lcd screen burn out for sale

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“I use a 32-inch LCD TV for my home office display, connected to my PC using HDMI. I also use it for my PS3 and Wii to prevent a Shining ‘all work and no play’-type incident, so it gets quite a lot of use every day. I left town over the weekend and unthinkingly left a fixed image on the display. When I got back, I found that the image had burned in. I thought LCD displays wouldn’t do that, but I was clearly mistaken. The ocean image that was displayed left shadows of the waves across the display. Is there a way to get rid of this problem, or at least minimize it?”

It was a widespread myth for a while that transmissive displays like LCDs weren’t subject to image persistence (a.k.a. burn-in), but it is more accurate to say that they are less subject to burn-in than phosphor-based displays such as CRTs and color plasma. The good news is that on an LCD it can usually be reversed but on a CRT it is usually permanent.

To start, power-down your display for at least 48 hours. If the image is still persistent, try this tip from Lifehacker, which involves using an all-white screen to overwrite the first burn. You could also display static on your screen instead, or make a screensaver that alternates between black and white images.

Another thing you could try: Edge of our Pants has a quick-fix DVD that aids in removing things like screen burn-in, image retention, and even dead pixels. You can either purchase a physical DVD for $10, or a download for $3. can download and burn to a DVD on your side so you don’t have to wait for it to arrive by mail.

Screen burn-in isn’t as common on modern display technologies as it was in the past, but few screens are immune to its ability to ruin a perfectly good display. If you run into this irritating problem, here are some tips and tricks that might help fix it.

Screen burn-in is a noticeable discoloration or ghosting of a previous image on a digital display. It’s caused by the regular use of certain pixels more than others, leaving them to display colors slightly differently. The end result is a noticeable and often permanent impression on the display.

Time, screen brightness, and other factors can cause burn-in, but the circumstances are different for each display technology, as different screens and their pixels operate differently at the hardware level. For LCD panels, like those used in many TVs and computer monitors, burn-in can develop because pixels eventually become unable to return to their unlit state and retain a colored profile.

Colloquially “burn-in” is used as a catchall term for any kind of ghosted image on a screen. The most common form of such “burn-in” though, is technically known as image retention. While that might seem like a case of pedantic semantics, it’s an important distinction to make. Screen burn-in refers to permanent degradation of a display which is almost impossible to fix; image retention is typically fixable.

As described above, screen burn-in on a technical level is hard to fix. However, the much more common image retention is not. Here’s how to sort out your image retention problems on whatever device you have.

Enable Pixel-Shift. Many modern TVs have a built-in pixel-shift, or screen shift, which constantly moves the image slightly to vary pixel usage. If not enabled automatically, you should be able to turn it on in the settings menu. Other settings offer “Refresh” functions that can be manually run to try and clean out any image retention problems.

Use a White Screensaver. Try setting your screensaver to a pure white image and leaving it to run for a few hours. That may not remove image retention entirely, but it should dampen how noticeable it is.

Try JScreenFix. Some have also found success using JScreenFix. Although designed to fix stuck pixels rather than burn-in, it may help clear up any issues you’re experiencing.

Try a burn-in fixer. There are a number of great burn-in fixer apps on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Some, like OLED tools, will try to fix image retention and check for more permanent burn-in.

Replace the screen. If none of the above works, your best bet is to either replace the screen yourself or talk to your mobile carrier about a replacement device. Manufacturers like Apple have extended the warranties on certain devices that are prone to image retention and burn-in, so if your device is fairly new, you should still be covered by the warranty.

To prevent screen burn-in on a TV, reduce the brightness to the 45-50 range, use the sleep timer and screen savers, and turn the TV off when not in use. If you have an OLED TV, turn on pixel shift and play a color-changing video that"s designed to help lower the risk of burn-in.

On Androids and iPhones, reduce the brightness to 50 percent or lower, use a screen-timeout length of about 30 seconds, and turn off your phone when not in use. You can also operate in dark mode, use swipes and taps instead of button navigation, and download a screen-burn fixer app.

On a smartphone, screen burn presents as a discolored display with pink or gray tones. On monitors and TVs, it looks like a "ghosting" of previous images remaining on the screen. Screen burn happens so gradually that you may not notice it until using a white background.

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The display looked great. I didn’t use the phone for a few days and let it run flat. When I used the phone again it had really severe screen burn. I can ready the labels of the ghosted home screen apps.

Screen burn, also called screen burn-in, ghost image, or display burns are images or icons that are displayed on a screen when they should not be there. Screen burn comes on gradually and gets worse over time and is most common on OLED screens. The navigation bar, the top status bar, or home screen apps are frequent images that get  “burned” into the display.

1. You aren’t looking at your phone screen with a white display. Screen burn is easiest to notice on an all-white or blank screen with no icons on it. And it is rare that your phone will display an all-white screen. This is why SmartphonesPLUS uses industry-leading phone diagnosis software and other tools that allow us to see phone screens on an all-white screen, along with other tests, to examine each phone we receive thoroughly.

2. You do not change your home screen layout or background image. You look at the same phone, with the same background every day, and can’t notice the screen burn because the icons and apps on the phone are always in the same position. It is much easier to notice screen burn when you shift the layout of icons and apps on your home screen.

Here’s an example we think relates to screen burn to help explain why it’s not as noticeable: when you see a person every day that is losing weight you don’t notice how much weight they lost, but if you saw a person you haven’t seen in over a year that lost 50 pounds you would notice right away. In the same way, your eyes and mind adjust to the screen burn as it gradually burns into the display over months or years.

Screen burn is caused by pixels displaying the same image or icon for an extended period of time. Static images such as apps, navigation bars, and keyboards can deteriorate pixels in the display from overuse. This causes these over-used pixels to look darker in color than others around them. Certain areas of the screen like status bars are more susceptible to screen burn as they are constantly displaying the same image.

As you can tell from the photos, screen burn can make the display look discolored with darker pink or gray hues. Because of its gradual onset, many users don’t even realize their display has screen burn. If you would like to check for screen burn on your phone, put your phone on a white screen. A white screen will provide contrast making the discolored pixels more noticeable.

Lowering the brightness will lengthen the life of the pixels in your display. Keeping the brightness as low as possible will ensure that screen burn won’t happen as quickly.

Avoid screen savers when your screen times out as they are generally static images that are displayed for a long period of time. Screen savers will cause the pixels of your display to be overworked when you are not even using your device. If you have a phone that uses always on display, make sure to turn this off to prolong the life of your screen’s pixels.

There are some apps and videos out there that claim they can fix screen burn, however, the results tend to be insignificant as it is a hardware issue of the display. The only way to truly fix screen burn is to replace the entire display of the phone. If you’d like to speak with a technician to see the cost of replacing a screen you can make an appointment or contact us.

In the TV world, LG has a page that says "It is rare for an average TV consumer to create an environment that could result in burn-in." Nonetheless, stories of OLED burn-in don"t seem rare online, with owners on YouTube, forums and social media reporting the issue. Reviews site RTings has demonstrated burn-in on LG OLED TVs in long-term tests.

So if the fear of the mere possibility of burn-in is your primary concern, the decision is simple: Buy an LCD-based display instead. But know that you"re sacrificing the best picture quality that money can buy. Here are some points to keep in mind:

All things considered, burn-in shouldn"t be a problem for most people. That"s why we at CNET continue to recommend OLED-based TVs, phones and other devices in our reviews. From all of the evidence we"ve seen, burn-in is typically caused by leaving a single, static image element, like a channel logo, onscreen for a very long time, repeatedly.

If you, like most people, watch a variety of content on your TV, phone, or other device with an OLED screen, you"re not going to need to worry about burn-in.

What can you do to prevent burn-in on that new TV? As we mentioned, vary what you watch a bit. In particular, don"t watch something that has the same static areas displayed onscreen, nonstop for days on end.

The logos and news tickers on cable news channels are examples of those static areas -- they have elements that never move, and they remain on screen the entire time you"re watching. That means if you leave your TV running Fox News, CNN, MSNBC or ESPN all day long and don"t watch enough other programming, you"re more likely to get burn-in. Or at least, image retention, which we"ll discuss in a moment. If you play the same game for 8 hours a day, every day, the onscreen status display or HUD is also a likely culprit for burn-in.

To repeat, you can watch those channels, play games or whatever else to use your TV as a TV, your phone as a phone, etc. You just shouldn"t watch only those channels, all day every day. And if that sounds extreme, know that emails I"ve gotten from readers about burn-in always have some variation on "well I only watched that channel for 5 hours a day." If that sounds like you, get an LCD.

As long as you vary what"s displayed, chances are you"ll never experience burn-in. That varied content will age your screen evenly. So in a 24-hour period you watch a movie, play some games, binge some TV shows, they"re all varied enough that you should be fine.

The RTings torture test we mentioned above lasted the equivalent of 5 years of use and they still say "Our stance remains the same, we don"t expect most people who watch varied content without static areas to experience burn-in issues with an OLED TV."

We"ve designed the OLED screen to aim for longevity as much as possible, but OLED displays can experience image retention if subjected to static visuals over a long period of time. However, users can take preventative measures to preserve the screen [by] utilizing features included in the Nintendo Switch systems by default, such as auto-brightness function to prevent the screen from getting too bright, and the auto-sleep function to go into "auto sleep" mode after short periods of time.

Which is to say, Nintendo is fully aware of this potential and took steps to minimize the risk. Also, despite many games having static HUDs, you"d need to play just that one game, for hours upon hours, every day without ever using the screen for anything else, at the highest brightness settings.

Let"s get the descriptions right. Though often used interchangeably, "image retention" and "burn-in" are not the same thing.Image retention is temporary: It goes away in time.

Image retention occurs when parts of an image temporarily "stick" on the screen after that image is gone. Let"s say for an hour you"re looking at a still picture of a white puppy (hey, you do you, we won"t judge). Then you decide to watch a movie. Let"s say Best in Show because you"re keeping with your theme. But as you"re watching you can still see the white puppy image, as if it"s a ghost on the screen, staring at your soul.

You"re not crazy, probably. That"s just an extreme case of image retention. Chances are it will go away on its own as you watch stuff that isn"t the same still image of the puppy.Here"s a section of a 2018 LG C8 OLED TV screen displaying a gray test pattern after 5 hours watching CNN on the brightest (Vivid) mode. They"re the same image, but we"ve circled the section with the logo on the right to highlight it. To see it better, turn up the brightness. In person, it"s more visible in a dark room, but much less visible with moving images as opposed to a test pattern. Since it disappeared after running LG"s Pixel Refresher (see below), this is an example of image retention and not burn-in.Sarah Tew/CNET

Now imagine you leave your TV on for days or weeks instead of hours, showing the same image the whole time. Then you might be in trouble. With image retention, usually just watching something else for a while will make the ghost image disappear. With burn-in, it"s going to remain there for a while. Maybe not forever, but perhaps longer than you"d want.

This is an extreme case, largely just to illustrate what happens. In reality, it"s going to be far more subtle. Watch a lot of the same TV news station, like CNN in the example above? Not sure how your heart can handle that, but let"s say you do. That station"s identifying logo is a prime candidate for image retention and eventually burn-in. Ditto the horizontal borders of the "crawl" on the bottom of the screen.

If you play the same video game for hours and days on end, that game"s persistent scoreboard or heads-up display might burn in. Basically, anything that stays on screen for a long time and doesn"t change can cause image retention and perhaps, eventually, burn-in.

Apple, for one, flags users of OLED-screened iPhones, like the X, 11 and 12, that burn-in is a possibility. Here"s the quote from its support page for the products:With extended long-term use, OLED displays can also show slight visual changes. This is also expected behavior and can include "image persistence" or "burn-in," where the display shows a faint remnant of an image even after a new image appears on the screen. This can occur in more extreme cases such as when the same high contrast image is continuously displayed for prolonged periods of time. We"ve engineered the Super Retina and Super Retina XDR displays to be the best in the industry in reducing the effects of OLED "burn-in."

What"s colloquially called "burn-in" is actually, with OLED, uneven aging. They don"t "burn in" as much as they "burn down." The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long, right? OLED pixels very, very slowly get dimmer as they"re used. In most cases this isn"t an issue since you"re watching varied content and all the pixels, on average, get used the same amount. But if you"re only watching one thing, that one thing could cause uneven wear. Visually, and in the vernacular, this wear is called "burn-in." Uneven wear is more accurate, but also a lot more syllables.

Also, OLED technology has gotten better. Billions of dollars have been spent on OLED manufacturing and R&D, and that"s ongoing. So stories you may have heard about "burn-in" likely entered the zeitgeist years ago about older OLED displays. You just don"t hear about newer OLEDs having these issues except in extreme situations like those discussed above. You"d likely hear a LOT more stories about OLED now that the two largest phone manufacturers, and many smaller ones, use OLEDs in millions of phones and have for years.

In their warranties, LG and Sony explicitly state that image retention and burn-in are not covered on their OLED TVs. When CNET reached out to LG a couple to ask why, a representative replied:

"There is generally no warranty coverage for image retention by TV companies and display manufacturers. Image retention may result when consumers are out of normal viewing conditions, and most manufacturers do not support warranty for such usage regardless of the type of display," said Tim Alessi, director of new products at LG.

Sony"s reply was similar: "Our warranty covers product and manufacturing defects. Burn-in is not covered as it is caused by consumer usage and is not a product defect."

Neither the iPhone warranty nor AppleCare explicitly mention burn-in, but neither apply to "normal wear and tear," and Apple"s support page above makes clear that it considers burn-in "expected."

When CNET reached out to Samsung for details, the representative defined "normal consumer use" as "use of the product by consumers in a home environment for viewing content and/or gaming in a typical manner. It doesn"t cover business use." In other words, those ESPN logos you see burned into the screens at your local sports bar would not be covered.

Extended warranties don"t typically cover burn-in either. One of the most common, SquareTrade, is available from Amazon, Walmart, and others. They explicitly don"t cover burn-in. However, Best Buy"s Geek Squad Protection Plan might, depending on when you bought it. The latest version only explicitly covers burn-in on phones.

"To avoid the possibility of burn-in, consumers should avoid leaving static images on an OLED screen for long periods of time. For example, leaving a video game paused onscreen for several hours or days," a Sony spokesperson said.

Pretty much all OLED TVs also have user settings to minimize the chance of uneven wear or burn-in. One is called something like "Screen Shift" (on LGs) or "Pixel Shift" (on Sonys), which moves the image slightly around the screen. They also have built-in screensavers that pop up after extended idle time. You should also enable screen savers on connected devices like game consoles and streamers.

When it comes to phones I wouldn"t be too concerned, since it"s likely you"ll replace the phone far sooner than any image retention/burn-in issues become bothersome. Regarding my aforementioned S6 Edge, even though I noticed it, I wouldn"t say the burn-in reduced my enjoyment of the phone. I was never watching a video and thinking, "Wow, I can"t enjoy this video because of the burn-in." Since the phone was in use by its second owner twice as long as I had it, and was only let down by its battery, burn-in clearly wasn"t a dealbreaker. My friend replaced it with a Pixel 4a, which also has an OLED screen. So even after 4 years with that screen he still preferred to get a phone with OLED.

With TVs, beyond the methods outlined above, there"s not much you can do to reverse burn-in. In theory, I suppose, you could create an inverse image using Photoshop and run that on your screen for a while. This could age the rest of the panel to more evenly match the "burned in" area. Figuring out how to do this is well beyond the scope of this article, and you"d need to be pretty well versed in Photoshop to even attempt it.

CNET has not conducted any long-term real-world tests of OLED burn-in. In our experience reviewing TVs, we have seen image retention on OLEDs that disappeared quickly, for example after running a series of static test patterns, but nothing permanent.

The most comprehensive independent tests for burn-in on TVs was run by the aforementioned review site RTings. In August 2017 they began a burn-in torture test with LCD and OLED TVs, followed by a "real life" torture test in 2018. They stopped regularly updating the test in 2020, but that was after the equivalent of 5 years of normal use on multiple TVs, and still they felt that most people will never have an issue with burn-in.

Before you check it out, keep in mind what they"re doing is not normal use. You"d have to be trying to wreck a TV to make it look that bad, which is literally what they"re trying to do. That said, the information is still valuable, and the main takeaway is that OLED is indeed more susceptible to burn-in than LCD.

You"ve noticed a ghostly image on your TV or phone screen. If it goes away after a few minutes of watching something else, it"s image retention and it"s probably nothing to worry about. If it "sticks" longer, or you"re repeatedly seeing that same residual image, it"s burn-in. With phones, you"ll likely replace it before the screen becomes an issue.

With OLED TVs, it"s something to keep in mind if you"re a TV news junkie, or only ever play one video game. Keep an eye out for image retention or uneven wear. If you spot it, perhaps switch up your viewing habits, adjust the TV"s settings, or run the pixel refresher a few times. And if you watch content with hours of the same static image each day, or just keep CNN, Fox or CNBC on in the background all day, you should probably get an LCD TV.

If you vary your TV viewing habits like most people, however, it won"t be an issue. Even so, caveat emptor. Or as Caesar himself once said, "Conscientiam autem ardeat sed non anxius" (be aware of burn-in, but not concerned). He was, we hear, a big iPhone fan.

You can follow his exploits on Instagram and his travel video series on YouTube. He also wrote a bestselling sci-fi novel about city-size submarines, along with a sequel.

If you spend long enough debating the merits of LCD vs. OLED display technologies, eventually, someone will touch upon the subject of the dreaded OLED screen burn in. The point made is that OLED displays will inevitably suffer from horrible-looking artifacts over time, while LCD and new technologies like Mini-LED won’t. But like most of these debates, you’ll probably hear as many overblown anecdotes as you will actual facts about the issue.

You may never have experienced it for yourself, but many consumers are wary about the possibility of burn in when pondering their next smartphone purchase. Particularly as expensive flagship smartphones have universally adopted OLED display technology. Apple, Google, and other manufacturers acknowledge that burn in can be a problem in rare cases. OLED technology has made its way to much more affordable price points in recent years, putting the issue on the radar for even more consumers.

The word “burn in” is a little misleading, as no actual burning or heat problems are involved. Instead, this term describes a display suffering from permanent discoloration across any part of the panel. This may take the form of a text or image outline, fading of colors, or other noticeable patches and patterns on display. The display still works as expected, but a somewhat noticeable ghost image or discoloration persists when the screen is on. To be considered screen burn in, these artifacts have to be permanent and are a defect caused on the display hardware side. Rather than a graphical glitch that may be caused by software, temporary image retention, or a problem with the display driver circuitry.

The term dates back to old CRT monitors, where phosphor compounds that emit light to produce images lost their luminance with time. LCD panels can exhibit similar problems, but these are much rarer due to the nature of LCD’s backlight and color matrix design.

Although not as bad or noticeable as old CRT issues, today’s OLED smartphone displays can eventually suffer from a similar problem. That being said, it’s pretty difficult and rare to notice unless you know what you’re looking for, and it takes hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of screen-on time before any such errors appear. In smartphones, pattern burn in is typically associated with always-on displays, navigation buttons, and the notification bar. The example below demonstrates a textbook case:

Although most smartphones now support gesture navigation controls in the place of the old button design. So this type of burn-in is much less of a problem than it used to be.

The cause of all screen burn in is the varying lifecycle of a display’s light-producing components. As these parts age, their brightness changes, and therefore the panel’s color reproduction gradually shifts with time. Although this can be mitigated somewhat with clever software, all displays experience some color shift as they age. But with burn in, some parts of the screen age faster than others. This can gradually shift the perceivable colors of the screen in one area more than in another, leaving what looks like a ghost image behind.

With modern smartphone and smartwatch technology, screen burn in can manifest due to the different life spans between the red, green, and blue LED subpixels used in OLED panels. As we mentioned before, areas of the display that seldom change, are bright white, or are often black and switched off, such as navigation buttons or the notification bar, are the most likely areas to notice this issue. You may also notice the effect in darkened status bars designed to hide display notches.

This is because these areas are more likely to consistently display one color, a set icon, or text. In contrast, the rest of the display produces a more random selection of colors from various websites, videos, apps, etc., over a long period of use. Therefore the subpixels in these areas see different amounts of use and thus age differently, eventually resulting in a slight variation in color reproduction. Switching to transparent and color-changing bars has the added bonus of evening out the color aging process.

So, if one part of the panel spends a lot of time displaying a blue or white image, the blue pixels in this area will degrade faster than in other areas. That’s essentially what burn in is. However, display manufacturers do account for this in their panel designs.

If OLED screens have a problem with burn in, why do we continue using them? Burn in is a true downside to OLED displays, but there are plenty of reasons consumers and manufacturers like them. For starters, image quality is much better than in LCDs. OLED panels can reproduce more vibrant colors, more contrast, wider viewing angles, and faster refresh rates. Colors tend to be much more saturated, and blacks are much darker.

Additionally, burn in problems are only common after prolonged periods of use. As you may already know, smartphone manufacturers don’t expect you to keep a smartphone for more than 2-3 years. Recent statistics show that consumers currently keep their phones for an average of 2.75 years.

At this stage, manufacturers are very aware of the potential issues and have already taken some intelligent steps to help avoid burn in. For starters, Samsung has been using its pentile subpixel arrangement in its AMOLED displays since the Galaxy S3. By making the blue subpixel larger, it requires less current to drive in order to provide the necessary light. Driving the LED with less current increases its lifespan, so it takes longer for any noticeable color shift to occur.

This doesn’t directly address the issue of different parts of the screen aging at different rates, but it does mean that it will take significantly longer to notice than with older or cheaper OLED panels. More expensive and modern OLED panels are built with longer-lasting LEDs and well-designed layouts, meaning flagship smartphone displays age slower. These days, it’s cheaper phones packing cheaper displays that are marginally more likely to see issues after heavy use.

There are software solutions too. Android Wear product manufacturers can enable the OS’s “burn protection” option. This mode periodically shifts the screen’s contents by a few pixels, so they spend equal time displaying different colors. Smartphones equipped with Always-On display technology employ a similar tactic. Google also suggests a selection of design guidelines tailored to avoid screen burn-in problems when designing OLED watches. The move towards gesture rather than on-screen navigation controls is also helping to alleviate one of the more noticeable burn in areas.

If your screen is already burnt in, there’s not much that can be done to undo the damage. Some apps on the Play Store claim to reverse the problem. These will end up “burning” the rest of the screen to match the colors, which isn’t a real solution.

Try to make it so that the screen isn’t displaying the same thing all the time, in the same areas of the screen. For example, if you have a widget that almost always looks the same, chances are it will eventually burn into the image. Move things around now and then, and try to keep the view of your phone dynamic.

All that said, screen burn in isn’t something that should concern many users if they’re looking to buy a new OLED smartphone. Modern panels have much longer lifespans than early OLED smartphones, and even then, burn in was rare. Just don’t leave a static image on the screen 24/7 with the brightness set at max.

The bottom line is that you should be looking at several years’ worth of use out of a modern smartphone display before any screen burn in will be noticeable. But it doesn’t hurt to be aware of what can happen to aging handsets and how to maximize their lifespan.

On August 31, 2017, we started a long-term 20/7 burn-in test on 3 TVs (OLED vs VA vs IPS). Our goal was to see how their performance changed over time, especially with static images like network logos, black bars in movies, or video games with a fixed interface.

This test ended in 2019, as we feel that we now have a good understanding of what types of content are likely to cause burn-in. However, we still haven"t addressed the issue of longevity in general, and we don"t know if newer OLED panels are still as likely to experience burn-in. To that end, we"ve decided to start a new accelerated longevity test to better understand how long new TVs should last and what are the most common points of failure. Although burn-in isn"t the main goal of this test, we"re hoping to better understand how newer OLED panels compare to the older generation of OLEDs. It"s generally accepted that burn-in isn"t as much of an issue as it used to be, but it"s unclear just how much better the newer OLED TVs are. With new panels, new heatsinks, and even brand-new panel types like QD-OLED, there are a lot of unknowns.

The 20/7 burn-in test ran for about two years, from August 31, 2017, until November 15, 2019. The goal of this test was to see whether burn-in could happen for the three most popular TV types (VA LCD, IPS LCD, and OLED). These are the results of our experiment:

Long periods of static content will cause burn-in on OLED TVs. The red sub-pixel appears to degrade the fastest, followed by green and blue. The effect is cumulative, as even cycled logos do burn-in (but over a longer period). We investigated this further in our Real Life OLED Burn-in Test.

Black letterbox bars were displayed for almost 5,000 hours (equivalent to 208 days of continuous letterboxing). Some letterboxing is starting to become noticeable on full-screen slides, but not in normal content. As a result, we don"t expect letterbox bars to cause any issues for people. It"s due to the uneven aging of the screen. The black portions of the screen haven"t aged as much as the rest, so those dark areas appear brighter in regular content.

Screen burn, a term derived from old CRT (cathode-ray tube) technology — and the reason for a vast industry of decorative screen savers — describes the phenomenon of image retention, otherwise known as persistence, ghost images, blurred images, artifacts, or after-images that linger on your smartphone screen after the original image is long gone. These can mar screen readability and coloration over time and can diminish your smartphone experience.

On mobile devices, screen burn is identified most often on AMOLED or OLED screens, and even then, it’s pretty rare on newer smartphones. It happens when users leave an image on their screen for too long, causing the pixels to struggle when switching to a different color. This may happen more easily with blue colors, but can occur with any image that’s left on screen too long, especially in the brightest setting. Screen burn also may be permanent and considered a display hardware defect as opposed to a software graphics or display driver issue. For screen burn on your mobile devices, there are a few things you can do to fix the issue and, even better, prevent it from happening. Here are a few simple steps you can take.

This is the simplest solution and is frequently effective, especially when you catch image retention early on and want to fix it fast. Turn your phone off entirely, powering it down fully, and let it rest for a couple of hours. If the screen burn issue is minor, this gives the pixels enough time to recover, diminishing after-images, so your phone screen will look fresh when you power back on. This is one advantage of the versatile organic pixel layer used in OLED-based screens, which can correct itself more easily than pixels of the past.

If turning your mobile device off for a while doesn’t fully resolve your issue, a good next option to try is re-training the pixels on your screen to get them back into balance. The good news is, there are apps for that. For Android devices, the Google Play Store has a robustcollection of screen correctors and testersincludingOLED Saver. If you have an iOS device, then you can use an app likeDoctor OLED X instead. This app cycles your pixels through multiple colors and brightness levels, working towards resetting them.

If you don’t want to download an app, you can try checking out theScreenBurnFixerwebsite. It features a collection of videos with color slides and checkered patterns designed to help get your pixels back on track. Run a few of these and see if they fix your pixel problem.

You can be proactive about avoiding or mitigating screen burns on your mobile hardware by modifying various settings you might not have realized could help you. Make sure you are following guidelines like these:

Lower brightness settings:The higher the brightness setting, the harder your OLED pixels have to work, which can cause screen burn. If your mobile device is permanently set on a higher brightness, switch it to auto-brightness or a lower brightness level to prevent problems. For iOS 14, go toSettings > Display & Brightnessand toggle on theAutomaticsetting. TheOptions, True Tone,andNight Shiftsettings also help to modulate excessive brightness and prevent burn-in. On Android, go toSettings > Display > Brightness slideror toggle onAutoto automatically adjust brightness.

Set lock screen and sleep timers:Smartphones come equipped with automatic timers for locking and going into sleep mode, both of which turn off the screen after it hasn’t been used in a while. Make sure these settings are turned on and set to a minute or so. If you haven’t looked at your phone in one minute, it’s probably fine for it to shut off the screen and lock. This essentially prevents image retention because the screen won’t stay on long enough for it to happen. For iOS 14, go toSettings > Display & Brightness >Auto-Lockand choose which time interval you want. On Android 10, go toSettings > Display > Screen timeoutand choose the interval you want.

Get rid of menu, status, and navigation bars:Image retention can happen when you are actively using an app that has a permanent bar for tools or notifications, like when you’re playing a game or watching a movie, for example. When these bars don’t disappear, they cause screen burn after long sessions. Look for options to hide these icons and tools after a moment so they aren’t always present. Immersive modes for your mobile OS will also do this.

Screen burn can also become a problem on LCD mobile screens. While this may be a rare occurrence, it’s not impossible either. When it does, fixing it is a lot more of a challenge, since LCD pixels work differently from OLED screens. Therefore, you might have to accept that screen burns on your LCD screen are most likely there to stay. But before you give upall hope, you should still tryusing LCD Burn-In Wiper, whichcycles colors similar to its OLED counterpart to try to repair pixels.

Your last resort after failing to rectify screen burns with the previously mentioned methods would be to see if your device is under warranty so that you can switch out your screen or have it repaired by a professional.

Today"s LCD and LED monitors do not suffer from image "burn-in" the way CRT monitors of the past did. Today"s monitors have what is called "image retention" or "image sticking."The best way to avoid image retention is to limit the amount of static content on the display. If possible, turn off the display periodically for a period of time between 24 to 48 hours.To reduce the possibility of image retention, we recommend:• Displaying alternating black/white images for 48 to 72 hours• Power down the unit for a period of time (minimum 24 to 48 hours)• Use a screen saver when the touchmonitor is not in useImage retention caused by static (non-moving) images displayed for lengthy periods is not covered under Elo warranty.

But these devices do have one drawback: OLED burn-in, sometimes called OLED screen burn. That"s what happens when the outline of an image stays on the screen, leading to discoloration. Fortunately, there are some quick and easy ways to fix it, or at least reduce its effects.

At Asurion, our experts help millions of customers get the most out of their tech, diagnose device problems, and resolve them every day. Here they"ll break down what screen burn is and tell you how to prevent or correct it.

Burn-in is the appearance of a “ghost image" on your TV or phone that won"t go away. It"s caused by the display"s technology. Each individual pixel produces its own light, which gradually dims over time. If an image remains on the screen for many hours, certain pixels get overused and degrade faster, creating discoloration in particular areas. Your screen will still function, but the dark spots can be distracting or annoying.

Some common causes of TV screen burn-in include:Keeping your TV on news or sports network channels that display a static logo or a ticker for a long time - parts of the logo or ticker may burn in

While screen burn-in and image retention appear similar at first, they"re actually very different. Screen burn-in is permanent and will remain whether you change the channel, scroll to a different menu, or turn off your device. With image retention, the discoloration is temporary and will eventually disappear once you switch to a different image or power off.

QLED® TVs use a different technology than OLED TVs and are unlikely to experience burn-in. Samsung® will repair or replace its QLED models if they experience this issue within the first 10 years.

Think your television or smartphone may have burn-in? You can easily check by running a burn-in test, which will play a video that helps you spot discoloration in your screen.

Samsung has a TV burn-in test video on YouTube™ that will work with any brand of TV or phone. It displays a solid red screen; if you notice any other colors, you may have burn-in. There are also videos that cycle through a range of colors to help diagnose the problem.

Tips to prevent OLED screen burn on TV:Reduce the brightness. Keeping your brightness level in the 45–50 range will lower the stress on your TV"s pixels and help prolong their life.

Use the sleep timer. If you doze off in front of the TV, a channel logo or streaming menu could be on your screen for hours, creating a risk for burn-in. This feature will turn off your TV after a set amount of time.

Change the channel periodically. If you"re an avid sports watcher or news viewer, the ticker at the bottom of the screen may cause burn-in without you realizing it. Switching the channel will give those pixels a rest.

Enable screen savers for gaming and streaming devices. If pausing is something you can"t avoid, turning on screen savers will keep the colors on your TV changing and help prevent burn-in.

Burn-in is permanent on your television, but there are a few ways you can try to improve it.Adjust the brightness. Lowering your brightness setting to below 50 could reduce any burn-in. This should also cause any image retention to disappear.

Enable pixel shift. OLED TVs from brands like LG® and Sony® include pixel-shift technology that automatically moves images on the screen to protect pixels from overuse. You can manually turn this on in your settings.

Replace your TV. Unlike phones, you can"t just swap in a new screen on your television. But before buying a new one, check your manufacturer"s warranty to see if it covers burn-in.

If your smartphone has an OLED screen—like the iPhone® 12, Samsung Galaxy® S21, or Google Pixel™ 5—it"s at risk of developing burn-in. However, there are simple steps you can take to protect your device.

Tips to prevent Android and iPhone screen burn-in:Lower the brightness. The brighter your display, the faster the pixels will decay. Go into your settings and reduce the brightness to 50% or lower.

Enable immersive mode on Android™. Turning this on will hide the status and navigation bars, which often cause screen burn-in. Some apps default to this mode, but you may need to configure it for others.

Unfortunately, there"s no such thing as a quick screen burn fix. OLED phone screen burn-in is permanent, but there are a few steps you can try to reduce it.

Ways to reduce Android and iPhone screen burn:Power it off. Leaving your phone off for a few hours could help lessen the impact of burn-in. If your issue goes away completely, you probably just had image retention.

Download a fixer app. These test to see if your phone has burn-in. They"ll then run a pixel refresh or adjust your settings so the discoloration isn"t as visible.

Replace the screen. If nothing has worked to reduce burn-in, you may need to purchase a new screen. But first, check your device"s warranty to see if screen replacement is covered.

Once upon a time not so long ago, the problem of so-called ‘burn in’ or ‘screen burn’ with OLED TVs was a very big deal. As with plasma TVs before them, some early OLED TV owners found to their horror that the organic materials that make OLED TVs’ self-emissive displays could decay under prolonged exposure to static image elements, resulting in ghostly shadows of those static elements appearing permanently in the picture.

It"s worth pointing out from the off that – with one notable exception that you can read about below – we"ve never experienced burn-in on any of the OLED TV samples we"ve had in for review or any of the OLED TVs that staff members use at home – some of which are now fairly long in the tooth and have seen hundreds if not thousands of hours of action. Continual improvements in the way OLED TVs are made seem to have greatly reduced the likelihood of screen burn hitting OLED TV owners, too.

Even so, OLED burn in clearly remains a concern for some and we do still see occasional reports of it happening. Plus, tellingly, every OLED manufacturer provides their TVs with a selection of anti-burn in features, and still always includes a message either in their TVs’ set-up menus or instruction manuals telling you to handle your OLED TV with care when it comes to prolonged exposure to bright, static image elements.

In other words, while technological improvements mean OLED burn in (often called image retention by manufacturers because that sounds less scary) is less likely to hit an OLED TV than it used to be, the actions of the manufacturers themselves prove that the issue hasn’t completely gone away. It therefore remains well worth understanding the features OLED TVs use to try and stop burn in happening, and being aware of what you can do yourself to add potentially years of life to your big TV purchase.

When it comes to features provided by manufacturers to combat screen burn, you’re looking at three main approaches: moving the image, dimming static image elements, and trying to make sure that all the pixels in the picture age at more or less the same rate, so that the areas most impacted by static image elements don’t stand out.

One of the earliest techniques that’s still widely applied on OLED TVs today is pixel orbiting or shifting. This essentially continually circles the image around a pixel or two so that none of the OLED panel pixels are exposed to exactly the same image content. This sounds quite drastic on paper, but in reality the vast majority of people have this feature running on their OLED TVs by default without ever noticing it’s there. There’s usually the option to turn the feature off, but we’d say that in the vast majority of cases this is one of the easiest and least problematic ways of reducing the likelihood of burn in happening.

Another way of combatting screen burn on a technological level that’s become increasingly popular in recent years is localised picture dimming. Here TVs use image analysis to identify static image elements and slightly reduce the brightness and intensity of just that area of the image. It was LG (OLED’s main innovator over the years) that first introduced this technique, but since then it’s been adopted elsewhere. Philips, in particular, actively boasts about the precision of the static image dimming element on its premium OLED TVs. (Note that some other brands can be quite reticent about discussing anti burn-in measures, as it’s a topic they don’t really want to talk about too much)

This is especially true given that the alternative approach may well be full screen dimming. Also known as Auto Brightness Limiting (ABL) or Auto Brightness Static Limiting (ABSL), this finds OLED TVs gradually (or in some memorable cases over the years, suddenly) dimming down their entire picture if they sense the presence of a potentially damaging bright, static element. Unfortunately the quite substantial impact this dimming can have in some implementations has become a much bigger source of complaints, especially among gamers, than actual examples of screen burn.

It doesn’t help that ABL systems are typically baked in to a TV’s picture routines, to ensure a longer panel life span, with no option for the consumer to turn them off. Unless, anyway, an OLED TV owner happens to know how to access their set’s service menus – and doesn’t mind potentially greatly increasing the chance of screen burn appearing by turning off a feature that manufacturers felt strongly enough about to make it ‘undefeatable’ from the TV’s consumer menus.

Again, fortunately, TV brands have got cuter over the years about how drastic an effect ABL has on the picture (as well as developing the more localised dimming approach mentioned a moment ago). LG OLED TVs, for instance, have become enormously popular with gamers over the past two to three years, yet complaints about ABL being triggered by static gaming HUD elements are no longer finding their way into our inbox anything like as much as they used to.

One last rather drastic feature OLED TVs provide to address potential screen burn issues is Panel or Pixel Refreshing. This feature essentially attempts to equalise the ‘wear’ on the organic elements in the picture so that no specific parts of the image age faster than the rest.

The long term LG pixel refresher kicks in every 2000 hours of use, and involves a much longer ‘equalisation’ process that takes up to an hour to complete. Here the user will get a message that the refresh system is about to run, and see a white horizontal line on screen when the process is almost finished.

Many OLED TVs also let you run a pixel/panel refresh routine as and when you wish, via dedicated options in the onscreen menus. These really can work, too; I’ve managed myself to remove what appeared to be the beginnings of a screen burn issue on an OLED TV by running a Pixel Refresh routine.

It’s worth bearing in mind, though, that Sony’s advice on its own Panel Refresh feature is that running it ‘may affect the panel. [So] as a reference… do not perform it more than once a year, as it may affect the usable life of the panel’. So we would join Sony in strongly advising that you only use this manual application of pixel/panel refreshing very sparingly indeed – maybe even only when you think you might be seeing the earliest stages of a screen burn issue.

As well as providing various features to help prevent OLED burn in, TV manufacturers provide guidance to OLED TV owners about how to use their sets. In particular, you’re advised that you should avoid displaying images that may cause image retention. As in, images with bright static elements. What’s more, it’s usually made pretty clear in whatever information an OLED TV provides that since burn in can be avoided by ‘correct’ usage of the TV, it is not typically considered a malfunction or fault of the TV, and so is not something manufacturers will necessarily consider as part of warranty claims.

We would add to this that experience and discussions with OLED TV brands suggest (though admittedly vastly less so these days than used to be the case) that it’s worth being especially careful about avoiding prolonged exposure to bright, colourful static image elements for the first 100 hours or so of a new OLED TV’s use. Until the screen has been ‘broken in’, as it were.

Straightforward though this OLED user advice is, it obviously isn’t ideal from an end-user perspective to have to be so circumspect about how you use your TV and what you watch on it. So it’s a big relief that newer OLED screens are doing much better in so many different ways at avoiding screen burn, taking some of the pressure off end users.

Another very important thing OLED TV users can do to improve the longevity of their TVs is to turn them into standby rather than always turning them fully off at the plug. This may not sound ideal in these days of soaring energy bills, but the simple fact is that, as noted in the previous section, OLED TVs tend to run short screen maintenance procedures when on standby that obviously can’t be triggered if the screen has had all of its power removed.

One final path OLED users can take to reduce the likelihood of their screens suffering with screen burn is to manually reduce the intensity of pictures, by reducing contrast, brightness and maybe even colour saturations. This can often be achieved by simply switching from Dynamic/Vivid or Standard/Normal picture presets to a relatively low-aggression picture preset, such as LG’s Eco mode, or most TVs’ movie/cinema presets. Or you could reduce brightness and so on individually via your TV’s detailed picture adjustment menus.

While Vivid and Dynamic modes typically look quite nasty, though, and so are nearly always best avoided from a picture quality as well as burn in perspective, we wouldn’t typically recommend that most users deliberately run their images with limited brightness all the time. It’s just not fun, honestly, and arguably undermines the whole point of why you wanted to buy an OLED TV in the first place. With the exception, of course, that many AV enthusiasts will want as a matter of course to watch a movie using the more ‘accurate’ picture values of a relatively restrained movie or cinema preset.

The key to everything is heat management. Heat is the core contributing factor to the ageing of OLED’s organic materials – and, as a result, one of the limiting factors when it comes to how bright OLED TVs can get. Fortunately the desire by OLED TV manufacturers to achieve more brightness to get closer to both the brightness levels of professional OLED mastering monitors and rival LCD TVs has seen OLED brands starting to introduce heat sink technology into some of their premium models.

Panasonic, for instance, has used heat dissipation tech in its premium ‘2000’ OLED series since 2019, ostensibly to boost brightness. But when we’ve asked Panasonic engineers whether increasing their TVs’ brightness might increase their susceptibility to screen burn, the reply has always been that on the contrary, the better heat management that enables the extra brightness should also make them less, rather than more, susceptible to burn in.

It’s pretty obvious from both the messaging of OLED TV manufacturers about screen burn and the extreme lengths they go to to combat it that nobody who buys an OLED TV can yet afford to completely ignore the issue. That said, all the latest evidence suggests that – for most ‘regular’ TV users, at least – the issue is now much less likely to appear than it used to be.

So while we would certainly still suggest that you have the issue in the back of your mind while living with your lovely OLED TV, we don"t believe that it needs to be a constant, niggling concern – especially if you invest in a premium model that features either extra processing power and features devoted to tackling screen burn, or else has new heat dissipation technology built in.

If you look at an OLED display off-angle, you might notice slight shifts in color and hue. At reduced display brightness levels against black backgrounds, you might notice a slight blur or color change while scrolling. These are characteristics of OLED and are normal behavior. With extended long-term use, OLED displays can also show slight visual changes. This is also expected behavior and can include “image persistence” or “burn-in,” where the display shows a faint remnant of an image even after a new image appears on the screen. Image persistence is temporary and disappears after a few minutes of normal use. Burn-in can occur in more extreme cases such as when the same high-contrast image is continuously displayed at high brightness for prolonged periods of time.

We’ve engineered the Super Retina and Super Retina XDR displays to be the best in the industry in reducing the effects of OLED burn-in. This includes special algorithms that monitor the usage of individual pixels to produce display calibration data. Your iPhone uses that data to automatically adjust the brightness levels for each pixel as needed to reduce visual effects from burn-in and to maintain a consistent viewing experience. The auto-brightness function can further reduce the effects of burn-in and image persistence.

In addition, all displays, including OLEDs and LCDs, might be susceptible to reduced brightness levels as the display ages over time. This can occur on any consumer-electronics product.

Nintendo’s Switch OLED Model is now available, and even if it’s no Switch Pro, there’s a lot to like about it. But as new owners of the console start enjoying its larger, more vibrant screen, some might also wonder whether they should pay any mind to the classic “risk” of OLED technology: burn-in.

In the early days of OLED smartphones, it wasn’t uncommon to find a mistreated demo phone at a carrier or Best Buy that had a ghastly display with home screen icons or a status bar left permanently visible whenever the screen was on. Burn-in could also befall OLED TVs if they were carelessly left on a news channel (with a ticker at the bottom) for many hours.

Bloomberg has reported that Samsung Display is supplying the Switch OLED Model’s 7-inch panel, and that’s about the best news you could ask for when it comes to the longevity and reliability of your $350 console’s screen. Samsung has led the evolution of OLED on mobile devices, and while burn-in is still technically possible on its modern panels, they’re more resistant to it, and software-based mitigations from Samsung, LG, and others have made it less of an issue than ever before. I’ve got an LG CX OLED that shows zero signs of burn-in after a year of pretty extensive playtime.

But on a video game console with plenty of persistent HUDs and other fixed onscreen icons, it’s worth taking some care when playing the Switch OLED Model. Gaming has always been a potential hazard for OLED. Even so, as long as you use the device in conventional ways and don’t intentionally try to do lasting damage to its display, you should be totally fine — but there are still things to look out for.

“To minimize the risk of image retention or screen burn-in occurring on the OLED screen, do not turn off the system’s default sleep mode settings and take care to not display the same image on the OLED screen for extended periods of time.”

Image retention can look similar to burn-in — something “sticks” on the screen after it’s supposed to be gone — but isn’t permanent and goes away on its own as you do other things on the console’s display. If you notice it, it’s a good warning sign to jump over to another game for a while.

Advising customers not to mess with the sleep mode defaults is Nintendo’s attempt to ensure the Switch OLED Model won’t be left sitting somewhere on a static screen for hours. Game HUDs are one thing, but even the Switch’s homescreen has a lot of fixed elements. I’d try to avoid letting the console just sit on that screen for lengthy periods of time.

As far as what we can tell from what Nintendo has told us so far, the answer is no. In settings, there’s no sign of any screen refresher, which is an animation to help eliminate any image retention. Nintendo also didn’t say whether it subtly shifts pixels in the Switch’s UX to avoid potential issues. The only “burn-in protection” item in settings still applies just to connected TVs; the Switch will dim a TV’s screen after a few minutes of inactivity.

If you’re using the console in normal ways and switching up the games you play, you’ll likely avoid any burn-in problems for a long, long time. You’ll probably face other issues like Joy-Con drift long before experiencing any burn-in. The proper Switch Pro might even arrive before you see any screen aberrations. Then again, maybe not. The point is that, barring any unforeseen quality defects with the screen (which is unlikely for a Samsung panel), it would take extreme circumstances for burn-in to ruin your console.

But if you’ve got the brightness cranked all the way up, turn off sleep mode, and leave it sitting on a still screen for an entire week, yeah… bad things will probably happen. Use common sense, vary it up, and don’t stress; enjoy the games.

Watch your brightness. Image retention and burn-in could be more likely if you’re always playing at max brightness. You don’t have to be too careful here; I immediately disabled auto brightness on my unit and typically have it in the 75 to 80 percent range.

Vary your games.No one’s telling you not to sink hours upon hours into your favorite title. Go for it! But if you want to preserve the OLED Model’s screen for the long haul, try to mix it up with other games in between those marathon sessions so that the Switch’s pixels see some variety.