OLED burn-in test: 30-month update (techspot.com)

68 pointsby baal80spam11 hours ago44 comments

pedromoss an hour ago

I have never had a great experience with OLED on larger screens, whether monitors or laptops. In smartphones, OLED burn-in is much less of a practical concern because of pixel-shifting and other mitigation done by the OS. The use of phone is mostly switching between apps, watching videos, texting, and making calls, rather than displaying the same text for hours so that makes sense. I still prefer IPS LCD for monitors and laptops because text looks crisper, which matters if you spend hours reading or working. OLED makes more sense to me for watching movies and other video content. In my opinion, Apple did it correctly, MacBook uses a Mini-LED backlit LCD, so you get a quality display with HDR while also having sharp text, and you don't have to worry about burn-in issues. There is MicroLED[1], which promises to combine OLED-like blacks and response with better longevity by avoiding screen burn-in issues. At the moment, it seems no major manufacturers are providing it because of cost and other factors.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroLED

spider-mario 13 minutes ago

Yes, the rumours of an upcoming MacBook Pro switching to OLED fill me with dread.

originalvichy 9 minutes ago

My simplest solution to this is buying a TV panel. If all your OS-level and panel-level mitigations fail, and any burn-in bothers you too much, just sell it on the used market. I specifically bought an LG C-series 42" OLED TV for my gaming/work monitor use, and if/when burn-in becomes unbearable, I'm certain it can be sold to someone for a reasonable price. They'll likely use it as a plain TV and sit too far away to even notice any burn-in. Might be more difficult to pull off if you buy gaming-oriented smaller panels, so I advise against that.

Retr0id 44 minutes ago

I've had an LG B9 OLED since late 2020, and I use it relatively infrequently (maybe like 2h per week on average, mostly movie or TV show content, rarely anything with fixed UI or logos). It does have some noticeable non-uniformity but but only when it's on a uniform dark-grey screen. When it's displaying actual content, it's not visible (unless your content happens to be a uniform dark-grey screen).

The burn-in pattern is a sort of inverse vignette, where the edges of the screen are brighter than the centre. Presumably, the middle of the screen sees more action in general.

powersurge360 2 hours ago

I had the dell ultrawide OLED monitor from their Alienware sub brand. It burned in enough within three years that I was able to get it warrantied. While it was away, I auditioned a miniled Samsung G7 with the intent to sell the repaired Dell if I liked the Samsung. Surprisingly, I found the uneven lighting and colors to be more disappointing out of the box than a three year old OLED panel with burn in.

OLED is unfortunately consumable but it is the highest fidelity consumer panel tech you can get atm. The MiniLEDs in Apple’s MacBooks are reasonable substitutions, albeit subject to blurring. I haven’t seen any other non-OLED compare.

MayeulC 2 hours ago

FYI your Samsung televisor may not have been actual "mini led" https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/10/tcl-is-right-to-ques...

powersurge360 an hour ago

Yea, and that’s part of the struggle. There are so many dishonest standards printed on displays. Rooting out which HDR standard guarantees _true_ HDR is a similar rabbit hole.

babypuncher an hour ago

I've been seeing people go crazy over these new "RGB" mini LED panels and as an OLED user for almost 10 years now I just don't get it.

The first thing I do to test any LCD panel is fire up an episode of Star Trek: The Next generation. Invariably, one of two things happens as soon as we are presented with an exterior shot of the Enterprise

1. LCD backlight bleed makes space look dark grey/blue instead of black as originally intended.

2. The localized dimming kicks in, presenting truly black space, but rendering the stars (which are smaller than the smallest local dimming zones) super dim or nonexistent.

These latest generation RGB local dimming LCD panels being touted as OLED killers still fall under the 2nd scenario, they don't actually fix the problem at all. LCD is functionally a dead end when it comes to picture quality.

kalaksi an hour ago

Touted by who, though? Proper reviews and tests will catch such things quickly.

jck86 30 minutes ago

And I will still happily take the LCD "dead end" over the regressive burn-in OLEDs.

kalaksi an hour ago

Have you had IPS panels? I have a similar Alienware ultrawide monitor but with IPS panel. IPS still remains my favorite. Didn't dare to get OLED for computer monitor since I expected burn-in over the years. OLED could maybe have a little bit better colors, but I got LG's OLED TV a few years back and was a bit disappointed to see that the image isn't perfectly even (more clearly visible with grey image) and sometimes with dark areas there's some kind of barely noticeable weird edge effect. Kind of like the OLEDs just lighting up after reaching some threshold. And some other very minor effects like little uneven flickering of a fire in a dark scene.

powersurge360 an hour ago

I have used IPS, and a good IPS is certainly more affordable and more durable but it just doesn’t stand up to OLED, to my eyes. The uneven grays are a known fault in OLEDs but imo the raised blacks in IPS and IPS glows are worse compromises.

Still, I probably would work on an IPS if I didn’t have limited desk space and needed my monitor to pull double duty for entertainment as well.

kalaksi an hour ago

Right, almost forgot IPS glow. I have probably gotten a bit accustomed to it and if I'd use OLED monitor for extended period, I'd probably start noticing issues with IPS more. That said, I think this current IPS panel is also better than some other Dell IPS monitors I've used at work previously and has less noticeable glow.

kuerbel an hour ago

I have an iirc 8 year old oled tv from LG. It has terrible burn in, especially red was hit hard. I wonder how true rgb might compare. The picture quality is probably worse, but if it holds up longer than oled it might be worth the trade off.

cubefox 9 minutes ago

I thought LG uses color filters (or quantum dots) with the same OLED color for every sub pixel. Which would mean individual colors can't age differently. That would only be possible for RGB OLEDs. But even for RGB, you would assume red degrades the slowest, because it has the longest wavelength and therefore the least energy.

himata4113 2 hours ago

I feel like OLED burn-in is a solved problem. I picked up the greatest and latest from ASUS 1 year ago and compared to my oled from 5 years ago, there's zero visible burn-in and there's zero compensation cycles (that I can see, which is a huge upgrade compared to previous generations). Actually my old "monitor" is now a TV and all the burn-in from desktop use has disappeared.

edit: I put up a very aggressive version of grey which used to expose full on black spots on the older OLED and I can only see a very faint line where there is a full white bar from one of the applications I use, actually I think that's just my vision since I can't see it anymore.

paimapi 2 hours ago

Seems like it really isn't though. The TechSpot findings show the inverse burn-in line down the middle, subpixel disparity, and brightness deterioration. I think you can argue the latter two aren't big deals for casual users but the line down the middle of the screen seems pretty galling.

At least for OLED TVs, rtings.com has been running burn-in tests and has noted that supposed technological improvements on OLED longevity haven't really done much: https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/oled-burn-in-not-improved-as...

pizza234 an hour ago

I have an Alienware and it took a while to burn-in, I think I noticed for the first time after around a couple of years.

AFAIK, burn-in is inherent in the technology; there's only mitigations.

nnevatie an hour ago

It is not a solved problem. Play some games in HDR on a daily basis and their HUDs and character portraits will burn in. As simple as that. I have an AW3423DWF that did just that after 2.5 years of use.

dgllghr 9 hours ago

I wonder what Apple will do about this for their upcoming (?) OLED MacBook Pros

kps 8 hours ago

Screw us all with another fashion trend for terrible displays, just like when they switched to high-glare screens.

cassianoleal 2 hours ago

I have for years wanted Apple to offer a MacBook with a matte screen. Now with a Framework I couldn't go back to the impossible glare.

ortusdux 2 hours ago

And if a few years from now they come out with a better screen, you can self install it in a 15 minutes.

john_alan 2 hours ago

They do, it’s called Nano-texture.

cassianoleal 2 hours ago

Too little, too late. With the growing enshittification of macOS and the Apple ecosystem in general, I couldn't be happier having made the move back to Linux on a Framework laptop, after almost 2 decades.

KerrAvon 2 hours ago

It's available and it works well. Staring at one right now. I don't like it better than glossy for my use, but if I spent a lot of time outdoors with it, I probably would.

https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/macbooks/the-new-macbook...

herpdyderp 2 hours ago

When did they switch to high glare screens? I thought that was the original style for Apple.

Uncle_Brumpus 2 hours ago

It was with the first generation of unibody macbooks in 2008, if I remember correctly. I have a Powerbook G4 with a nice matte screen, and I distinctly remember the first generation of non-unibody MBP also having a similar matte screen.

So it's been a while. 18 years with glossy screens.

seemaze 2 hours ago

Apple has offered matte screens for the majority of their timeline. Matte screens were available on portable computers from ~1989-2009, and as high end option from 2009-2013. The nano texture was introduced 2019 and has been available to varying degrees until present day.

So it was really only about 6 years in the last four decades that matte was not available. I always advocate for more matte options.

GeekyBear an hour ago

Back in the PowerBook days, Apple shipped matte screens by default.

The magazine reviews made a big deal about the matte coatings of the day making the screen a little dimmer, so after years of being dinged on the reviews, Apple finally dropped them.

heroiccocoa 2 hours ago

Glossy displays are much better for image quality in light-controlled environments than matte. I cannot understand the love for matte display coatings, maybe you just live in a sunnier climate and want to work outdoors? I would never buy hardware with a matte display over glossy, given two equivalent choices. You just lose so much clarity and pop to basically rub a layer of vaseline over your monitor, diffusing the nice image quality into something oily/grainy looking.

kps 2 hours ago

I'm diurnal. I have windows (not Windows®). I don't live in a basement. I don't control the lighting where I work.

simoncion an hour ago

> I cannot understand the love for matte display coatings...

Most folks cannot prevent every source of light from shining behind them. In my apartment, even sunlight leaking around curtains and indirectly illuminating the Landlord Standard White walls was image-damagingly bright on the handful of glossy-screened monitors I tried.

If you have total control over the lighting situation in your room, then, yeah, glossy screens can work... but most folks want to be able to use their computers and televisions in a wide variety of lighting conditions. [0]

> ...something oily/grainy looking.

I guess you've only seen bad AR coatings. The difference in image quality between the glossy screens I tried and the matte screens I have and have been continuing to use for the past great many years wasn't all that large... and the bonkers reflectivity of the glossy screens nuked what little difference there was.

[0] Most folks also don't like so much looking at their ugly mugs during dark portions of a program... glossy screens are -while not as bad as a mirror- so incredibly reflective.

asdff 5 hours ago

Menubar is going to be a killer

nomel 30 minutes ago

It would be amusing if they enabled autohide by default, for those models.

amelius 2 hours ago

Not release it, as Apple only releases technology that has been perfected.

BoldColdHold 2 hours ago

They use oled.

paimapi 2 hours ago

yeah like their VR goggles

and their butterfly keyboards

and the iPhone antenna issue

and Apple Maps (especially on launch)

and this fun artifact: https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2006/08/24/hindenbook-re...

GeekyBear an hour ago

The tandem OLED screens they use on the iPad Pro stack multiple OLED layers on top of each other and reduces the brightness of the layers.

The brighter you run OLED, the more burn in you get.

The QD-OLED standard they tested in TFA is also supposed to be more burn in resistant, but they still saw burn in over time.

daymanstep 3 hours ago

Doesn't every display technology have issues with burn in? I have a VA monitor that has burn in as well, even though many have claimed that VA doesn't get burn in

craftkiller 2 hours ago

My 12 year old IPS monitor still has no burn-in. I grew up in the age of necessary screensavers, I ain't going back.

paimapi 2 hours ago

I have multiple 10+ year old VA monitors that don't have any burn-in. I imagine it depends on usage.

simoncion an hour ago

I have a VA monitor that I bought in ~2019 with -according to its service menu- just under 40,000 hours of backlight-on time. It has some small hemispherical darkening along the top of its left edge that you can only notice when that portion of the screen is bright but has zero burn-in. [0] I use it for both video gaming and ordinary computing tasks.

[0] This darkening corresponds to nothing I've had on screen... it looks like the sort of minor backlight or diffuser (or whatever it's called) failure you tend to see on middle-aged monitors.

bob1029 an hour ago

It looks to me like it might not be worth worrying about this anymore. If you've ever owned a plasma TV you would be rolling your eyes at these comparisons.