Okay friends, let’s check who has a Samsung OLED panel, and who has the BOE OLED panel inside his Deck.

Steps to check:

  1. Go to Desktop mode

  2. Open Konsole

  3. Paste the following command into the terminal:

cat /sys/class/drm/card0-eDP-1/edid | hexdump -C

You will get the output like in this screenshot:

https://imgur.com/a/Y1jdjmr

The marked number is relevant and means the following:

01: 800x1280 @59.998545 (BOE, LCD)

02: No longer present

03: 800x1280 @90.003892 (Samsung, OLED)

04: 800x1280 @90.061454 (BOE, OLED)

So my results are:

Model: Steam Deck 512GB OLED

Panel: Samsung OLED

What’s yours? Please also don’t forget to post the model, so we can analyze if there’s some correlation.

    • Darth_Caesium@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      BOE’s a major Chinese display manufacturer. They were supposed to be a major supplier for Apple’s iPhone 14 and 15 series, but Apple cut ties with them due to issues with light bleed around the Dynamic Island pill shape that houses the selfie cameras, as well as other issues like yield rates and defect rates. They’ve also made the OnePlus Open’s (a Chinese foldable phone) foldable inner display, which seems to have issues with dead or dying pixels, just like with the Steam Deck OLED.

      • TahmsChocolateOrange@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        I think its also worth pointing out the famous green line issue Samsung displays have on phones like Oneplus. Samsung TVs also have ridiculous lotteries for certain panels and local dimming issues etc.

        Neither manufacturer have great quality control to be honest.

        • Darth_Caesium@alien.topBEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          I guess it was done so that they could have a good enough supply of the Steam Deck OLED. BOE is a very major display manufacturer, after all, only being behind Samsung and LG. They couldn’t really go with LG, as LG mostly makes TVs, and they use an additional white subpixel and a white substrate layer on their OLEDs, making them unsuitated for text. It would probably mean that LG would make something very different from what they do, increasing costs for the order more than for someone like Samsung or BOE.

          • uchihajoeI@alien.topBEnglish
            1·
            10 months ago

            Why split the LE and others between Samsung and BOE and not just all one or the other?

            • Darth_Caesium@alien.topBEnglish
              1·
              10 months ago

              BOE probably has a bigger initial supply, so some of that would be used just for the limited edition. To be fair, I’m not 100% sure why, so take my explanation with a grain of salt.

            • Mdayofearth@alien.topBEnglish
              1·
              10 months ago

              This would have each vendor have at least 2 product lines running, one for glossy and one for matte. It would add the time to change the production line between either. And time is money, so it would likely add a few cents to a dollar to each unit (which adds up), depending on the size of the production run.

            • MasterofBiscuits@alien.topBEnglish
              1·
              10 months ago

              My theory on why there are two different panels

              - Valve decides on the 512/1TB OLED batch sizes and orders parts accordingly, including panels from Samsung

              - After doing this they decide to create the LE version and make separate orders for parts

              - They can’t get enough panels from Samsung so they go to BOE for them

            • mmiski@alien.topBEnglish
              1·
              10 months ago

              The truth is nobody here knows the real answer to that. The logistics behind why a certain supplier is chosen for certain components can vary greatly.

              It could be entirely random where Valve approved those two suppliers for use on their products after doing some internal testing with multiple candidates. And depending on pricing or available supply, they could switch between one or the other with each new batch. This would allow them to keep selling units without facing supply shortage delays.

              The other possibility is location. Perhaps the main plant that normally manufactures the Steam Deck doesn’t specialize in producing semi-transparent plastic shells, or they weren’t up to the level of quality Valve wanted. So they found a second plant to manufacture/assemble the LE model, where it just so happens BOE was the best and most cost-effective option for that region.

              This is all pure speculation of course and chances are we’re never going to get the real answer behind it. Companies typically don’t publicly disclose detailed supply chain information. When that info does come out, it’s usually a result of consumers snooping around and finding patterns (like this thread), or the info leaked from court records in lawsuits.