5 accessories any Nintendo Switch owner needs to have

If you just managed to find a Nintendo Switch or you’re looking for a good gift for someone you know who has one, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. The Nintendo Switch is definitely one of the hottest items around, with Nintendo promising to increase production to meet demand. Despite those promises, it’s incredibly hard to find one of these elusive consoles in the wild unless you go hunting.

What’s even worse is that it can be hard to find accessories too, considering how popular the handset is. We wanted to highlight some of the accessories that we’ve tested with our Nintendo Switch so you can deck out your Switch in style, or at least make the Switch owner in your life a little bit happier. Here’s our recommendations.

1. Screen Protector

Here’s something you may not know if you haven’t been following the development of the Nintendo NX into the Nintendo Switch. The Switch doesn’t feature a glass screen. Instead, it’s plastic. That may seem a bit strange considering most of our consumer devices like smartphones and tablets opt to use Gorilla Glass for hardness to prevent scratches, but it makes a lot more sense when you consider Nintendo’s target market also includes children.

Plastic screens are a lot harder to break when they experience any sort of impact from dropping, but that leaves them a lot more prone to scratching. A tempered glass screen protector like the one shown above gives you the best of both worlds. What’s even better is that there are a handful of them available on Amazon for less than $10 and in the package linked below, you get two.

This is the number one investment you can make for your Switch to protect that screen, especially if you’re like me and you remember the horror of loaning your little brother your Game Boy Advance and getting it back all scratched up. Protect those screens!

2. Extra Battery Life

My biggest complaint surrounding the Nintendo Switch is that it doesn’t have a very beefy battery. You can only play in portable mode for about 3 hours before you’ll need to start charging it, but that’s offset by the fact that Nintendo uses a standardized charger.

Many companies make beefy battery packs for smartphone users and there’s no reason you can’t use one of these with your Switch to get some extra juice while you’re out and about. We tested RAVPower’s 26,800mAh power bank and found it provided a whopping extra 10 hours of juice for the Switch. However, if you don’t need quite that much juice they make a smaller 12,000mAh power bank that’s half the size.

Usually, the 12,000mAh power bank retails for $29.99 on Amazon, but using coupon code NIN12000 you can get 20% off the usual price bringing it down to just $23.99. Not bad for a device that’ll get you double the play time on your Nintendo Switch.

3. Protective Case

There are tons of Nintendo Switch cases on the market, so I had a hard time deciding on which case I wanted to buy for mine. I had a few requirements in mind, including a place to store extra physical games, cables, and I wanted a protective hard shell on the case so I could just throw it in my bag and go.

This amCase fits all of those perfectly without any garish logos from the company who makes the case gracing the front of it. If you’re like me and you just want an easy way to protect your Nintendo Switch without having to detach the Joy-Cons, then this is the perfect case for you.

4. MicroSD Cards

Just like the Wii U before it, the Nintendo Switch only ships with 32GB of internal memory storage. That’s about enough for one modern game or a handful of indie games you can download from the eShop. Thankfully, Nintendo didn’t go the proprietary storage route *COUGH*SONY*COUGH* and they used microSD cards, so you can add extra storage to your Nintendo Switch relatively cheap.

If you’re the type of person who buys most of your games as physical releases, you can probably get away with adding only a 64GB microSD card to your Switch for the rare digital-only game that you might want to play. However, if you prefer to have everything on the system with no cards to swap, then a 128GB or 256GB microSD card would be more fitting for you.

5. Extra Charging Cables

Nintendo’s decision to move away from a proprietary charger can’t be praised enough. The USB-C standard is what nearly all Android phones produced in 2016 and beyond will use going into the foreseeable future, so if you’re an Android user you probably already have a few extra USB-C cables laying around. Even Apple has switched their MacBook line to using this connector.

Amazon offers a line of USB-C cables in their AmazonBasics line that will fit the bill for anyone looking for a cable of greater length than the one Nintendo decided to include with the Switch. From 6 inches, 3 feet, 6 feet, to 9 feet, no matter the length you need, Amazon’s got you covered.