Steam Deck OLED will get burn in if you’re abusing it

OLED burn-in continues to be a major fear amongst gamers, with many feeling those same emotions when the Steam Deck OLED was announced. It was recently confirmed that Valve’s enhanced handheld can be subject to burn-in, but fans have nothing to worry about since this is something you have to do on purpose.

The Phawx posted a video on his YouTube channel (via PC Gamer), showing how to make burn-in appear on your Steam Deck OLED. Based on the video he shared, it took 750 hours at max HDR brightness with a static image. Since most gamers will be consistently playing or looking at the Steam store, this is a non-factor.

WULF also tested out the system’s burn-in capabilities, this time testing it at 600 SDR brightness, and that still took 1,500 hours. This isn’t new to WULF, as he also previously tested the Nintendo Switch OLED’s burn-in, and that took several years for any major damage to happen.

Needless to say, it seems that burn-in won’t be easy with the Steam Deck OLED, as Valve has made sure that their handheld is a sturdy one. As long as players don’t keep a static image on for too long, they should be fine. Most gamers put their Deck or Deck OLED on rest mode so this won’t be a problem at all.

It’s easy to understand why people were worried since OLED televisions tend to fall victim to screen burn-in. A lot of older televisions tend to have certain images burned in, which is why gamers don’t want it to happen on their handheld. Some PS Vita owners also experienced this, but it still wasn’t a major issue.

Fans thinking of picking up a Steam Deck OLED should probably do so since the handheld has a gorgeous screen and much longer battery life. Valve saw what Nintendo was doing and decided to steal that idea and we can’t blame them for doing that. Gamers should be able to pick this up from most game stores.