A few weeks ago, I was packing for a trip when I realized I still hadn’t bought a travel case for my Nintendo Switch 2, so I hopped online and grabbed the only one I could find on Amazon with same-day shipping. When it arrived, I immediately regretted my purchase – it was cheap, and felt cheap – but I didn’t have time to go to a brick-and-mortar store, so I was stuck with it.
Since then, I’ve gotten a chance to try out the oh-so-compellingly-named Belkin Gaming Travel Case for Nintendo Switch 2 and Belkin Gaming Charging Case for Nintendo Switch 2. This is a review of the latter, but I’ll tell you upfront that both are good cases with a soft, velvety interior lining that provides a snug fit for the Switch 2 without it feeling crammed in there.
Belkin Gaming Charging Case for Nintendo Switch 2 – Photos
The Belkin Gaming Charging Case for Nintendo Switch features a flap with elastic sleeves for 12 game cartridges, and a netted accessory pocket, inside of which is a small pouch for an AirTag or similar Bluetooth tracker. The top portion of the case isn’t particularly deep, so you won’t want to stuff more than maybe a spare charging cable and a pair of wired earbuds in the netted pocket. It’s serviceable, but effectively this is a travel case meant to be as compact as possible; it’s just that it happens to have a cavity beneath the Switch 2, designed to hold an included 10,000mAh battery.
On either side of that battery cavity are two other compartments – one is clearly there to give the cable space to bend through, but the other, beneath the right Joy-Con, is a boxy depression that’s big enough for, say, a set of Bluetooth gaming earbuds in their charging case (my AirPods Pro 3 fit nicely) or, I don’t know, a few Werthers Originals. Love my buttery hard candies, y’all. I kind of wish Belkin had covered this with a tiny trap door so I can put harder items there without worrying whether they’ll scratch the back of my console or slip loose and fall out when I open the case. But hey, it’s nice to have a bit of extra storage, however it’s used.
The outside of the case is wrapped in a textured, somewhat rigid fabric, with a sturdy nylon handle attached at the hinge for carrying. It’s closed up with two zippers that use a loop of thick string attached to a plastic piece instead of a metal zipper pull. The upper zipper track is embedded in a bit of floppy cloth that hangs off the top lid; I’m concerned about how long that will hold up over time, but it feels solid for now.
The Belkin Gaming Charging Case comes in black, green, and beige colorways, and its cloth covering will absolutely pick up stains. Keep that in mind when choosing your case – I reviewed the beige one, and the first time I played with it on my porch, it picked up a dark gray smudge from laying on the table out there.
Belkin designed the Gaming Charging Case so that you can play with the Switch 2 in tabletop mode – a little hollow bit at the front lets you plug the charging cable into the Switch 2, while the console’s kickstand rests on a ledge near the back hinged part of the case. This felt pleasantly stable when I tried it, both on a table and in my lap. It’s also made to let you charge the Switch 2 while it’s in the case, but be certain your Switch 2 is asleep if you do this. I didn’t the first time, and had forgotten that I had set the console not to sleep unless I explicitly told it to, so when I came back to it later, my Switch 2 was a steamy boy. Thankfully, it wasn’t cooking in its own juices long, and my console seems no worse for the wear.
As for the battery itself, it’s a simple removable power bank (it’s held into the case by a hook-and-loop strap) that’s a bit bigger than a pack of playing cards. It’s got two 20W USB-C charging ports – output that I confirmed using a small passthrough USB-C power meter – and a button on the side to activate a small LCD display that shows the battery pack’s current charge. On one corner, there’s a small loop that I suppose you could use to hang the battery on something. The case includes a short USB-C cable with a standard plug on one end and a right-angle one on the other for plugging into your Switch 2.
Belkin says its battery can net you an extra 1.5 charges, and that may be a bit conservative. It charged my fully-drained Switch 2 to 100 percent (in about 2 hours) and there was enough charge left afterward to get it back up to 90 percent again before the power bank gave out. And when I plugged my Switch 2 in for an extended play session – this time with the Joy-Cons detached and the Switch resting on the case in tabletop mode – Belkin’s battery kept the console humming along at 100 percent for about three hours and 39 minutes.
All told, that means I could play my Switch 2 for between five-and-a-half and six hours using Belkin’s power bank, instead of the two hours I would normally get out of the console’s battery alone, at least while playing more demanding games like Mario Kart World and Star Wars Outlaws with the screen at full brightness.
However, the included USB-C cable is stiff; there’s a carveout to rest it in so it’s not pinched between the Switch 2 and your case, but it doesn’t really want to go there. That adds a bit of fiddliness that adds another longevity concern, as it feels like I’m adding extra strain to the USB-C ports it’s plugged into, or at least the points where the cable connects to the plug ends. To Belkin’s credit, the cable feels well-made, so maybe that’s just paranoia, informed by the trail of dead cables I’ve left behind. Belkin also didn’t include any way to strap the Switch 2 down inside the case. The game cartridge flap keeps it from flopping around when the case is closed, so that’s not a concern, but if you opened the Gaming Charging Case carelessly enough, your console could come tumbling out. And, after all, what’s the point of a case if it can lead to you breaking your console?
Wes is a freelance writer (Freelance Wes, they call him) who has covered technology, gaming, and entertainment steadily since 2020 at Gizmodo, Tom's Hardware, Hardcore Gamer, and most recently, The Verge. Inside of him there are two wolves: one that thinks it wouldn't be so bad to start collecting game consoles again, and the other who also thinks this, but more strongly.
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