The resulting problem of burn-in and uneven brightness of the screens is a known shortcoming of OLED displays. Although manufacturers primarily use software tools for this, they guarantee success in minimizing the problem. Experts from the RTINGS resource undertook to check their approval, subjecting more than a hundred TVs and several monitors to a stress test.

The test consists of broadcasting CNN channel news 24 hours a day at maximum brightness. Under these conditions, the burnout effect manifests itself most clearly and occurs most often in the field of static elements: logos of TV channels, the taskbar on the computer or interfaces in games. This may be a temporary display or permanent burnout. They can be easily confused even by an expert, but a refresh cycle or a radical change in screen content often helps combat this phenomenon.

Special preventive functions developed by manufacturers are designed to extend the service life of the panel – short or long “compensation cycles”, which each brand has its own name. Of course, they aim for an even distribution of brightness on the surface of the screen, not to return the image quality to the original.

Currently the stress test has been going on for ten months straight; OLED and LCD TVs agree with this. Although testing lasted only six months, three ultrawide monitors are being tested in parallel. Here are the brief conclusions drawn by the study’s authors.

• After ten months of stress testing, which is equivalent to four years and three months of use under normal conditions, all OLED TVs showed signs of burn-in, albeit to varying degrees.
• Although the main concern was OLED TVs, LCD TVs also showed signs of image degradation, and this was much more severe than with OLED panels; backlight integrity was dropping faster and more drastically. This is not the same as burnout, but it also spoils the impression of the picture on the screen.
• Five TVs and one monitor malfunctioned during testing.
• Slight signs of burnout of OLED monitors began to appear already in the sixth month of stress testing, which is equivalent to 2.5 years of operation in normal mode. Perhaps this is due to the large number of static elements on the desktop and game interfaces.

Interestingly, the burn-in effect is most noticeable on older OLED displays, especially the LG CX OLED TVs and Sony A8H. Additionally, the study’s authors note that traces of burned panels can often be reversed when you force the TV to perform a balancing cycle.

In general, TVs sometimes need to perform such cycles on their own, but not all manufacturers operate this function correctly, and therefore it is possible to partially or completely eliminate the burn-in effect with a manual “reset”. Currently, experts are continuing the tests.