The OLED Burn-In Test: 9-Month Update

[ddferrari]

The issue here is...the failure rate on OLED monitors is essentially 100%. I have an LED that has basically seen near constant use with little regard for type of content or static images and it looks basically the same as it did 10 years ago when it came out of the box, perhaps some slight degrading of the backlighting brightness.

OLED will NEVER be viable, ever. It's not something you can maintain or fix like an expensive car...it is literally a thousand dollars, give or take, that is thrown straight in the trash for a disposable item.

As a QD-OLED owner, I disagree.

I am now just 90 hours short of 5000 on my AW3423DW - the very first QD-OLED monitor (not TV) - on the market. There is still zero burn-in after mixed use. Just a moment ago, I completely darkened my room (it's night here), cranked up the brightness and contrast to 100%, let my eyes adjust for 5 minutes, then ran the black background from LCDTech's Dead Pixel Checker. Nothing. As black as if I had unplugged it.

Sure, if I worked from home and had static images running all day, I'd get a cheap IPS for that. But you're missing the point entirely: OLEDs are about the ultimate visual experience. IPS is (now) a nice truck; OLED is a luxury car. If my "early adopter" model is holding up this well, surely newer ones are even more bullet proof. They are quite viable.

BTW, everything electronic has a 100% failure rate. How long it takes to fail depends on how they are treated, and a bit of luck. Also, IPS cannot be "fixed" anymore than OLED can. A panel replacement is the only option for any monitor.

 

[user478318]

Guys stop worrying about OLED longetivity, first of all I'm using my PG32UCDM at 30% brightness day&night no problems with brightness here, since the whole internet is buzzing about OLEDs being too dim. Second, I've set screensaver to kick in after 5 minutes so burn in will not happen. There is no need to ever run pixel cleaning the monitor is prompting you to do. There is no need for any special precautions. Also do not run in HDR mode, and your OLED monitor will go on for 10-15 years with no problems.

HDR is killing your OLED monitor!!

 

[ChipBoundary]

As a QD-OLED owner, I disagree.

I am now just 90 hours short of 5000 on my AW3423DW - the very first QD-OLED monitor (not TV) - on the market. There is still zero burn-in after mixed use. Just a moment ago, I completely darkened my room (it's night here), cranked up the brightness and contrast to 100%, let my eyes adjust for 5 minutes, then ran the black background from LCDTech's Dead Pixel Checker. Nothing. As black as if I had unplugged it.

Sure, if I worked from home and had static images running all day, I'd get a cheap IPS for that. But you're missing the point entirely: OLEDs are about the ultimate visual experience. IPS is (now) a nice truck; OLED is a luxury car. If my "early adopter" model is holding up this well, surely newer ones are even more bullet proof. They are quite viable.

BTW, everything electronic has a 100% failure rate. How long it takes to fail depends on how they are treated, and a bit of luck. Also, IPS cannot be "fixed" anymore than OLED can. A panel replacement is the only option for any monitor.

And yet two people I know personally have had top end OLED's burn-in in less than six months, and they were purchased in the last year or so. They were used exclusively for gaming. And no, not all electronics have a 100% failure rate.

I guarantee that LED I have will be working long after I die and keep on trucking. It has over 50,000 hours of use, easily. 5000 hours is less than a year of use, that's nothing. I have many electronic devices over 50 years old and they work like the day they were manufactured.

OLED's have a 100% failure rate because the panels are guaranteed to degrade and fail in a very short timeframe. Burn-in WILL happen. Other display technologies have no such limitations.

 

[ddferrari]

And yet two people I know personally have had top end OLED's burn-in in less than six months, and they were purchased in the last year or so. They were used exclusively for gaming. And no, not all electronics have a 100% failure rate.

I guarantee that LED I have will be working long after I die and keep on trucking. It has over 50,000 hours of use, easily. 5000 hours is less than a year of use, that's nothing. I have many electronic devices over 50 years old and they work like the day they were manufactured.

OLED's have a 100% failure rate because the panels are guaranteed to degrade and fail in a very short timeframe. Burn-in WILL happen. Other display technologies have no such limitations.

"OLED's have a 100% failure rate because the panels are guaranteed to degrade and fail in a very short timeframe."

You're basing this claim on what - the two people you know who had issues? And what is a "very short timeframe" in your book? By the way, OLED was invented in 1987 by KODAK, so it's not new tech and like most technologies it has vastly improved.

"Burn-in WILL happen"

Of course it will, eventually, but nowhere as quickly (with proper use) as you implied. Currently, it's the best image for gaming and media on the planet, period. That's worth the price of admission for a lot of folks. But let's get real and stop implying that these monitors are just expensive flowers that will die in a week.

 

[Mark Rejhon]

"Burn-in WILL happen"

Bet it's the Dell QD-OLED.

Burn-in will happen faster with the 175Hz QD-OLED monitors that are still being sold, and much slower with the 240Hz WOLED monitors.

It's worth nuancing that some cheaply made LCDs have some degradations:
https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/longevity-results-after-10-months#lcd-degradation

Sadly, LCD fabbing has cheapened over time; and also one of my LCD gaming monitors has lost more than 50% of its nits, due to the wear-and-tear of its LED backlight.

The venn diagram overlaps now, as seen by RTINGs tests.

The slowest-burning-in OLEDs (e.g. WOLEDs with the W letter and of at *least* 240Hz) have less wear-tear artifacts than the worst-cheap-manufactured LCDs.

 

[ddferrari]

Bet it's the Dell QD-OLED.

Burn-in will happen faster with the 175Hz QD-OLED monitors that are still being sold, and much slower with the 240Hz WOLED monitors.

It's worth nuancing that some cheaply made LCDs have some degradations:
https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/longevity-results-after-10-months#lcd-degradation

Sadly, LCD fabbing has cheapened over time; and also one of my LCD gaming monitors has lost more than 50% of its nits, due to the wear-and-tear of its LED backlight.

The venn diagram overlaps now, as seen by RTINGs tests.

The slowest-burning-in OLEDs (e.g. WOLEDs with the W letter and of at *least* 240Hz) have less wear-tear artifacts than the worst-cheap-manufactured LCDs.

Do you have a source for your statement concerning Dell QD-OLED 175Hz? Because that's exactly what I have and it's been flawless since May 2022. Of course, I have made all of the small, simple tweaks to prevent any burn-in. So far they have done the job well.

 

[Mark Rejhon]

Do you have a source for your statement concerning Dell QD-OLED 175Hz? Because that's exactly what I have and it's been flawless since May 2022. Of course, I have made all of the small, simple tweaks to prevent any burn-in. So far they have done the job well.

While no direct cites, it's based on a lot of anecdotes.

As you already know I help some display manufacturers and do some collabs (Search "blurbusters" or "testufo.com" or "mark rejhon" in research paper search engines like Google Scholar). [Note: TechSpot automated spamcop software is not letting me link to Google Scholar papers]

It is widely known kept dirty secret inside the OLED community that older OLED fabrications (e.g. 175Hz era) is less durable than the newer OLED fabrications (e.g. 360Hz era). Also, WOLED has been on the market much longer than QDOLED. The bad pre-QD-era old B6 OLED days are long behind us.

However, if you're doing mitigations, even the 175 Hz OLED will last an awfully long time. You're OK.

 

[celestialgrave]

So burn in is looking good but how has it affected the color accuracy?