The OLED screen of the Nintendo Switch faces time: burn-in or not?

When Nintendo announced the release of its new version of the Switch equipped with an OLED screen, many were skeptical. However, after several months of intensive use, it appears that the Nintendo Switch OLED has surprising durability.

OLED is the technology that we now find in everything that has a screen: smartphones, TVs, laptops, and even consoles like the Nintendo Switch or the new Steam Deck. At first, some were skeptical due to a few issues, but it looks like OLED has proven itself.

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OLED screens had a bad reputation because of the “ burn-in “, where an image remains stuck on the screen if it is displayed for too long. But today, it’s less and less of a concern.

Look at the Switch OLED: YouTuber Wulff Den tested it for two years, and it took that long to see any really visible traces. At first, after 150 days, there was barely anything, and even after a year and 50 days, it wasn’t obvious.

What Wulff Den did with the Switch isn’t really what we call normal use. He left the console on non-stop with the same game. Really, who does that? Normally, we change games, put the console on standby… In short, the test shows that the OLED screen of the Switch is rather sturdy. After around 18,000 hours, the screen is still holding up, which surprised even Wulff Den.

Switch OLED: better than we thought

Basically, even for gamers who play eight hours a day, the Switch’s OLED screen should last at least six years. And the burn-in effect, frankly, is not that serious. Wulff Den continued to play other games without it bothering him. To have a really annoying problem, you would have to use the console in a really extreme way.

OLED has evolved a lot in recent years. Experts say these screens could last 100 years if the problem of blue components was solved. The Wulff Den test shows that, for normal use, this is more than sufficient. And during his test, nothing else failed: neither the battery nor the fan.