What Is OLED Burn-In?
Understand what OLED burn-in is, how it differs from temporary image retention, and how to spot it before it becomes permanent.
OLED panels produce light pixel by pixel, which gives them perfect black levels and incredible contrast. That same design also makes them vulnerable to burn-in — a permanent mark left on the screen by static images shown over a long time.
Burn-in vs. image retention
People often confuse two related issues:
- Image retention is temporary. A faint ghost of a logo or HUD disappears after a few minutes of varied content.
- Burn-in is permanent. The same ghost stays visible no matter what you display, because the affected pixels have aged unevenly.
If a mark fades away, it was retention. If it is still there the next day in the same spot, it is likely burn-in.
What causes it
Burn-in happens when bright, static elements — channel logos, news tickers, game HUDs, taskbars — stay in the same position for hundreds of hours. Those pixels wear out faster than their neighbors and emit less light, leaving a dim imprint.
How to check for it
The fastest way to tell is with full-screen solid colors:
- Open a gray test — burn-in shows up clearly against a mid-tone background.
- Switch to red, green, and blue — different wear is visible on different colors.
- Use white to check for overall uniformity and faint shadows.
Move slowly and look at the corners, edges, and anywhere static UI usually sits. Want to try it now? Open the homepage test and run the sequence on your screen.
The takeaway
You cannot reverse true burn-in, but catching it early lets you adjust brightness, enable pixel-shifting, and vary your content to slow it down. A quick color test once a month is enough to stay ahead of it.