What's Safe After 9 Months: The Shocking Truth About OLED Burn-In Protection

The Longest OLED Burn-In Test: 9 Months and Counting

In an effort to find out just how well OLED monitors will hold up in the long run, we’re pushing our 4K OLED monitor to its limits. Here’s an update on our results after 9 months of intense use.

A Worst-Case Scenario

We’re using a 32-inch 4K QD-OLED monitor, the MSI MPG 321URX, in our daily workflow, with no content consumption, minimal gaming, and maximum static usage. This is a worst-case scenario for OLED burn-in, and we’re curious to see how the display holds up.

The Situation So Far

After 9 months of heavy use, burn-in is still not a significant concern. We can spot some minor burn-in in edge cases with large, uniform areas of dark grey, but it’s not near as prominent as we expected. Our results are similar to a non-issue, and we’re still seeing very tolerable burn-in levels.

Why is Burn-In a Concern?

Burn-in is directly related to hours of usage, and it’s cumulative. The more you use static content, the higher the risk of burn-in. To mitigate this, running at a lower brightness and using dark mode can extend the display’s lifespan.

How to Avoid Burn-In

To avoid or reduce burn-in, you can take a few simple steps:

Run the display to sleep after inactivity.
Minimize the taskbar in Windows.
Adjust the display’s brightness.

A Positive Outlook

With our semi-destructive testing, we’re seeing a relatively safe lifespan for OLED monitors, with minimal burn-in. For casual users who primarily consume content, we don’t expect to see significant burn-in up to 12-18 months. Our experiment will continue, and we’ll update you on our findings.

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