To be clear, you’re not going to find many displays that can reach 4,000 nits yet. A lot of HDR content actually is mastered for 1,000 nits and that’s considered kind of the target for the mid-high range OLEDs right now. My pretty much top of the line QD-OLED Samsung S95C maxes out at something like 1350 nits. A 1000 nit capable Steam Deck OLED has plenty of range in luminance for HDR to be effective there. And I’m sure it’s got pretty good color reproduction which is the other big aspect of HDR.

One thing we haven’t talked about is the possibility that the Steam Deck is enhancing SDR content with dynamic tone mapping to such a degree that it’s difficult to tell the difference when you actually enable true HDR. I’d really have to see this with my own eyes to be able to say with more certainty what’s going on.