YouTuber leaves his Nintendo Switch OLED on for 1,800 hours

One gaming tech YouTuber did a burn-in test on the new $350 OLED Nintendo Switch by leaving one image on its screen for over 1,800 hours. If you’re familiar with OLEDs, the results might not be what you expect.

What is OLED burn-in? — Burn-in is a rare side effect with OLED screens, where certain screen pixels can burnout over time if they continue to transmit the same visuals for extremely long periods of time. OLED burn-in is rare but possible, as Apple and Google both acknowledge the possibility with their OLED products.

Gaming concerns — Could extended gaming sessions cause OLED burn-in? YouTuber Bob Wulff of Wolff Den decided to find out. He left one OLED Nintendo Switch on, displaying The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for weeks on end.

“I decided to run a little experiment. I decided I was going to leave one image on screen for one week to try my best to ruin this OLED screen. A true stress test. Well, one week turned into two, which turned into about 11,” Wulff explained in the YouTube video he made chronicling the experiment.

The results — His findings? Wulff says that “Basically, OLED burn-in should not be a concern to you.” He did notice that after all that time, the white pixels appeared slightly dimmer, but he probably wouldn’t have noticed the change if he wasn’t tracking the before and after for the experiment.

“If you’re worried about OLED burn-in on your Switch because you have like 2,000 hours in a game, I think you can relax a little bit,” Wulff stated.