It’s nuts how worked up people are getting about this, and then people taking their opinions/preferences and weaponising them to the point of ridiculous inaccuracy just to make it seem like they’re right. I have the etched 512gb LCD Steamdeck and a family member has the glossy 256gb. I don’t mind the etched at all on the LCD because:
- It can’t show true blacks anyway
- The colour gamut is kind of crappy anyway
- You can negate ~90% of the etched glass effect by dropping a glossy screen protector on it.
But even with the LCD screen, if you compare them directly, it does look better.
There’s some simple facts with the screen tech that makes this a lot simpler to decide if you’re on the fence
- Most OLED screens are glossy for a reason. The etched "anti"glare, diffuses the glare across the screen resulting in washing out the screen, which can negate some of the wow factor with OLED.
- Most smartphones are OLED nowadays, and they all have glossy screens because it just looks better. Most phones have the brightness needed to cut through annoying reflections, and it seems the SD OLED 600nit SDR and 1000nit HDR will be plenty to do so as well in most scenarios.
- Saying that, in particularly bright lights it will cast a really strong reflection on a glossy screen that will make some bits of the screen basically unreadable. On the etched screen it will diffuse the reflection to the point that, while you’ll still have a massive reflection on the screen and it’s going to wash out the screen black and colour level - atleast you’ll be able to see it.
- In dim/ambient light with no direct lights hitting the screen, they both appear very similar. In the case of the LCD Steamdeck, the etched and glossy are quite similar here with a very very minor fuzziness on the etched version that you don’t notice when you’re actually playing something.
- On the glossy screen you can put either a matte or glossy screen protector on to get your desired effect. On the etched screen you can put a glossy screen protector to negate the majority of the etched effect so that you wouldn’t be able to notice unless you had them side by side and really nitpicked.
Valve have clearly chosen to keep the etched screen on the top model because they feel that despite it going against some of the benefits of OLED in SOME scenarios. In the context of a handheld it remains the superior choice.
Take a look at this example (https://youtu.be/VhtxxfIrzqM?t=622). Glossy LCD on the left and etched OLED on the right. In this lighting the contrast on the LCD version looks superior because it’s not getting washed out like the etched glass is, buf if that reflection of the light goes over any important game elements, it literally won’t be readable.
But then look at this example (https://youtu.be/7FKJODmcdiM?t=247). The glossy LCD on the top has annoying reflections, whereas the etched OLED is negating those reflections almost entirely WITHOUT washing out the screen. The colours and contrast of the OLED are still clearly superior, with almost no annoying reflections. Both the OLED AND the etched glass are clearly better in this scenario.
On this same video (https://youtu.be/7FKJODmcdiM?t=224) it shows how the etched glass responds to having a glossy screen protector put on it. The haze created by lighting at glancing angles it almost entirely negated by the glossy screen protector because it’s essentially filling in the micro-surface created by the etching process.
Both screens have pro’s and cons. Both screens can be made to be glossy or matte with the addition of screen protectors. Both screens can be made to look worse than the other depending on the circumstances. Neither choice is the “wrong” choice.
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I think most people like myself want to splurge for the highest end deck but are concerned that they’ll be permanently sacrificing some quality of the OLED display with the etched glass and are simply looking for some clarification or real world samples to see if they can live with it or not.