Outside of tarantulas, elevators and the on-screen antics of Jared Leto, there are few things that bother me more on this Earth than OLED burn-in. This screen defect haunts my deranged eyes even worse than dead pixels, and I’ve had at least one of the best gaming monitors ruined by this problem. So when I see stories with “burn in” and “Steam Deck OLED” start to surface, my heart obviously sinks.
Said stories have arisen because YouTuber “The Phawx” (thanks, NotebookCheck), has discovered that Valve’s updated HDR device is indeed susceptible to a form of OLED burn-in. But wait! Don’t start sobbing over your Deck OLED’s wonderful 7.4-inch display just yet. While the handheld can physically be afflicted by screen burn — especially in its 1000 nits HDR mode — it would require some seriously unreasonable usage to leave burnt in “after images” on your Steam Deck OLED.
