Since last November, Valve has no longer only offered the Steam Deck with an LCD display, but also in an improved OLED version. Although the new screen boasts improved image quality, it also has to contend with a typical problem with OLED displays: burn-in.
Burn in after 1,500 hours
If static content is displayed on an OLED display for a long period of time, it may later be seen as a visible, “burned-in” shadow over other content. And according to the YouTube channel Wulff Den, that's exactly what can happen with the Steam Deck. In a test, the handheld console displayed a screenshot of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and some color and contrast patterns on the top edge for 1,500 hours. The maximum SDR brightness of 600 cd/m² was used.
After this time, a slight burn-in could already be seen in the position of some UI elements and in particular the black and white contrast bars. The red and blue subpixels were apparently more affected, whereas the green subpixels were less damaged. Of course, even burning in a single color can cause annoying artifacts.
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When asked by Wulff Den, Valve confirmed that the Steam Deck does not contain any automatic functions to avoid burn-in. With these, the console could, for example, dim particularly bright, static content. Even without such a feature, Valve is apparently not aware of any problems with the display.
Also interesting: Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED: More performance and stability with new SteamOS and firmware versions
Even if another YouTube video from the channel The Phawx attests that the Steam Deck burns in after 750 hours when a still image is displayed in HDR and therefore at 1,000 cd/m², this can certainly be true. After all, normal use of a handheld console is far from such scenarios. In addition, the susceptibility to burn-in is significantly increased by the permanently high screen brightness. If you don't play the same game over an extremely long period of time and at maximum brightness, you shouldn't have any problems.
Those: via Tom's Hardware