Preventing screen burn in: What it is and how you can avoid it

One of the most common critiques of OLED displays is screen burn in. As OLED becomes the de facto display technology used on smartphones in the mid-range, flagship, and premium flagship price segment, the topic of screen burn in comes up more often than it did earlier. Most would argue that LCDs and newer display technologies like Mini-LED win over OLED since they don’t suffer from screen burn in.

Does that make OLED a less attractive display technology? The answer is no. Most smartphone users will never experience screen burn in on their phones themselves. However, when a screen burn in happens, it leaves an unpleasant user experience since the screen develops an artefact that looks horrible.

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Smartphone makers including Apple, Google, and Samsung acknowledge that screen burn in can be a problem but they also note that it happens only in rare cases. Since we are years away from switching to Mini-LED, let’s understand what is screen burn in, why it happens, and what are the ways to prevent it from happening on your smartphone.

Screen burn in: What is it

The term screen burn in refers to a situation where your smartphone display suffers from permanent discolouration across any part of the panel. Some experts find the term to be misleading since there is no actual burning of the screen involved here and the issue is not caused by heat.

Screen burn in happens in the form of fading of colours, a text or image outline, or any other noticeable patches or patterns on display. Even if your phone’s display suffers from burn in, it doesn’t mean the display will stop working. The only difference will be that there will be a prominent ghost image or discolouration that you cannot unsee when the screen is on.

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Now, when a screen burn in occurs for the first time, users usually assume it to be a temporary graphical issue caused by software. Screen burn in, however, is permanent and caused by defects in the display hardware. This is not a new problem limited to OLED displays but one that dates back to the days of CRT screens.

In the case of CRT monitors, the burn in happens when the phosphor compounds emitting light to produce images lose their luminance with time. While LCD panels also exhibit similar problems, the nature of LCD’s backlight and colour matrix design makes it rarer. OLED displays, on the other hand, eventually suffer from this problem and are typically seen with always-on display found on smartphones like iPhone 15 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S24 or the notification bar.

Burn in on phone screen: Why does it happen

The cause of burn in on phone screens is primarily the ageing components that produce light. As the light-producing components age, their brightness changes and the colour reproduction also changes with time. Smartphone makers have cleverly used software to mitigate this colour shift but when some parts of the screen age faster than others, burn in is inevitable.

With screen burn in, the colour shift will be dramatic in one area of the screen compared to another and the result is often a ghost-like image left behind. With OLED panels used on smartphones and smartwatches built with individual light emitters arranged in red, green, and blue configurations to produce a full range of colours, any change in their life span could lead to screen burn in.

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On smartphones, the areas most susceptible to burn in are areas that seldom change. This means areas that are bright white or are often black and switched off are likely to suffer from screen burn in. Smartphone users have noticed screen burn in with navigation buttons or the notification bar. Smartphone makers have smartly replaced on-screen navigation buttons with gesture navigation to eliminate the issue.

Where is the screen burn in most likely on a smartphone display? It is commonly seen in areas that display one colour, a set icon, or identical text. This is because blue LEDs have lower luminous efficiency than red or green sub pixels on OLED panels. As a result, a blue LED needs a higher current to achieve the same brightness as a red or green LED.

The use of a higher current to power blue LEDs causes the pixel to degrade faster and the result is that blue subpixels have shorter lifespans than red and green subpixels. When an OLED panel ages, the colour degradation thus shifts towards a red/green tint. When a part of the panel displays a blue or white image, the blue pixel will degrade in that area faster than in other areas and the result in screen burn in.

Screen burn in: All the ways to prevent it

One of the things to remember about OLED panels is that display manufacturers factor in use cases like the ones mentioned above to extend the life of each subpixel and thus prevent burn in. However, a display panel is a hardware that is bound to suffer at some point and the real solution is to prevent screen burn in from happening sooner.

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Here are some preventive measures you can take to extend the lifetime of your smartphone display.

1. Display brightness:

When you increase the brightness of your display, it requires more current and thus shortens the lifespan of the OLED panel. You can prevent display burn in by keeping display brightness as low as reasonable.

2. Screen timeout:

When you are not using your phone, you can set the screen to immediately turn off, thus avoiding the subpixels to be on for an unnecessarily long time and prevent them from displaying static images. To shorten your screen-off timer, go to Settings > Display > Screen timeout. On iPhone, go to Settings > Display > Auto-Lock and set the length to 30 seconds.

3. Dark Mode:

Using dark mode has been found to reduce the amount of illumination and also helps LEDs last longer. You can enable dark mode by going to Settings > Display and toggle Dark theme.

4. Dark wallpaper:

You can also choose a wallpaper with darker colours to extend the life of your OLED panel.

5. Enable gesture navigation:

If your phone comes with on-screen buttons then immediately switch to gesture navigation. This will prevent burn in at the bottom of the screen. Go to Settings > Display > Navigation mode and choose Gesture navigation.

6. Immersive mode:

Use this mode, if available, to hide the notification bar and static icons. On Android, you can also use a launcher that enables a transparent navigation bar and app drawer options.

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If you are a smartphone user and your phone has an OLED display then you shouldn’t worry about screen burn in in the first place. However, you should ensure that the screen does not display the same thing all the time or display static content in the same areas. You can also use keyboards with darker themes to prevent colour degradation.

In a nutshell, screen burn-in isn’t an immediate concern for most smartphone users and you shouldn’t get caught up in the debate surrounding it. However, there are simple techniques to prevent the colour degradation that occurs on OLED panels and extend the lifespan of your smartphone display in the process.