Steam Deck OLED: Apparently high burn-in risk for display

With the Steam Deck, Valve has had a real bestseller in its lineup for almost two years now. After almost exclusively effusive hymns of praise, the PC handheld now has to put up with a little criticism. It is said that the premium model in the form of the Steam Deck OLED can lead to ugly burn-in, as two interested YouTubers have now discovered in their experiments.

Steam Deck OLED screen causes concerns

Valve has made a really powerful piece of hardware even better with its Steam Deck OLED(test). As the name suggests, the upgrade focused primarily on the display. A high-contrast and colorful OLED panel is used here, which reproduces impressive image content. However, OLED technology also has an Achilles heel. And this concerns the tiresome issue of burn-in. If rigid picture content is displayed on an OLED panel for too long, burn-in can occur in the panel. Modern OLED TVs and smartphones have not had to deal with this problem for a long time. Safety mechanisms in the hardware counteract this annoying negative effect.

In view of the known problems, the tech world was skeptical when the Steam Deck OLED went on sale. There is no question that the screen is breathtaking at first glance. But what will it look like after one or two years? YouTubers The Phawx and Wulff Den apparently asked themselves the same question. They put Valve’s piece of hardware through a real endurance test, as reported by their colleagues at heise online. The results of the independent practical tests are unlikely to please owners of the handheld. After all, there were indeed ugly burn marks. However, the test setups involved situations that are far removed from conventional use.

Nintendo Switch OLED wins comparative test

It is of course obvious that another extremely successful handheld was used as a comparison object – the Nintendo Switch OLED. And it performs surprisingly well when it comes to the screen. Although the Steam Deck OLED may have significantly better hardware under the hood, the screen of Nintendo’s handheld did not show any noticeable wear until much later. But now let’s take a closer look at which test the YouTubers actually carried out. The Phawx programmed its own program specifically for its OLED test. This program had the handhelds display many different subpixels at different brightness levels.

https://youtu.be/_E737POxeQs

This included white text at maximum brightness, which remained static on the display – pure poison for older OLED panels. Now The Phawx allowed the static image content to remain on the screen for an impressive 750 hours. The white font in particular was clearly burnt in, so that the font lingers on the screen like a kind of ghost when the display is switched on. Of course, the result is annoying, but the test setup also corresponds to a truly extreme situation. Who leaves their Steam Deck OLED switched on for over a month with static image content at full brightness?

Steam Deck OLED not durable enough?

Wulff Den came to very similar conclusions. He had his Valve handheld display a screenshot with maximum brightness for 1,500 hours. The result was also ugly burn-ins, which were subsequently visible when the screen was switched on. Of course, this does not limit the functionality of the device, but it can certainly bother some image fetishists. Unfortunately, the burn-in is a problem with an announcement. After all, Valve let its customers know in advance that the company’s own handheld relies on an OLED panel without appropriate protection against burn-in. This seems to have backfired.

As the device has not been on the market for very long, it will probably be many months before burn-ins can be seen, even with average use. In terms of longevity, however, the result is questionable. Especially when you take a look at Valve’s warranty. The company only offers a one-year warranty for its display. To have such problems within just one year, however, you have to put the screen through an endurance test like the two YouTubers.