How bad is Nintendo Switch OLED burn-in? Here’s a 3,600-hour test

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 shot 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. (Wulff Den also tested at 1,800 hours, and didn’t see much effect back then.)

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: