Although manufacturers have made significant strides in reducing the risk of burn-in in OLED displays, the possibility of this still occurring is high. Bloggers regularly test certain devices with such screens to show how durable they are. This time, YouTube bloggers Wulff Den and The Phawx tested the Valve Steam Deck OLED portable gaming console, which was released at the end of last year and differs from the original version, including an OLED display.
The bloggers' findings suggest that minor image retention on the Steam Deck's OLED screen may occur between 1,000 and 1,500 hours of use. While this is half the performance of the Nintendo Switch's OLED display, most users will likely take longer before they notice burn-in.
Burn-in occurs when overused pixels darken over time, leaving behind images of frequently displayed graphics on the screen. Typically this can happen when an OLED display displays a static image for too long. In testing the Steam Deck, bloggers tried to simulate a worst-case scenario in conditions that many users are unlikely to ever encounter. However, the work they have done could be a source of important information for owners of Valve's portable console.
In testing, Wulff Den displayed a static image from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on a Steam Deck screen with an added color bar at the top of the screen for 1,500 hours. At the same time, blogger The Phawx used a special program to test different colors in SDR and HDR modes. Interestingly, when playing HDR content with brightness up to 1000 cd/m², a clearly visible afterimage appeared after only 750 hours, while in the case of SDR content and brightness up to 600 cd/m², a subtle burn-in effect appeared only after 1500 hours, and more Only blue and red subpixels were affected.
It's likely that many regular Steam Deck OLED users won't experience screen burn-in that quickly. However, the image retention effect in the case of a user playing the same game for a long time over a long period of time may occur after about a year of interaction, just when the warranty period expires.
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