How bad is Nintendo Switch OLED burn-in? Here’s a 3,600-hour test
OLED screens are glorious, gorgeous, vibrant — but they don’t last forever. Eventually, their organically lit pixels can wear, and some have understandably been worried that the OLED-equipped Nintendo Switch, released last October, might eventually succumb to burn-in. The good news? According to one test, it might take 3,600 hours of constant play on a static screen to even begin to see the first signs of that dreaded screen malady.
YouTuber Wulff Den reports that after five months leaving a Nintendo Switch OLED turned on, plugged into a charger, leaving a static screenshot of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s Link effectively staring into the sun, he’s only now finally seeing some ghosting. And it’s not a lot, as you’ll see for yourself in the video embedded above.
As my colleague Chris Welch told you at launch, burn-in isn’t quite the fear it used to be with OLED screens, as the technology’s come a long way, both in terms of OLED subpixel longevity and built-in software protections. Sometimes, those protections can even be a little too aggressive, as I explain in my review of LG’s 48-inch C1 OLED TV. But they’re there, and even if burn-in still exists, whatever Nintendo’s doing seems to be effective.
By the way: the Nintendo Switch just turned five this past week. Here are a few pieces we wrote to commemorate that:
OLED screens are glorious, gorgeous, vibrant — but they don’t last forever. Eventually, their organically lit pixels can wear, and some have understandably been worried that the OLED-equipped Nintendo Switch, released last October, might eventually succumb to burn-in. The good news? According to one test, it might take 3,600 hours…
