Title almost says it all. OLED monitors are getting more and more affordable, but it’s almost out of the picture when buying a monitor because of toolbars and HUD elements. I don’t understand why monitors “burn-in”, when I shine my LED flashlight or some LED xmas lights they won’t simply start emitting the same light even when I turn them off. I know it’s a dumb comparison, but still, what happens?
The other thing that I don’t understand is the fact that I’ve never seen any signs of burn-in on anyone’s phone. Alright, technically that’s a lie, I did see some on a work phone (or two), that only had some chat app open, seemingly since ages, and the namebar was a bit burned-in, or something like that, as you’d guess I also didn’t interact with that phone a lot. As as said above “but still,” I’ve had my phone for a while now, so does my family and friends, some of us even doomscroll, and I’ve never seen any signs of burn-in on any (actually used) phone.
so, I can watch my background all day, but I should open my browser every like 3 hours press f11 twice and I’m safe? Ff I’m away just let the screensaver save my screen? In that case why would anyone ever worry about burn it, you almost have to do it intentionally. But if it’s really dangerous, like I immerse myself into a youtube video, but it has the youtuber’s pfp on the bottom right (does youtube still do that?), and it was hbomberguy’s, am I just done, toasted, burnt-in?
Burn-in is a misnomer.
OLEDs don’t burn their image into anything. CRTs used to burn in right onto the screen making it impossible to fix without physically changing the “glass” (really the phosphor screen).
What happens is the OLED burns out unevenly, causing some areas to be weaker than others. That clearly shows when you try to show all the colors (white) because some areas can no longer get as bright as their neighboring areas. It is reminiscent of CRT burn-in. LCDs just have one big backlight (or multiple if they have zones) so unevenness from burnout in LCDs is rarely seen, though still a thing.
So, OLED manufacturers do things to avoid areas from burning out from staying on for too long like pixel shifting, reducing refresh rate, or dimming areas that don’t change for a long time (like logos).
There is a secondary issue that looks like burn-in which is the panel’s ability to detect how long a pixel has been lit. If it can’t detect properly, then it will not give an even image. This is corrected every once in a while with “compensation cycles” but some panels are notorious for not doing them (Samsung), but once you do, it removes most commonly seen “burn-in”.
You’d have to really, really leave the same image on your screen for months for it to have any noticeable in real world usage, at least with modern OLED TVs. You would normally worry more about the panel dimming too much over a long period of time, but I don’t believe lifetime is any worse than standard LCD.
TL;DR: Watch RTings explain it
Burn-in isn’t a light being emitted when off, it’s a light being dimmer when on.
An LED works by passing current between two different semiconductors. When an electron jumps over the “gap” between those two semiconductors, it releases a photon of a particular color (determined by the size of the gap). But over time, as an LED is used, the gap can be damaged (by heat, by vibration, etc); when this happens, fewer electrons can jump the gap and thus fewer electrons produce photons. Or the properties of the gap are changed so that they emit a slightly different wavelength photon. So if you leave a particular set of pixels on, producing light, for an extended time, those LEDs will degrade more than the rest of the screen, leading that area to be discolored or dimmer. This is burn-in.
Most of the time, that’s fine, because the LEDs on your screen experience wear in a more-or-less uniform pattern. Your phone is somewhat less susceptible to this, since (1) you tend to have your phone screen off most of the time, (2) there aren’t as many persistent HUD elements even when it’s on, as every app has its own configuration of controls and UI elements, and (3) you tend to replace a phone more often than a monitor. When you replace your phone, it’s probably more-or-less evenly dimmer overall than it was when you bought it, but since you don’t have anything to compare it to, you won’t know; with burn-in, though, that comparison is right next to the burned-in pixels.
By contrast, a computer monitor will typically be on for 8+ hours at a time, and persistent display elements are a part of every major operating system. If you’re not using the LEDs in a panel more-or-less evenly, you’ll end up with a persistent image.
Most people replace their phones before it becomes an issue. Phones are often used for small amounts of time as people pick them up to reply to a message, browse the web for a bit or watch a video. Monitors are on for long durations and have more stationary UI elements, so they will suffer from burn-in much sooner.
Phones are often used for small amounts of time as people pick them up to reply to a message, browse the web for a bit or watch a video.
Haha… Yeah… Me too… I definitely don’t just have it in my hand while I look at it for 12 hours a day. Nope, not me.
Smartphones also benefit from vertical integration. Your iPhone for example knows it’s an iPhone and knows that the display uses OLED and exactly what its properties are, so it can use a mitigation to subtly vary the exact location of UI elements to help reduce the effect. Your desktop PC could do this in principle, but it doesn’t necessarily know the display technology with such certainty, so mitigations for one specific technology hasn’t been a priority on that platform.
Something I’ve noticed with my computer monitor is that it does this shifting thing. The usable resolution is 1440p, but the screen is actually a slightly higher resolution with maybe 10 extra pixels in each direction that it uses to very slowly bounce the display image around in like a very large DVD player screensaver.
First of all, LED is not the same as OLED. The O stands for organic. They are more sensitive to stuff and break down over time sort of (maybe a really crappy explanation, someone with more knowledge please help), especially the blue color.
LEDs and OLEDs work the same way, the only difference is their composition. Standard LEDs use metals, OLEDs use organic compounds (which, yes, are more sensitive to breakdown over time, but come with the advantage of being smaller, lighter, more flexible, etc).
And actually, it’s that size and flexibility that makes an OLED panel possible. An LED display is actually just a color LCD display with a white LED backlight; you need OLED to have the individual pixels generate their own light. Burn-in on a non-organic LED display would be a completely different thing (and is possible but rare).
some of us even doomscroll
That would help prevent burn in.
You’d have to have those pixels showing the same color for quite a long time, like months to years. We don’t typically have our phones on that long, and with more modern OS versions, there aren’t really that many things that stay on the screen anyway. What used to be burned in on phones were the navigation bar at the bottom. Gestures are default now. The icons at the top aren’t actually static for long. And phone screens turn off after a few minutes. Dark mode being popular is a big help because the brightness of the screen is a factor. All OLEDs can get burn in, we just don’t have as many of the things that lead to burn in as before, plus a few things here and there meant to help alleviate it.
I’m away just let the screensaver save my screen?
Yup.
In that case why would anyone ever worry about burn it
Ignorance and the fact that you mostly hear about the people with problems not the ones who just bought their monitors and carried along with their lives.
Consider that almost everyone worrying about burn in has a phone with an OLED screen, that they’re not worried about. What happened with phones will happen with TVs if they ever get cheap enough to really compete with LCD.
For doomscroll there is usually icons at bottom and title bar at top which is the same most of the time
The caveat is that it actually doesn’t matter unless you’re only ever in that one app with the screen on. In reality, the majority of phone screens getting brun in are show models in stores and defective panels. But regardless, apps lead you more into fullscreen so you don’t even have those at the bottom.