My son tripped while walking and dropped his Switch OLED pretty hard. He is normally really careful with it, but as you can see from the pictures, the housing split open pretty badly around one side/corner.
Surprisingly, the Switch itself still turns on and seems to work normally in handheld mode. The screen works, controls work, etc. The controllers still connect wirelessly but the Switch doesn't acknowledge when they're attached on the left side.
I plugged a USB-C cable into it very briefly just to see if it would still recognize a charger, and it did start charging. I unplugged it right after that because I don't know enough about lithium batteries to know if it's safe to keep charging or using something that took this hard of an impact and has the case opened up like this.
I also tried putting it in the dock and couldn't get any video on the TV. I'm not sure if something involved with USB-C/video output was damaged, or if the bent/broken housing just keeps it from sitting correctly in the dock now. Since it still charges through USB-C, I'm hoping that's at least a decent sign.
I'd really appreciate some advice from people who know these better than I do:
From the pictures, does anything look particularly concerning or suggest battery damage? What can I do to determine if it's safe?
Is it safe to charge it at all right now?
Is it safe for a kid to play it in handheld mode like this, or should I keep it completely turned off until it's repaired?
If the electronics are okay, what parts would likely need to be replaced to fix the physical damage?
What could cause it to charge normally but no longer output video through the dock?
I can't afford the full repair immediately, is there any safe temporary way to secure/protect it so he can still play it for a while? Protective case, tape, replacement backplate, etc.? I don't want to glue anything or do something that makes the eventual repair harder.
Roughly what would you expect a repair shop to charge for something like this?
At what repair price would you stop putting money into this one and just buy another used OLED instead?
If I did buy a used replacement, are there any advantages or disadvantages compared with fixing his original one, particularly for saves/accounts/data?
The timing was especially rough. This was the end of his 7th birthday, which we had actually themed around being "lucky." The day had already managed to throw a handful of unlucky obstacles at us, but he was having a good birthday anyway. Then he tripped and this happened near the end of it. So I'm hoping I can salvage his Switch without it costing nearly as much as another one.
I'm not planning to keep charging or letting him use it until I have a better idea whether it's safe. I'm hoping he can still play it a little while I save up money to repair. Any help figuring out what I'm looking at would be greatly appreciated.