, in an email sent to SUPER5 backers, Taki seemed to indicate he was quality assuring each panel himself.
The SUPER5, however, was a product that seemed designed to court controversy. Initially, it was meant to be part of a bundle including the SUPER5 HDMI, a mod that would enable the Switch Lite to output video to an external display using a new port on the device. This appeared to be a case of overpromising, however, since the SUPER5 HDMI is yet to be seen, despite the other bundles of the SUPER5 now being in the hands of supporters.
Indeed, at the beginning of the year, Taki sent an email out to Super5 supporters, suggesting they contact the SUPER5 team in order to change their order and remove the SUPER5 HDMI in order to ensure that the bundle would be sent out within the first half of this year. A partial refund was offered to supporters who did this; however, the refund priced the lesser bundle at the then-current pricing, not the early bird pricing, meaning that supporters of the SUPER5 HDMI lost out compared to other early bird supporters.
Even after removing the HDMI mod from their bundle, supporters didn’t always find the SUPER5 the easy installation that had been promised. The SUPER5 came in two variants, touch and non-touch, with the touch version being incompatible with modchips, something that wasn’t made clear before shipping. Even the non-touch version wasn’t without issue, with an example of these problems being the experience of my fellow RH writer Mikhailov from Team Retrogue.
Is This A Bright Dawn, Or Just Another Delay
Taki’s video, which was shared to his Taki2 channel and not his main YouTube, seems to indicate that the technical issues that were preventing the mod from actually working may have been resolved. However, it doesn’t mean that the mod is ready for shipping.
The video seems to indicate that while working, the mod is not yet able to be fitted within the Switch Lite shell, meaning that, while further along the development process, we might still be a distance away from a release to market. As of now, it might be wise to think of this as a nice update and of the SUPER5 HDMI in general as the sort of product where it’s prudent to wait for reviews before spending what Mikhailov calls “your hard-earned Dollarbucks”.
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