Lucky enough to get my OLED in today, first thing I wanted to do was a comparison test.

Test was done with Horizon Zero Dawn.

256GB LCD vs 512 OLED

Settings

  • “Favor Performance” graphics setting (so low everything)
  • Maximum brightness
  • No Volume
  • Airplane mode turned on (no WiFi/Bluetooth)
  • All SteamOS system settings the same
  • Both locked to 60 FPS in Steam, with no other power options turned on
  • HDR disabled (for OLED)
  • Loaded the same exact save on both, with same time of day and camera angle
  • Let both units sit in game to warm up to stable temperatures while still plugged in, so the entire run on battery had the same thermals

Results

From a single sample:

  • LCD - 1 hour 10 minutes
  • OLED - 2 Hours 20 Minutes

This is much better than I personally had expected. It may also be an outlier. I was expecting the claims of “50% battery” to be on the upper limits with most games getting like 30-40% longer playtime. I was NOT expecting double. Again, this may be an outlier, or I may have botched the test somehow, very possible. Framerates on both where almost identical though, so I doubt my settings could have been that off.

Random Observations

  • I’ve seen “5-10% performance boost” floating around this sub and other places, but in my test I got nearly identical framerates. Maybe a few decimal points better of frametimes (20.2ms compared to 20.8ms for example).

  • That being said, the temperatures where super impressive. The LCD deck was in the 85°C range on CPU and GPU (with GPU being a bit hotter on average) pretty much the whole test, while the OLED was around 65°C the whole time (same, GPU being a bit hotter). This also resulted in lower fan speeds on the OLED so the whole thing ran MUCH quieter. Like significantly noticeably quieter.

  • While your never really going to actually plan the SteamDeck super off angle because that would be stupid, I will say (just like many pictures already floating around the sub) if you compare both from off angle, even slightly off angle, it becomes clear very quickly how much better the OLED handles viewing angles and backlight bleed (due to… not having a backlight).

  • I knew that the OLED was a bit lighter, and I figured it would be super minor, but it actually feels like it makes a difference. Like legit it might just be placebo, but I always felt the OG SteamDeck was just a touch too heavy for me.

  • Separate from the test, I screwed around with HDR on Horizon. While I wasn’t as blown away as every seemed to imply I would be, I will say some effects like the fireflies over grass in the dark, the glimmer of the Shieldweave armor, or some of the crackling lightning effects, look REALLY cool in HDR. Its hard to describe, and looking at two of the same scene side by side, I can still SEE all of those things on the LCD, but they just don’t… pop out the same?

Anyway, hopefully you found this post of some use and worth an upvote. If you have any questions or specific things you wanted tested, let me know! I’m off to go test charging times now! (Let me know if you want me to post that data as well)