OLED Burn-In Test

What burn-in looks like

On an OLED screen every pixel makes its own light, and pixels that show the same bright content for a long time can age faster than their neighbors. The result is a faint, lasting shape: a taskbar, a channel logo, a game's health bar, or the edge of a keyboard on a phone. Short-lived ghosting that fades within minutes is image retention; a shape that stays for days is burn-in.

1. 1

   Use your normal brightness and dim the room a little.

2. 2

   Start with gray, full screen. A mid gray shows darker or tinted shapes best.

3. 3

   Step through white, red, green, and blue with → or Space. Wear often affects one subpixel color more than the others, so a shape can be clearer on one field.

4. 4

   Look where static content usually sits: taskbars, status bars, logos, and on-screen buttons.

If you find something

Leave the display off or showing varied content for a while and check again: retention often fades, burn-in does not. Many OLED screens include their own panel-refresh or pixel-shift features; your device's manual explains them. The OLED burn-in guide sets out the difference between retention and burn-in and the protection features makers build in, quoted from their own support pages. For uneven brightness across the whole screen, use the Screen Uniformity Test; for single faulty pixels, the Dead Pixel Test. How to Test a Monitor covers the rest of a full check.

Reducing the risk

Burn-in builds up slowly from the same bright content in the same place. Varying what is on screen helps: let the taskbar or dock hide itself, use a dark theme for apps you keep open, lower the brightness for static work, and let the screen turn off or sleep when you step away. Avoid leaving a paused game or video on screen for hours.