Here is a prediction and it might take a few years but I think its going to happen. With the APU sizes always being reduced in nm this also results in lower heat production and less energy usage. So with a redesign down the line or a "slim" version of the switch I expect the APU chip to be smaller.

With this reduction in size the battery live will become better but I expect this will also result in Nintendo making that model simply run the games in the unlocked speeds, essentially running in "docked" mode. They might even increase the resolution of the screen but you can already see splatoon not holding 720P in undocked mode so it should be a nice boost in many games.

What do you think? WIll my prediction come true?

Sounds very lovely. So yeah, sure, why not?

Why not just update the current one to do so? Given how defensive many people around here were of the poor battery life I would think it'll be fine if we just kill the battery altogether.

Wouldn't that chip have a docked mode with more power consumption and better speeds too though?
I think we'll probably see a better chip in a Switch 'light' model but resticted largely to the same speeds to achieve better battery life and possibly better performance while docked.
Maybe a 'New Switch'/'Switch pro' with overall increased speeds in a few years.

Battery life will always require lesser performance when undocked imo... otherwise, they're not being ambitious enough with it when docked.

But it wouldn't really do anything because most of time the only performance bump docked mode give is fan increase in resolution from 720p to 900p or 1080p which you wouldn't see a difference on the 720p screen. I guess it would allow a more stable framerate in some games but it most likely only prevent some rare drops and nothing really crazy above that.

PS4 Pro and soon Xbox Scorpio are a good indication supersampeling does help, if you have a 720p screen and the games run on 1080p the image will look much cleaner!

Also I mentioned, maybe the remodel will have a higher 900p or 1080p screen, its deffenitely a possibility! :) also not all games will meet their 720p resolution target, splatoon 2 looks to be the first but proberbly wont be the last and dynamic resolution is also increasingly populair, which increased clockspeeds will make the console hold its target more often

Well almost everything is possible if we talk about future Switch models.

Switch Pro - Has a 7.5-inch LCD display (1080p), bezel is gone replaced by larger screen. Can run in "docked mode" even in portable mode. So for example if you have Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the game can run in full 1080p docked performance for 3 hours even portably whereas the old Switch can't do this. Tegra X2 processor replaces X1, battery size increased a bit to 5300 MaH.

$299.99 - Fall 2018 Launch


Switch Slim - Same design as current Switch, but about 2 inches less wide, bezels are basically cut off for a smaller form factor. Screen size stays at 6.2-inches, 720p. Tegra X2 replaces X1 processor, increasing battery life to 5-8 hours.

$249.99 - May 2018 launch, goes down to $229.99 for holiday w/Mario Odyssey bundled.

The world would be alright if the Switch actually used an APU instead of a cheap SOC.