According to TechNewsSpace , although manufacturers have made significant strides in reducing the risk of burn-in on OLED displays, the possibility of this phenomenon still remains high. Tech bloggers also regularly test some devices using this type of display to test their durability. This time, YouTube bloggers Wulff Den and The Phawx tested Valve's Steam Deck OLED handheld game console, which was released late last year and has a difference from the original version, especially the OLED screen.

The bloggers' findings suggest that slight image retention on the Steam Deck's OLED display can occur after around 1,000-1,500 hours of use. While that's only half the performance of the Nintendo Switch's OLED display, for the average user, screen burn-in can appear after a very long period of use.

Burn-in occurs when pixels are overused and fade over time, leaving behind images of regular patterns on the screen. Typically, this can happen when an OLED display displays a static image for too long. In their Steam Deck test, the bloggers tried to simulate a worst-case scenario that many users are unlikely to encounter. However, their work could be an important resource for owners of Valve’s handheld console.

During the test, Wulff Den displayed a still image from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the Steam Deck screen with a color bar added 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 a brightness of up to 1000 cd/m², a burn-in image appeared after only 750 hours, while in the case of SDR content and a brightness of 600 cd/m² a slight burn-in effect appeared after 1,500 hours, and only affected the blue and red subpixels.

It’s likely that many regular Steam Deck OLED users won’t experience screen burn-in that quickly, but the effects of image retention can occur after about a year of use, right around the time the warranty expires, if you play the same game for an extended period of time.