@@PREDATEURLT It messes with anything that's dark. TH-cam's compression algorithm is designed around the human eye and the human eye has a much harder time seeing dark details that lit details. That said TH-cam takes the dark compression way too far, it's actual preferable to increase the black level of your video if there's a lot of dark scenes to prevent TH-cam from destroying it.
@@giglioflex Thats not youtube. Thats how adaptive quantization works in general. x265 would have an AQ Mode 3 which would have auto variance with bias to dark scenes which would improve it. youtube uses a dynamic quantizer (CRF) but with upper bitrate limit. And both are too low. CRF value too bad, upper bitrate limit too strict.
I've noticed it too when viewing 1400p on a 1440p monitor. Switching the quality to 2160p mostly fixed it, the artifacts on the dark greys were not too obvious.
This video nicely shows how you cannot trust almost anybody on TH-cam at this point. Many big channels are like: "With a new generation of OLED burn-in is a thing of the past. Almost non-issue." And then this guy shows up and gives concrete proof that burn-in starts to appear after 3 months. And yes I understand his setting and test methodology but still. Thank you for your honesty Monitors Unboxed.
any measureable burn in after 3 months is insane. i have LCDs monitors i have used for over 5 years with no issues and with the kind of money you spend on OLEDs id hope for no less than that if i were to switch
@bobbiesterling574 : I completely agree with you, 3 months is not a long time, getting the first signs of burn-in so fast it seems clear to me that OLED technology is not suited yet for any kind of productivity tasks. I'm not going to buy an OLED monitor any time soon, that's for sure. I"ll stick with IPS for now.
@@PREDATEURLT My old tv (about 5-6 years old) has more than 25k hours on it and still looks perfect. I gave it to my mother only a couple months back and she uses it every single day lol. Never seen burn in on an lcd personally (not saying it doesn't happen though). Wish oled were as resilient as they're near perfect otherwise :(.
LCDs are not immune either, they do "burn in" but mostly have the white spots, the worst part is they have defects out of the box due to light bleeding or VA poor viewing angles and rare glossy options except Apple (this doesn't make any sense, for ages we had glossy CRTs, yet now nothing). Seems we are yet to find a technology to replace CRTs.
@@PREDATEURLT Oh I thought it could burn in as I've seen comments over the years mentioning it but I had never seen it irl in my 20+ years also of using screens. I just wish oled was more resilient and could last let's say at least 10-15k or more hours on average (without the need to baby them at all).
Would've been interesting to run another monitor next to it but using all of the standard protection features and best practices to see how effective they are
@@KeepAnOpenMind Aka use monitor normally. Nobody who work does not refress the monitor while working. If you don’t work whole day, oled is reasonable option, but if you do work normally. You don’t use those 4hours limits! Completely different use case! And yeah. Oled would have less problems if you don’t use it as much! The whole point of this test is to find out how well or badly oled can stand normal work usage.
@@haukionkannel The refresh lasts 7 minutes. Who isn't taking at least a 15m break 4 hours into a day that they can't just start the refresh while they go take a leak or something? Is that more than you'd have to do with an LCD? Sure. Is it an unreasonable habit to adopt in exchange for the general usage benefits of OLED? _That's subjective, but if you think it is _*_I_*_ think _*_you're_*_ unreasonable._
Love the series, finally someone making burn in time scales visible and in a real world application. I know now that I can get Oled as I do maybe 80% gaming and 20% watching YT
@@Those_Weirdos Not trying to "debunk", as I agree, RTings has by far had the most valuable insight into OLED burn-in... But RTings is more of a stress test than a "real world use case". It's analogous to running a benchmark software versus measuring frametime in a game.
@@moldyshishkabob Hard agree. RTings - Can it burn in? (still super valuable data, they do great work) MUB - Will it burn in? (directly useful for retail purchase decision making)
"Real world"? You guys seem super clueless. This is like Linus intentionally burning in his monitor and then complaining about it. What you should do if using an OLED is very well known, you should not do what is being done in this series. You should not do what Linus did. If you intend to use a lot of static content, you should use dark mode, you should turn down the brightness, and you should use a secondary screen for the bulk of the static stuff you're looking at. RTings is evaluating a specific aspect of the burn-in, which they are 100% intent on causing. MUB is evaluating another aspect of the burn-in, which is again 100% intentional. Not much will be learned from this. I've used OLED in the real world for several years and I have zero sign of burn-in, because I'm not a Linus-tier idiot and I understand to use dark mode, and e.g. not evenly split my monitor in the middle for all my daily use. Taskbar should autohide or go on a secondary screen, chat etc. things as well. No background images. People need to stop crying about a thing breaking when they use it in the way everyone knows will cause it to fail.
@@ArdgalAlkeides HUB/MUB viewers like us will know the overall downsides of OLED, sure. General consumers will not know these and would likely treat their OLED like the CRT or LCDs they have been used to using for the past few decades. And even then, what is the extent to the various "OLED care" features in mitigating burn-in? The average consumer could see "taskbar detection" and think it's a FIX to OLED issues rather than MITIGATING OLED issues. Someone who doesn't have their ear to the ground on technology might just hear "OLED is the best! You gotta get OLED!" and make an uninformed purchase. As a friend of people who, frankly, don't have time to research computer stuff as much as we do, I am more than happy to have this data available to show them.
Im using the alienware AW3423DWF and mostly play two games. I have, however, done the dark mode the background cycling and taskbar hiding plus installed a program that hides icons in my desktop when 5 minutes of inactivity. I've noticed no burn in after 2 years of using it. I am very pleased. I didn't expect it for a 1rst gen QD Oled panel.
While OLED is fantastic, having a display feel like a consumable item is just painful because of what LCDs have conditioned us to expect from displays. Until OLEDs can be used without the user actively countering burn-in for 4-5 years without serious degradation they aren't going to be fit for the typical consumer desktop monitor space...
@@JoaoMXN I have an OLED TV and I don't feel like the same applies nearly as much to it, since I've had it for over a year now and unless it's gotten slightly dimmer there's absolutely no indication of any panel degradation that I can tell. It's hard to tell at this point if micro-LED will become feasible and take over OLED or if OLED will improve enough to where it can be the dominant technology... But considering that panel degradation is basically inevitable with OLED it's hard to see it winning long term.
Yeah, this is the main reason I have been avoiding getting an OLED, I don't want a consumable monitor and I don't want it to feel like as I use the monitor the picture quality gets worse. I was hoping this test would not start showing any signs of burn in until like 6 months, then at least I'd have hope that we're getting close to OLEDs being viable, but seeing the first signs of burn in after 2 months makes me feel like OLEDs will take many years to get there, if they ever do. I'm now just thinking I'll find a nice FALD to buy and hope it lasts a decade+ until micro LED is alive.
This is why I chose an LCD instead of OLED when I got a new monitor last summer. I also have a kid so it's nothing for me to pause a game and go outside to play with her for an hour.
Pretty much the reason why I'm sticking with good IPS panels with potentially Mini LED in monitors for the foreseeable future. I also do programming and that's one of the absolute worst things you can do with an OLED screen in terms of burn in.
The whole burn in situation is so interesting. I remember getting 2-3 year old Galaxy S4’s in my repair shop that had so much burn in you could barely see the time. I’ve been using an LG C2 42” OLED tv as a monitor for my main monitor for work and gaming with a total of ~5100 hours of screen on time and I don’t see any burn in at all so far. I do use dark mode as much as possible and tend to move my windows around a lot because I’m fidgety, but my job and hobby’s both including coding so there tends to be a lot of static text on my screen for hours a day. Plus both macOS and pop_os have those un-hidable taskbars at the top so I’d think that they’d have some effect but so far nothing.
This has been my experience with my LG C2 42" as well. I run it at 100 brightness and even turned off the OLED care stuff with the service remote and with the exception of hiding the windows taskbar, dark-modes and wallpaper engine, i just use it like a normal computer monitor, which includes marathon hours of games that i play, for a couple years now. No burn-in. What this means to me basically is that once this TV does eventual fail or burn-in, i'll be getting another one instead of these newer OLED gaming monitors.
I've been using the same IPS ultrawide for about 9 years now. It's still perfect. OLED feels like a throwaway panel tech for a heavy PC user. I wouldn't spend any decent money on an OLED panel because I'd be wanting to replace it every year with my OCD.
@@helloguy8934 I only play VR these days with the exception of rocketleague on the flat piece of plastic infront of me. I can't get excited about flat gaming anymore no matter how nice the blacks are.
And this is why OLED should not be used for productivity. Your 'use case' is very light compared to what we have here at the office. Generally the monitor is on/used for 16-20/hours a day every day. So your ~3 months use is equivalent to our 1 month use case. Reason why we still pick up IPS/AH-IPS monitors but I've been really hoping for some progress on mini-LED (to get to larger physical screen sizes as 'ips' type monitors have been stuck at ~30" or so which is way too small for 4k (we're looking for 48-50" for 4k resolution in a productivity environment).
I'm glad I never got any of the OLED monitors now after watching this. I'm on my pc easily for 14-16 hours a day since I work from home and the fact you're seeing burn in after only 3 months at around half my usage is crazy. I would've been cooked if I got any of the oled monitors.
i have an oled screen, 8.5k hours of use, still way better than any lcd and no visible burn in, just a little degradation in near-black uniformity (you know, at the level of blacks lcds can't even display). in fact it has outlasted two of the LCDs i've had in the last decade, which suffered from such levels of degraded backlight that they became unusable with their uneven image and dirty screen effect. lcds are just worse than oled.
@@GraveUypo well, if you had cheap crappy LCDs, then maybe. But I have high end LCDs which I use professionally 8+ hours a day for years and there's zero visual degradation. To be fair, one panel backlight got a bit weaker, but since I run it below 70% brightness usually, increasing brightness a bit is not an issue, so it will last many more years, OLED for productivity is a joke.
@@AuxHex NEC LCD from 2004 (gotta be CCFL lamps) served me until approx. 2019. Still working. 2013 cheap Samsung 1080p with LED backlight still works (backlight so cheap it's PWM and flickering) +1
I'm following you with Asus pg32ucdm. 8 hours/day productivity work on mac, then 6-8 more in one game with persistent UI. Let's see who gets burn in first :)
this is why I'm using mine with kid gloves for any non-gaming, non-video content. It'd be nice if monitors of this quality can eventually be used without taking extra care not to burn them in, but until then I'm happy to make this usability sacrifice. I figure by the time this one gets burned in enough for me to notice, there will be better, more durable monitors available for less money
nice! keep these coming, they're super useful and informative and since I'm one who is looking into OLED gaming I need to know what the results will look like maybe up to a few years of use, hopefully soon though, someone would be able to invent real-time pixel refresh where the pixels get their voltage refreshed on the fly without needing to do any cycles and also getting correct cooling to keep the pixels from getting so hot that burn-in happens anyways
Considering all the facts. OLED is DESIGNED to be ewaste so you keep buying more. Just keep buying LCDs please. Like, there are monitors fast enough anyways, it doesn't matter.
@@Splarkszter I have an LG B7 OLED that is 6 years old, been using it as a tv/pc screen and for gaming and I have little to 0 burn in, I also have a Alienware DWF that is still going strong. 5-6 years from any high tech device is fairly good going, I would not be worried about burn in, on a side note I have a OG PSP vita with 1000's of hours on it and its still working with no burn in.
Thanks for doing this very important testing! It's a stress test without dark mode but already some starting issues after 3 months is concerning. With dark mode and 120-140 nits it would probably not be a very big issue but it's clear that for productivity LCD is still the way to go. I use a iiyama. 3466 as my office screen and a 3423dwf for my gaming setup. But on both I use dark mode. I find it nicer to look at even during the day.
Plus that enforced cleaning thing requirement is a Major turnofffor me as I have my monitor active around 20 hours per day everyday. I hope this isn't a requirement for the LG and Asus monitors. It shouldn't be as LG Oled tv's have pixel shift that runs automatically to massively reduce any burn in and it's not even noticeable its running.
Thanks for the fantastic update! I fell in love with OLED panels after I bought an LG C1 TV a couple of years ago. Ever since then I wanted to buy an OLED monitor as well, but I work from home, so combining work and free time media consumption/gaming, 16 hours of continuous use isn't unusual for me. Spending that kind of money on a monitor, only to have noticeable burn in after a year or so is obviously not great. Guess I'll have to hold off for now and continue using my trusty IPS LG monitor.
LG 27 1560 zones is pretty decent after the firmware update. I wonder if Innocn has anything in their sleeve for this year (like 2306 zones version, maybe?)
Its not really a problem unless you are looking at spread sheets 10 hours a day. Mini LED doesnt make a good productivity monitor either as blooming is very noticable on desktop applications.
Thanks for your video and for sharing your personal experience. Having to baby an OLED is too much effort for me to deal with. I just turn my computer on and do I need to do. I pretty much leave it on all day and evening, do some spreadsheet stuff, type documents, email, browse the web, play some games, stuff like that. I want the bold colors of the OLED but I don’t want to have to stand on one foot, hold my right hand up at a specific angle, and say magic words or else the monitor will get a permanent image burned into it. I leave my taskbar showing, have multiple windows open, and stuff on the desktop. While I do have a screen saver turned on, I’ve noticed that it doesn’t always start when it is programmed to for some reason. The cost of OLED is not life altering for many, but it is still a hefty price to pay and I don’t need the anxiety worrying if I set everything up right to minimize the risk of burn-in. Since I tend to keep my equipment for 5 - 10 years, I would rather not have to shell out another $1,000 - ? for a new monitor in 3 years because the static image on the screen is too distracting. If I had the space and money to have two rigs, a working rig and a gaming rig, I would do that but with today’s technology it sounds like I need to stick with a mini-LED.
i mean he is absolutely abusing the panel, running the protect mode only half as often as told and static + light ui at any time. this will cause burn in no matter what. i have my oled since february and run the protect mode as advised and use shortcuts to hide my taskbar and desktop icons. not the slightest form of burn in visible. oled is a commitment like a pet you have to care for it.
Same that's actually terrible and especially terrible as someone that uses their screens for a huge amount of time each day (12+ hours is extremely common) as well as never babying them. Hoping micro led comes out soonish so we have the advantages of oled without the downsides
I mean if you only do gaming then this literally won't happen for years. Thats why companies are confident enough to do 3 year warranties. He can just send this one in for replacement if it gets any worse. Yall just talking dumb in these comments lol
Yeah, but there's like... I think this might be specific to QD oled. I mean, something is up, because this has not been my experience. I have been using an LG C2 as my desktop monitor, and I have yet to see any sign of burn in, and I have not been babying it. It's been nearly two years.
That's why I bought a 40" wide IPS LED for all-round use. And I usually use the computer often and for long periods of time. And with its 120Hz it's enough for my low-pace gaming.
Yeah but don't forget that he is using the worst case scenarios to push the monitor to it's limits. Realistically, OLED users will have a screen saver, dark mode, hide taskbar and window bars etc. for extra protection.
The human brain cannot even comprehend beyond 120Hz, faster monitors are a marketing gimmick, the average casual gamer can't even tell the difference playing between 60FPS and 120FPS
@@cenciende9401 yes you are perfectly right. I didn't notice any differences in games like Red Dead Redemption. But I like and play also sim racing and the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz is noticeable. I don't get 120Fps but even at 90-100 the movement is much nicer. I need a more powerful GPU and my setup will be complete for working, multimedia and gaming.
@@cenciende9401 sure, the average gamer perhaps. As someone that plays games like Osu!, Soundodger 2, etc., I can notice a difference between refresh rates up to 500hz, so there's bound to be plenty of gamers that can tell the difference. I'm not unique, only human.
I just want to add that the 4 hour pixel refresh isn’t really as important to burn in as people think it is. The 4 hour refresher only stimulates the TFT layer to remove any temporary image retention within that layer. Permanent burn in is from uneven pixel wear, which the TFT stimulation does not help with. The big pixel refresher it does every 1000 hours or so is the tool that actually can help with permanent burn in. Not eliminate it, obviously. But it does help.
2 months in with this monitor, 12-14 hours a day as a software developer and a light mode enjoyer, no signs of burn in yet. I have all the pixel care settings enabled, pixel refresh usually runs at the end of the day when I switch it into standby mode, but sometimes it will run during the day when I go for a run at lunch.
Impatiently awaiting the 6 month review. It's time! I just got my 321URX a few days ago (after many months of backorder/out-of-stock). Took me probably 20 hours of use for my eyes to quit thinking the edges curved AWAY from me, after using a curved for many years. I do wish the panel protect could do some sort of cumulative operation, where I can hit start, walk away for 3 minutes, and do that again a couple hours later. The whole cycle takes too long. I'm away from my desk for 2-3 minutes often, but a whole 10 minutes isn't even a daily occurrence.
It's been that long huh? I took your advice to heart back when you were first reviewing OLED monitors. It was literally around the time I was looking for a new monitor myself. I DID NOT opted for OLED monitor, because I reaaaally didn't want to gamble on a 1k monitor with a risk of burn in. And it seems that there definitely is a risk for it.
Depends on the usage. He’s been using the AW3423DW for 2 years and per his results he sees no burn in. This is a pseudo-stress test, so results won’t be the same as someone as using it more casually. I still recommend a two monitor setup with OLED handling all content and the LCD handling workload just to be safe.
3 months doesn't really mean much. 3 months for him is 750 hours of static app usage, whereas I might not do that in a year, and you might not either. Certainly if his use case reflects yours, that sort of timescale makes a difference, but it's certainly worth considering if that's actually the case
@@dog-jk2hn, I use the same PC for gaming and work, so having a word doc, spreadsheet, or email up side by side is a very common use case for me. For how much I would be spending on that monitor, even 7 months is unacceptable.
@@dog-jk2hn 750 hours over 3 months is ~8 hours per day. This is not an exceptional use case for a computer monitor. I guess it's fine if OLEDs are only suitable for extremely light use and/or content consumption, but in that case they're basically just toys. This is one of the better video series on OLEDs for that reason; we're here to find out the extent to which this tech is really suitable for a mass of consumers who've been hearing for years how awesome it is.
@@dog-jk2hn a ton of people work from home and use their own gear for it. 750h is nothing in this usecase. For example, i bought a used monitor with only 1500h in march, 2.5month later and ich have the same hours of usage he has in 3 month. After a year i will have easily 2500-3000hour on the panel. A normal IPS will most likely loose a bit of brightness because the background lights will burn out but the picture will be more or less the same after a full calibration. An OLED panel will be nearly dead after that many hours with work and gaming mixed load. OLED also suffer from major brightness loss which is unfixable. Burned out leds on an traditional panel can be replaced in 1-2h of work.
Until OLED undergoes vast improvements in longevity, I think mini-LED will still have its place for users who want a worry-free monitor for both productivity and gaming. Just the knowledge and worry of pixels deteriorating unevenly within months will worsen the experience for some users. It's important to note of course that even LCDs suffer from longevity issues, as shown by RTINGS. It's just that OLEDs are a lot more expensive, which compounds the issue.
The problem is that there are almost no good mini led displays on the market. The Neo G7 is the only one that can compete, but it falls short since there hasn’t been any new mini-leds that improve over it in the years since its release. I’d gladly buy a mini-led with more zones and better response times over any of the current OLEDs, but monitor makers have seemed to ditch the tech entirely.
Also, mini leds works good only in hdr designed content as far as I know, so if you consume any sdr content, it will look the same as any onther lcd( I may be wrong). On the other way, OLEDs have a punchy image in any kind of content.
Sad to see the 3rd Gen QD-OLEDs still getting this kind of burn-in after 3 months, but pretty much reinforces why I'll most likely never use OLED panels as part of my main setup again. (Roughly 50/50 split between gaming and productivity). Obviously everyone's specific use cases are gonna be different, but the fact that OLEDs will still burn in eventually is something I'd rather not deal with. Plus the constant micromanaging of full-screening apps, moving around windows, hiding taskbars, and auto-switching wallpapers is just annoying. Not to mention having to do the pixel and panel refreshes every so often just to delay the inevitable.
As someone who likes to use the same ultrawide for work, gaming and watching movies/videos, this is an amazing video and I thank you for it. It validates my decision to avoid OLED and I have no doubts anymore that it was correct.
I've been using my LG G1 for 14K+ hours now, just like this video, I can find the burn-in, but in real world scenario's it's not noticeable. I would like to add that I myself wasn't trying to cause burn-in however, I auto hid the taskbar, used the build-in safety features in their most aggressive modes, and usually ran the panel between 0 and 30% OLED Pixel Brightness.
Thank you for this testing. This is enough for me to swear off OLED (unless or until the technology get better). I will stick to my LG ultrawide that I have had for 4 years and still going strong.
Thanks bro. After watching this series with egerness i think im goig to forgo OLED all together the blacks are nice and all but i dont want to babysit a monitor only for it to fuck up pretty soonish. My lcd ips 27" and Uw VA panel have over 13k hours on them using maya and unity aswell as browsing and gaming. The screens are as good as when i bought them pretty much. If i upgrade im leaning towards mini led for sure.
Yup, my 160Hz 3440x1440p UW is around 20,000 hours with 50/50 gaming and productivity programs. I cannot blow money on something that will disintegrate with normal PC use.
This video is so useful, thanks for it. This somewhat proves that OLEDs are not meant for productivity working. Glad to have bought a MiniLED instead of an OLED one. Ciao.
This is sounding good for my prediction of "6 months before it becomes noticeable, [...] but I suspect that by the end of a year it'll start getting hard to ignore."
the monitor will soon hit a major pixel refresh cycle (at 1500h if im not wrong) and the burn in will be gone, you guys don't have a clue about oled monitor
@ODIOPOWER the pixel refresh clears up image retention thats what this is. And oh my goddddddd I hate how youtube randomly just unmarks replys. Dumbass youtube devs
Thanks for the heads up on the difference between MSI models. I was thinking about getting the cheaper one and couldn’t seem to find a reason why not. No firmware upgrade is huge! Thanks again!
Appreciate the insight. I was skeptical when I heard certain techtubers claiming that burn in was essentially a non-issue now. I'm going to stick with mini LED until microLED becomes more generally available. If I were _only_ gaming then OLED might make sense, but I game _and_ work on the same monitor so it needs to be able to do both equally well.
I've been using a LG C1 48 inches for over 3 years, while doing a PhD, so it´s been used, for the vast majority of the time, for productivity. I believe my panel is over 8000 hours (I use it on average for 12-14 hours/day, but being an european model, it doesn't register how many hours it's been on; I'm using a ballpark figure, and the total of 4 pixel refreshers I counted, that these panels do every 2000 hours), and I still see no signs of burn-in. I do take some care (hidden taskbar, changing the wallpaper every minute, dark mode in all applications), but it would be interesting seeing if the more mature W-OLED technology, when compared to QD-OLED, is more or less prone to burn-in.
WOLED comes with burn in, essentially. Vertical banding is absolutely visible on WOLED out of the box, and it gets better with image cleaning over time, but also gets worse at times too. Basically anything dark/medium gray will show a lot of uniformity issues that makes the screen look like a window that has been rained on for years and not cleaned. It's not too bad most of the time, but even in movies it can be an issue as you'll see the pattern here and there in darker scenes. So it sucks, but I guess the lack of uniformity might also condition you to not notice burn in when it does happen a little, because WOLED doesn't have perfect uniformity anyways. It's even more apparent the dimmer the screen is too. Like at 100% sRGB brightness, you might not notice it, but anything at like 150 nits or below, and you'll definitely see it, and the lower the brightness the more visible it becomes. This means you really want to avoid dark modes on WOLED unless it's near black, otherwise you might as well just use light modes so you don't see the uniformity issues, and hope that the light modes wear the pixels to more evenness. So dark modes may actually be worse for burn in on WOLED because you'll be having small bright elements while most other pixels will get used a lot less. The key is to try to make as many pixels as possible get worn more often so you can try to get some wear and tear uniformity.
I have owned several oleds since 2015 and seen plenty of tests. Never seen such an oled burn in that fast, that is actually insane. And the tests i have seeb actually left the oled on the whole time and did not shut it down. So this tests is not even close to an extreme use case.
For this use case, maybe not, but if you'd use the panel more for gaming than productivity, Steve experienced less burn in than this (nothing visible under any normal use, one faint line in the centre is the display on some gray screens) after 2 years of using the aw34dw as a primarily gaming display, with some browsing and media consumption.
I will turn my monitor on at 8am and using CAD drafting and rendering software for 9 to 10 hours straight, then straight into some gaming or you tube or whatever, sometimes not turning it off again until between 11pm to 1am. So roughly 15 hours a day it will be used, and I do this 7 days a week because I am an insane workaholic who loves gaming. roughly 5000 hours of use a year. I don't believe OLED is ready for me yet.
Could be an idea to use PowerToys and utilise FancyZones and save profiles for 52/48 51/49 50/50 49/51 48/52 and toggle to a different layout every week for splitting the screen. This would “shift” the centre line just slightly left and right without visually being annoying.
There are solutions but what Tim is trying to do is treating the monitor like a normal productivity one and comparing how long it lasts. 3 months and signs of burn in appearing is definitively not a good thing, and I say that as an Alienware 4k 32" OLED user.
This idea is great but this would only leave a larger vertical bar in the middle after 6+ months. Also, the idea of babying a $1000+ display is just crazy for me.
Great video! Thank you for doing this. It would be nice to see some pictures of the screen hosted on Google Drive or Tech Spot maybe so we could look at it without compression since it's hard to see the burn-in you're describing.
It's actually a little better than I expected. I just upgraded to the Gigabyte Aorus FO32U2. I have it side by side with a VA and the difference is stunning.
Could you please do a 3-way comparison of 42" (approx) OLED monitors: the LG C2/3, the ASUS ROG Swift and the newer Chinese KTC? I am mainly interested in using these as a gaming monitor, video streaming next, then productivity and finally as a TV if possible. THANKS and love your work!
Lemme tell you what to do so that you can use your oled 24/7 on windows. Turn on HDR for windows, max out brightness on monitor. Then, turn down to the minimum brightness on HDR/SDR brightness balance on windows graphics settings. Done. What you did is to make SDR look very dim, which always should be the case anyway, otherwise it might cause eyestrain after all. And you made your HDR peak brightness bright as it can be. Best of both worlds. If you don't use HDR content 24/7, which nobody does, you can use your monitor 16 hours if you must. Just alt tab into SDR desktop background or hit the power button when you go afk, if you were ever using hdr content at all, that is. If not, keep using it at that brightness till cows come home.
It would be nice if this channel acknowledged the vast majority of the comments here being that there are many of us who will not touch OLED because of burn-in and require “something else” that meets our need of working from home with some gaming on the side. Just about single video you make being exclusuvely about OLED and gaming, you may as well rename it to OLED Monitors Unboxed. Please do some productivity monitor videos/recommendations. I am a software developer, I need lots of screen real estate (run 2x27” currently) with great text clarity, color accuracy I care less about. I would love to try an ultrawide for gaming but a single monitor is not enough space for work assuming it is only 34” or whatever.
I think we should just come to terms with the fact that an OLED monitor's usability cycle is pretty much the duration of its warranty. If you want the perks of OLED, you're going to have to buy a new one every 2-3 years with current technology, unlike other panel types where a monitor can easily last you 8-10 years.
😂😂 8/10 years? Maybe Las gen and before. Monitors last 3 years max now. Purely because of the MHZ. Give it 2 years games like warzone will average 300 400 fps lol those 144 240 monitor's will be no goodm agter 3 years witj my oled I'll go with a 500 600 mhz monitor by then lol
@@RedundancyDept I think the main issue should be for companies to be required to be transparent with the customers. A lot of people don't know that they're buying a 2-3 year lifecycle product when they go for an OLED, they just think "oh look at the contrast and picture quality". Manufacturers should explicitly state that these products are expected to work as advertised for 2-3 years.
You know what other monitor technology can burn in? CRT. Probably even more so than OLED. And yet we all used them and most of us didn't have much problems with burn in. In fact one of the most useful burn in mitigators that Windows has is a relic of the CRT era: the screensaver.
Just bought an aw3423dwf, coming from a lg 27gp850, i will use the oled for gaming (at this point max 10 hours a week) and the lg for work (coding), it seems a nice combo
This is the exact reason why I haven't jumped on the OLED bandwagon for monitors yet. For me, mini-LED is the way to go for now although it has inferior HDR performance compared to OLED. The perfect HDR monitor unfortunately does not exist yet.
LG C2 42" pc monitor here, after one year and a half and ~5900 hrs, no sign of any burn-in. Mixed usage, games, movies, youtube, web browsing, with some oled precautions (black background, dark mode, hidden taskbar). Also I'm in a dark room, so I can keep brightness pretty low when web browsing, even during the day, I only turn it up for movies and games. From the rtings tests, it does look like woled, while the colors are not as good, is more resilient to burn-in, perharps due to the white subpixel.
Same hours C1 here. There are also no signs of burnout. Dark theme, hidden taskbar, all OLED protection technologies are turned off and the brightness is almost always 100%. A mixed work scenario (games, work, movies, browsing).
LG C2 here aswell with about 3000 hours so far, zero signs of burn-in with mixed use. Not taking any precautions, just letting the TV do it's own thing. I also have 100% OLED pixel brightness in both SDR and HDR and I have Windows HDR enabled all the time. Seems pretty resilient.
The point is that anyone who does work on his PC will need to have static toolbars for about 140h per month. Such is my case for CAD design. I also game on the same monitor but at that point it doesn't matter, the work would ruin an OLED monitor before the year is out. For gaming and media it's probably the best choice but it seems useless for any kind of serious work.
One thing I hope this series can help to answer is at what point the image retention becomes so bad that most people who can appreciate the advantages of an OLED would prefer an LCD. How much and how quickly image retention sets in is important, but when choosing monitor type, it is about the full experience that each offers.
One thing to consider is that there're no signs of burn in in literally anywhere else on the screen, just the middle bar portion, which is obviously related to the half/half usage of the app. So burn in shouldn't realistically be that easy to show if you're using productivity applications in dark mode and in full screen. Hopefully.
Thank you for doing burnin video cycle, interesting that some effect can be noticed already. Now curious to see if the (9000h?) panel refresh would make a difference to accumulated burn in.
Also this clearly shows that before burn in there basically is degradation... after 3 months, that's wild! Never would buy OLED for desktop again in this case, give that burn in / degradation lowers your overall brightness aswell!
I have been using my Cx since almost 4 years now and still no image retention or signs of burn in. I do use Blue light protection and hdr off ( lowers brightness)when using Desktop outside of gaming and watching movies and use every mitigation feature like black Desktop and Dark mode on all applications. When gaming or watching movies I have brightness set to the maximum. If you are working with Desktop I would definitely avoid oled vs media consumption oled is still King!
Actually, I kind of like that MSI forces you to use panel protect after 16 hours. It's very easy to start putting something like that off, and once you get into the habit of ignoring the warnings, you will start to forget that they're even there, in the same way that people stop hearing the low battery warning beep on their fire alarms if they ignore it for long enough. If you do that with an OLED monitor, it will dramatically shorten its lifespan, which is not something you want to happen on a $1000 monitor.
650-750h is...NOTHING...Yeah, I understand, You are running light mode, but that's not the point. Current OLED monitors, are NOT sutiable for normal-LCD-like usage. End of story. $1000 monitor that suffers from burning after 650-750h of normal usage is a joke. I'm sorry, but this technology is only usable for gamers, nothing else. Maybe in 4-5 years from now, OLED will be sutiable for day to day usage, but right now, it's overpriced enthusiasts gadget. Thank You for Your work!
Yeah, I've spent that much time just transcribing and writing songs. That includes staring at the screen, noodling, or just eating when I run out of ideas. Shit technology as far as my use case is concern. Then you add the time I spend in DAW. Seems gamers are the "normal" and general public users for this screen now. It's not for anything that goes beyond normal use.
That's true. Ive been using my oled for browsing other than gaming and I noticed burn in after 6 months. Im 1 year in now and its not too bad honestly but still, it feels bad knowing its getting worse by the day.
Thanks for doing this. Because of burn-in issues, it's why I'm not considering an OLED this gen. Perhaps next gen will be better, in part bc of the switch to Blue Phosphorescent LEDs in 2025.
This is the extreme example. Besides, burn-in happens constantly with any display, you just don't see it (and get used to the dimming and color shifts).
How does this work with the 3 year burn in warranty these monitors come with? Burn in after 3 months surely means significant problems after 1-2 years.
I'm still avoiding OLED panels, both as a monitor and as a TV. I remember the days of plasma TVs and their awful burn-in, and I have no desire to deal with that again.
Tv's really do have very little issue with burn in nowadays. Much less static content. Can run cycles more often also. But it's clear to me now I will never be buying a oled monitor.
My own feeling is that there might end up being a "longevity" revolt with OLED'S used for 50% work or more, if things don't improve?. As I gave my Mum (who is a pensioner), my old but fantastic Samsung S27A950D TN 27' Monitor as her own old 24' was straining her eyes too much. But the point being that the SAMSUNG is now 10 years old - and still looking great with no defects. I (deliberately) chose to upgrade to a 32' LCD myself, as I do imagine that for work like tasks as discussed in this video - I don't expect OLED'S to last more than 5 years if that?. Hence my own personal feeling that a lot of people will reject OLED'S in the future if burn-in isn't solved in future models... but that's just me, and I do REALLY LIKE the quality OLED display's, I just still don't want to own one right at this point.
Honestly, we need better tech. How can people be ok with disposable monitors? Always a compromise: IPS with raised blacks, VA with black smearing, OLEDs with the hideous subpixel layouts and burn-in after 3 months of USE (we shouldn't be calling this "deliberate burning-in"). I just hope MicroLED tech matures faster to replace OLEDs, giving us all the benefits of every other tech: infinite contrast ratio, high peak brightness, zero delay while NOT beign disposable.
I agree with you, and yet apologists will still come here and tell people with burn in how they're using it wrong. Spending over 1k for a monitor that literally shows how it's dying is insane.
Yeah, computer monitors are in a tough place. Desktop work causes burn-in on OLEDs and disables local dimming on high-end LCD panels, which means low contrast in SDR mode. These problems remain no matter how much money you have to throw at the problem. TVs, by contrast, can get away with local dimming in SDR and they typically care much less about burn-in on OLEDs. A TV with excellent image quality is also much much cheaper than a truly "HDR capable" monitor, even when the TV is three times larger. I decided years ago that chasing image quality on my computer monitor wasn't worthwhile; in a gaming context, IPS' raised blacks don't really bother me, and for movies, I have a vastly superior television. It looks like that calculus hasn't changed.
You can wait all your life for the best technology and never use it at all, because you wait 10 years for the best technology, and then you will find out some more problems and you will wait 10 more years for a new technology that will fix the problems of the previous one, and then there are some more problems and what? All your life you wait.
Burnin notes to self for future ultrawide picture by picture: µLED > WOLED > QOLED remember dark mode + hide icons/taskbar + auto turn off when no cursor hovering/windows focused (no idea how, maybe custom webcam/trackir eyescan) maybe drop picture by picture OS part to 60Hz if possible during FreeSync on main (most of that a non-issue with µLED in future years).
It's a pretty well known fact that QD-OLEDs will burn in faster than WOLED. Rtings already made a few interesting videos about it. Even LG called Samsung out in the past, because of their burn-in issues. I would be more interested in a burn-in test on the new LG (240-480 Hz dual mode) OLED panels to see how it holds up against QD-OLED.
Weren't those issues because comp cycles weren't running properly? In their latest update they specifically mentioned the Samsung S95C as having LESS burn-in, and looking at their images, I agree.
What’s concerning is that this beautiful tech is unbelievably fragile with regular PC use case scenarios. These things are far too expensive to be degrading like this.
Could you enable a tiny static dot (crosshair) in the middle of the screen and check a few months later to see burn-in? The middle dot of a crosshair is often the most static part of multiple games. You could also test it if it makes a difference to use a crosshair which is low/high in opacity
This basically makes these OLEDs a non-starter. I'm not dropping 1k USD on something that starts breaking after a few months. If I want to throw my money away on shit that perishes, I will buy my girlfriend flowers.
He clearly said he didn’t perform the pixel cleaning as often as it was recommended. It could be that if he does a few right now there will be no signs of burn-in after that. He just doesn’t do that to make it the worst test possible. And we had long known it might burn it and that this was why there were preventing / curing mechanisms, but he didn’t use those as much as it was recommended.
@@KeepAnOpenMind Both Alienware and MSI has their pixel refresh available every 4 hours while Gigabyte makes their pixel refresh available every 6 - 8 hours. No clue how long before ASUS' Pixel clean triggers.
@@KeepAnOpenMind I got all that, but as he said, he's just using it like you'd use any monitor; without caring for the OLED, which is kind of the point: If the screen can't care for itself, it's a problem. And 3 months is not that long, let's be honest. Maybe it would take 6-8 months if being a little more "careful", but how will it look after a year or two? Price is too step for it to essentially be a consumable.
@@mannotwiththeplan Desk space. Some people cant fit 2 monitors and some of those people do more than just game/watch videos on their screens. Hell, I'd love to have an LG LG 32UN880 as my office monitor while i game / watch videos on my OLED but that's not gonna happen with my current set up.
700 hours for my use case of a home PC for home office of 1-2 days and weekend gaming is about 30 weeks of 20 hours(mostly less than 20) a week usage. This is more than half a year of usage with no burn in really. Not bad.
Tim is using this with light mode and not taking much precautions to minimise burn-in. I expect things to even out a bit in a few months. Pixel shift should even things out a bit.
Yeah the best case for oleds is they lose brightness uniformly over time. I have two and I’m okay with it. Every oled phone I’ve had always got the status bar burned in by the time i upgraded and i expected that going in with monitors/tvs
Pixel shift won't improve this at all. If this is anything like the Alienware equivalents, it will pixelshift every few minutes. After 700~ hours, it will have been through 14k position changes. Thats well beyond the point of having uniformity issues. I found that you can get away with about 90 switches in this time and still get a reasonable distribution(actually one of my biggest annoyances with current OLED displays, pixel shifting every few minutes is absurd). Not to mention that pixelshifting isn't going to even out anything over the display. It is at most very localized blur.
@@Hyperus it's been a while. I think I was talking about light mode and pixel shift will help mask text burn-in because those are 2-3 pixel wide? So the effect is not as obvious? White text on black will result in the white text become dimmer over time and that's ugly when the screen turns bright. Rting is another good place to see this. Can't remember what I was talking about. 😅
I can't remember what I said in the first video when you asked us to leave a guess for how long, I think I said around 8 months, It's looking like it might be close to see noticeable burn in. These OLED's are garbage, I don't want to baby sit a monitor. I'm actually watching this on a 52 inch Sony Bravia TV from 2006, Used daily as tv and monitor on second pc in lounge room, Perfect picture still.
That's because OLED isn't meant to be used for productivity, duh, as a result of inherent limitations with the technology, duh, that's why they're actively working on improving it with each panel generation, duh
That is my setup i use a main IPS display with all windows icons on it for browsing and static image work and an WOLED display with no windows icons on it and black wallpaper. Only using it for gaming and movies. So Burn in will not be an issue for me for a long time.
@@yosifvidelov I still want to browse on mine but prefer using edge for this, since the full screen mode allows the tabs to appear only when your mouse goes there. Chrome is garbage in this sense but am not sure about other browsers.
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
youtube compression went nuts on this one.
If he's using CQP over constant in either recording or rendering, then TH-cam's compression, yeah it will look icky even at 4K.
@@PREDATEURLT It messes with anything that's dark. TH-cam's compression algorithm is designed around the human eye and the human eye has a much harder time seeing dark details that lit details. That said TH-cam takes the dark compression way too far, it's actual preferable to increase the black level of your video if there's a lot of dark scenes to prevent TH-cam from destroying it.
How so? Prove it.
@@giglioflex Thats not youtube. Thats how adaptive quantization works in general. x265 would have an AQ Mode 3 which would have auto variance with bias to dark scenes which would improve it.
youtube uses a dynamic quantizer (CRF) but with upper bitrate limit. And both are too low. CRF value too bad, upper bitrate limit too strict.
I've noticed it too when viewing 1400p on a 1440p monitor. Switching the quality to 2160p mostly fixed it, the artifacts on the dark greys were not too obvious.
"It's pretty unlikely you'd be using the monitor for 16 hours straight" I feel attacked
You should indeed worry more about your eyesight than your self-esteem lol
@@FatSn8ke how does it effect eyesight? It only can temporary make your eyes tired nothing else
@@KlennRIn long term the effects will show not in short term
I can confirm that. In life you usually pay for your behavior 10 years later... Back, neck, eyes etc
16 hours of porn won't cause burn in though as all the images are constantly moving around.
This video nicely shows how you cannot trust almost anybody on TH-cam at this point. Many big channels are like: "With a new generation of OLED burn-in is a thing of the past. Almost non-issue." And then this guy shows up and gives concrete proof that burn-in starts to appear after 3 months. And yes I understand his setting and test methodology but still. Thank you for your honesty Monitors Unboxed.
You mean Linus?. He is a shill
@@Steel0079 is he beyond doubt?
@@sudetenrider-pili6637 I think so. I have been watching him for years.
@@Steel0079 literally every reviewer is pushing oled, and they get an unlimited supply of oled monitors for free
@@MrKZdemos so what is your point here?
any measureable burn in after 3 months is insane. i have LCDs monitors i have used for over 5 years with no issues and with the kind of money you spend on OLEDs id hope for no less than that if i were to switch
@bobbiesterling574 : I completely agree with you, 3 months is not a long time, getting the first signs of burn-in so fast it seems clear to me that OLED technology is not suited yet for any kind of productivity tasks. I'm not going to buy an OLED monitor any time soon, that's for sure. I"ll stick with IPS for now.
@@PREDATEURLT My old tv (about 5-6 years old) has more than 25k hours on it and still looks perfect. I gave it to my mother only a couple months back and she uses it every single day lol. Never seen burn in on an lcd personally (not saying it doesn't happen though). Wish oled were as resilient as they're near perfect otherwise :(.
LCDs are not immune either, they do "burn in" but mostly have the white spots, the worst part is they have defects out of the box due to light bleeding or VA poor viewing angles and rare glossy options except Apple (this doesn't make any sense, for ages we had glossy CRTs, yet now nothing). Seems we are yet to find a technology to replace CRTs.
@@PREDATEURLT Oh I thought it could burn in as I've seen comments over the years mentioning it but I had never seen it irl in my 20+ years also of using screens. I just wish oled was more resilient and could last let's say at least 10-15k or more hours on average (without the need to baby them at all).
You have a room temperature IQ
Would've been interesting to run another monitor next to it but using all of the standard protection features and best practices to see how effective they are
He use standard protection practises. But he use the monitor a lot, not Only few hours like most people.
@@haukionkannelbest practices like dark mode and hide taskbar, things like that.
No, he clearly said he doesn’t perform the 4 hour pixel cleaning, which he recommended, but does it less often.
@@KeepAnOpenMind
Aka use monitor normally. Nobody who work does not refress the monitor while working.
If you don’t work whole day, oled is reasonable option, but if you do work normally. You don’t use those 4hours limits!
Completely different use case!
And yeah. Oled would have less problems if you don’t use it as much!
The whole point of this test is to find out how well or badly oled can stand normal work usage.
@@haukionkannel The refresh lasts 7 minutes. Who isn't taking at least a 15m break 4 hours into a day that they can't just start the refresh while they go take a leak or something? Is that more than you'd have to do with an LCD? Sure. Is it an unreasonable habit to adopt in exchange for the general usage benefits of OLED? _That's subjective, but if you think it is _*_I_*_ think _*_you're_*_ unreasonable._
Love the series, finally someone making burn in time scales visible and in a real world application. I know now that I can get Oled as I do maybe 80% gaming and 20% watching YT
You mean like rtings has been doing for a much longer time already?
@@Those_Weirdos Not trying to "debunk", as I agree, RTings has by far had the most valuable insight into OLED burn-in...
But RTings is more of a stress test than a "real world use case". It's analogous to running a benchmark software versus measuring frametime in a game.
@@moldyshishkabob Hard agree.
RTings - Can it burn in? (still super valuable data, they do great work)
MUB - Will it burn in? (directly useful for retail purchase decision making)
"Real world"? You guys seem super clueless. This is like Linus intentionally burning in his monitor and then complaining about it. What you should do if using an OLED is very well known, you should not do what is being done in this series. You should not do what Linus did. If you intend to use a lot of static content, you should use dark mode, you should turn down the brightness, and you should use a secondary screen for the bulk of the static stuff you're looking at.
RTings is evaluating a specific aspect of the burn-in, which they are 100% intent on causing. MUB is evaluating another aspect of the burn-in, which is again 100% intentional.
Not much will be learned from this.
I've used OLED in the real world for several years and I have zero sign of burn-in, because I'm not a Linus-tier idiot and I understand to use dark mode, and e.g. not evenly split my monitor in the middle for all my daily use. Taskbar should autohide or go on a secondary screen, chat etc. things as well. No background images.
People need to stop crying about a thing breaking when they use it in the way everyone knows will cause it to fail.
@@ArdgalAlkeides HUB/MUB viewers like us will know the overall downsides of OLED, sure. General consumers will not know these and would likely treat their OLED like the CRT or LCDs they have been used to using for the past few decades.
And even then, what is the extent to the various "OLED care" features in mitigating burn-in? The average consumer could see "taskbar detection" and think it's a FIX to OLED issues rather than MITIGATING OLED issues.
Someone who doesn't have their ear to the ground on technology might just hear "OLED is the best! You gotta get OLED!" and make an uninformed purchase. As a friend of people who, frankly, don't have time to research computer stuff as much as we do, I am more than happy to have this data available to show them.
Im using the alienware AW3423DWF and mostly play two games. I have, however, done the dark mode the background cycling and taskbar hiding plus installed a program that hides icons in my desktop when 5 minutes of inactivity. I've noticed no burn in after 2 years of using it. I am very pleased. I didn't expect it for a 1rst gen QD Oled panel.
Honestly it really does just take a few habbit changes. I had mine for 2 years and had zero burnin.
Which two games? I play Fortnite, and I fear the HUD (player health, minimap etc) might burn in. What are your thoughts?
If I only use it for console gaming will I be fine ?
While OLED is fantastic, having a display feel like a consumable item is just painful because of what LCDs have conditioned us to expect from displays.
Until OLEDs can be used without the user actively countering burn-in for 4-5 years without serious degradation they aren't going to be fit for the typical consumer desktop monitor space...
Not to mention the e-waste central, specially nowadays when people are more eco conscious.
@@JoaoMXN I have an OLED TV and I don't feel like the same applies nearly as much to it, since I've had it for over a year now and unless it's gotten slightly dimmer there's absolutely no indication of any panel degradation that I can tell. It's hard to tell at this point if micro-LED will become feasible and take over OLED or if OLED will improve enough to where it can be the dominant technology... But considering that panel degradation is basically inevitable with OLED it's hard to see it winning long term.
Yeah, this is the main reason I have been avoiding getting an OLED, I don't want a consumable monitor and I don't want it to feel like as I use the monitor the picture quality gets worse. I was hoping this test would not start showing any signs of burn in until like 6 months, then at least I'd have hope that we're getting close to OLEDs being viable, but seeing the first signs of burn in after 2 months makes me feel like OLEDs will take many years to get there, if they ever do.
I'm now just thinking I'll find a nice FALD to buy and hope it lasts a decade+ until micro LED is alive.
This is why I chose an LCD instead of OLED when I got a new monitor last summer. I also have a kid so it's nothing for me to pause a game and go outside to play with her for an hour.
Pretty much the reason why I'm sticking with good IPS panels with potentially Mini LED in monitors for the foreseeable future. I also do programming and that's one of the absolute worst things you can do with an OLED screen in terms of burn in.
The whole burn in situation is so interesting. I remember getting 2-3 year old Galaxy S4’s in my repair shop that had so much burn in you could barely see the time. I’ve been using an LG C2 42” OLED tv as a monitor for my main monitor for work and gaming with a total of ~5100 hours of screen on time and I don’t see any burn in at all so far.
I do use dark mode as much as possible and tend to move my windows around a lot because I’m fidgety, but my job and hobby’s both including coding so there tends to be a lot of static text on my screen for hours a day. Plus both macOS and pop_os have those un-hidable taskbars at the top so I’d think that they’d have some effect but so far nothing.
This has been my experience with my LG C2 42" as well. I run it at 100 brightness and even turned off the OLED care stuff with the service remote and with the exception of hiding the windows taskbar, dark-modes and wallpaper engine, i just use it like a normal computer monitor, which includes marathon hours of games that i play, for a couple years now. No burn-in.
What this means to me basically is that once this TV does eventual fail or burn-in, i'll be getting another one instead of these newer OLED gaming monitors.
I've been using the same IPS ultrawide for about 9 years now. It's still perfect. OLED feels like a throwaway panel tech for a heavy PC user. I wouldn't spend any decent money on an OLED panel because I'd be wanting to replace it every year with my OCD.
And yet your OCD can handle a 9 year old shitty IPS?
And you don't want to replace the ips? I highly doubt it has perfect uniformity.
@@helloguy8934 I only play VR these days with the exception of rocketleague on the flat piece of plastic infront of me. I can't get excited about flat gaming anymore no matter how nice the blacks are.
@@helloguy8934 or the dark blue filter instead of true blacks 😂😂😂😂
And this is why OLED should not be used for productivity. Your 'use case' is very light compared to what we have here at the office. Generally the monitor is on/used for 16-20/hours a day every day. So your ~3 months use is equivalent to our 1 month use case. Reason why we still pick up IPS/AH-IPS monitors but I've been really hoping for some progress on mini-LED (to get to larger physical screen sizes as 'ips' type monitors have been stuck at ~30" or so which is way too small for 4k (we're looking for 48-50" for 4k resolution in a productivity environment).
I'm glad I never got any of the OLED monitors now after watching this. I'm on my pc easily for 14-16 hours a day since I work from home and the fact you're seeing burn in after only 3 months at around half my usage is crazy. I would've been cooked if I got any of the oled monitors.
if you don't find 7 minutes away from your desktop in 14-16h per day i feel sorry for you.
@@ODIOPOWER Even with that I doubt it will do much to stop burn in.
i have an oled screen, 8.5k hours of use, still way better than any lcd and no visible burn in, just a little degradation in near-black uniformity (you know, at the level of blacks lcds can't even display). in fact it has outlasted two of the LCDs i've had in the last decade, which suffered from such levels of degraded backlight that they became unusable with their uneven image and dirty screen effect. lcds are just worse than oled.
@@GraveUypo well, if you had cheap crappy LCDs, then maybe. But I have high end LCDs which I use professionally 8+ hours a day for years and there's zero visual degradation. To be fair, one panel backlight got a bit weaker, but since I run it below 70% brightness usually, increasing brightness a bit is not an issue, so it will last many more years,
OLED for productivity is a joke.
@@AuxHex NEC LCD from 2004 (gotta be CCFL lamps) served me until approx. 2019. Still working.
2013 cheap Samsung 1080p with LED backlight still works (backlight so cheap it's PWM and flickering)
+1
Would be nice to see a retest of performance (like brightness, color accuracy etc.) at some point.👍
Yeah would be nice to see if theres degradation
Love these updates. I need assurance 🙏
I'm following you with Asus pg32ucdm. 8 hours/day productivity work on mac, then 6-8 more in one game with persistent UI. Let's see who gets burn in first :)
where
Can you reply here after a few months? Its one of the ones Im more interested in due to the 480Hz at 1080p.
@@noicebravo4434 No videos, just real life usage ;)
@@SirBlicks pg32ucdm is qd-oled so only 4k/240Hz.
@@Meddixi Oh I think Im confusing it with the LG.
I tend to run my monitors for 14-16hrs per day. I was quite hopeful about the new QD-OLEDs but the care they require is a bit off-putting...
I have been using one 6 days a week for about 15 hours a day for almost two years with zero burn in. I also disabled every anti burn in feature.
go for woled then
@@SirDragonClaw what monitor are you using ?
@@pranto2233 one called BS Monitor, why someone would disable its anti burn in features
Excellent series
this is why I'm using mine with kid gloves for any non-gaming, non-video content. It'd be nice if monitors of this quality can eventually be used without taking extra care not to burn them in, but until then I'm happy to make this usability sacrifice. I figure by the time this one gets burned in enough for me to notice, there will be better, more durable monitors available for less money
Thanks for biting the bullet and running this long-sequence test!
nice! keep these coming, they're super useful and informative and since I'm one who is looking into OLED gaming I need to know what the results will look like maybe up to a few years of use, hopefully soon though, someone would be able to invent real-time pixel refresh where the pixels get their voltage refreshed on the fly without needing to do any cycles and also getting correct cooling to keep the pixels from getting so hot that burn-in happens anyways
Considering all the facts.
OLED is DESIGNED to be ewaste so you keep buying more.
Just keep buying LCDs please. Like, there are monitors fast enough anyways, it doesn't matter.
@@Splarkszter I have an LG B7 OLED that is 6 years old, been using it as a tv/pc screen and for gaming and I have little to 0 burn in, I also have a Alienware DWF that is still going strong.
5-6 years from any high tech device is fairly good going, I would not be worried about burn in, on a side note I have a OG PSP vita with 1000's of hours on it and its still working with no burn in.
Thanks for doing this very important testing!
It's a stress test without dark mode but already some starting issues after 3 months is concerning.
With dark mode and 120-140 nits it would probably not be a very big issue but it's clear that for productivity LCD is still the way to go.
I use a iiyama. 3466 as my office screen and a 3423dwf for my gaming setup. But on both I use dark mode. I find it nicer to look at even during the day.
Plus that enforced cleaning thing requirement is a Major turnofffor me as I have my monitor active around 20 hours per day everyday. I hope this isn't a requirement for the LG and Asus monitors. It shouldn't be as LG Oled tv's have pixel shift that runs automatically to massively reduce any burn in and it's not even noticeable its running.
Thanks for the fantastic update! I fell in love with OLED panels after I bought an LG C1 TV a couple of years ago. Ever since then I wanted to buy an OLED monitor as well, but I work from home, so combining work and free time media consumption/gaming, 16 hours of continuous use isn't unusual for me. Spending that kind of money on a monitor, only to have noticeable burn in after a year or so is obviously not great. Guess I'll have to hold off for now and continue using my trusty IPS LG monitor.
Honestly, slightest signs of burn in after 3 months of usage is really bad.
My next monitor is going to be mini LED than...
LG 27 1560 zones is pretty decent after the firmware update. I wonder if Innocn has anything in their sleeve for this year (like 2306 zones version, maybe?)
Chinese miniled are pretty cheap ..if u have someone in china u can tell them to buy u a miniled monitor...check the Xiaomi miniled or Philip evnia
And woled?
Its not really a problem unless you are looking at spread sheets 10 hours a day. Mini LED doesnt make a good productivity monitor either as blooming is very noticable on desktop applications.
@@MA-jz4ycmore dimming zones = less blooming
Thanks for your video and for sharing your personal experience.
Having to baby an OLED is too much effort for me to deal with. I just turn my computer on and do I need to do. I pretty much leave it on all day and evening, do some spreadsheet stuff, type documents, email, browse the web, play some games, stuff like that. I want the bold colors of the OLED but I don’t want to have to stand on one foot, hold my right hand up at a specific angle, and say magic words or else the monitor will get a permanent image burned into it. I leave my taskbar showing, have multiple windows open, and stuff on the desktop. While I do have a screen saver turned on, I’ve noticed that it doesn’t always start when it is programmed to for some reason. The cost of OLED is not life altering for many, but it is still a hefty price to pay and I don’t need the anxiety worrying if I set everything up right to minimize the risk of burn-in. Since I tend to keep my equipment for 5 - 10 years, I would rather not have to shell out another $1,000 - ? for a new monitor in 3 years because the static image on the screen is too distracting.
If I had the space and money to have two rigs, a working rig and a gaming rig, I would do that but with today’s technology it sounds like I need to stick with a mini-LED.
Damn, only three months and it’s already burning in? I was pessimistic but wasn’t expecting it to degrade so soon.
i mean he is absolutely abusing the panel, running the protect mode only half as often as told and static + light ui at any time. this will cause burn in no matter what. i have my oled since february and run the protect mode as advised and use shortcuts to hide my taskbar and desktop icons. not the slightest form of burn in visible. oled is a commitment like a pet you have to care for it.
Give it another couple of months and the used monitor market will be full of burned it OLED's, OLED as a pc monitor is a fool's errand.
Same that's actually terrible and especially terrible as someone that uses their screens for a huge amount of time each day (12+ hours is extremely common) as well as never babying them. Hoping micro led comes out soonish so we have the advantages of oled without the downsides
I mean if you only do gaming then this literally won't happen for years. Thats why companies are confident enough to do 3 year warranties. He can just send this one in for replacement if it gets any worse. Yall just talking dumb in these comments lol
Yeah, but there's like... I think this might be specific to QD oled. I mean, something is up, because this has not been my experience.
I have been using an LG C2 as my desktop monitor, and I have yet to see any sign of burn in, and I have not been babying it. It's been nearly two years.
Question, what mini LED alternatives (specifically 32" 4K flat screen) would you recommend?
That's why I bought a 40" wide IPS LED for all-round use. And I usually use the computer often and for long periods of time. And with its 120Hz it's enough for my low-pace gaming.
Yeah but don't forget that he is using the worst case scenarios to push the monitor to it's limits. Realistically, OLED users will have a screen saver, dark mode, hide taskbar and window bars etc. for extra protection.
The human brain cannot even comprehend beyond 120Hz, faster monitors are a marketing gimmick, the average casual gamer can't even tell the difference playing between 60FPS and 120FPS
@@cenciende9401 yes you are perfectly right. I didn't notice any differences in games like Red Dead Redemption. But I like and play also sim racing and the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz is noticeable. I don't get 120Fps but even at 90-100 the movement is much nicer. I need a more powerful GPU and my setup will be complete for working, multimedia and gaming.
@@cenciende9401 sure, the average gamer perhaps. As someone that plays games like Osu!, Soundodger 2, etc., I can notice a difference between refresh rates up to 500hz, so there's bound to be plenty of gamers that can tell the difference. I'm not unique, only human.
@@cenciende9401 🤡
I just want to add that the 4 hour pixel refresh isn’t really as important to burn in as people think it is. The 4 hour refresher only stimulates the TFT layer to remove any temporary image retention within that layer. Permanent burn in is from uneven pixel wear, which the TFT stimulation does not help with. The big pixel refresher it does every 1000 hours or so is the tool that actually can help with permanent burn in. Not eliminate it, obviously. But it does help.
In this case there isn't burn in though.
2 months in with this monitor, 12-14 hours a day as a software developer and a light mode enjoyer, no signs of burn in yet. I have all the pixel care settings enabled, pixel refresh usually runs at the end of the day when I switch it into standby mode, but sometimes it will run during the day when I go for a run at lunch.
Wow you made it a whole 2 months....
What about now?
An excellent idea with series on oled burning, thank you!
Video starts @ 7:27
Impatiently awaiting the 6 month review. It's time!
I just got my 321URX a few days ago (after many months of backorder/out-of-stock). Took me probably 20 hours of use for my eyes to quit thinking the edges curved AWAY from me, after using a curved for many years.
I do wish the panel protect could do some sort of cumulative operation, where I can hit start, walk away for 3 minutes, and do that again a couple hours later. The whole cycle takes too long.
I'm away from my desk for 2-3 minutes often, but a whole 10 minutes isn't even a daily occurrence.
Kind of surprised at how quickly the burn in is progressing
What are you talking about tim. All sub pixels in qd_oled are blue. The quantum dot layer is what is separated into blue, green, red.
thanks for this.. you scared me away succesfully from buying an OLED
It's been that long huh? I took your advice to heart back when you were first reviewing OLED monitors. It was literally around the time I was looking for a new monitor myself. I DID NOT opted for OLED monitor, because I reaaaally didn't want to gamble on a 1k monitor with a risk of burn in.
And it seems that there definitely is a risk for it.
Yeah, only if you're braindead and are looking at 1 image at 100% brightness for 15 hours a day, every day. Use your brain.
Yeah, only if you're stupid enough to look at an image on max brightness for 15 hours a day, every day. Use your brain.
Depends on the usage. He’s been using the AW3423DW for 2 years and per his results he sees no burn in. This is a pseudo-stress test, so results won’t be the same as someone as using it more casually. I still recommend a two monitor setup with OLED handling all content and the LCD handling workload just to be safe.
Only 3 months and there's already signs of burn-in? That sucks. I guess these aren't as close to ready for desktop use as I thought...
I mean, I feel like that's worse than how a CRT would fare
3 months doesn't really mean much. 3 months for him is 750 hours of static app usage, whereas I might not do that in a year, and you might not either. Certainly if his use case reflects yours, that sort of timescale makes a difference, but it's certainly worth considering if that's actually the case
@@dog-jk2hn, I use the same PC for gaming and work, so having a word doc, spreadsheet, or email up side by side is a very common use case for me. For how much I would be spending on that monitor, even 7 months is unacceptable.
@@dog-jk2hn 750 hours over 3 months is ~8 hours per day. This is not an exceptional use case for a computer monitor. I guess it's fine if OLEDs are only suitable for extremely light use and/or content consumption, but in that case they're basically just toys. This is one of the better video series on OLEDs for that reason; we're here to find out the extent to which this tech is really suitable for a mass of consumers who've been hearing for years how awesome it is.
@@dog-jk2hn a ton of people work from home and use their own gear for it. 750h is nothing in this usecase. For example, i bought a used monitor with only 1500h in march, 2.5month later and ich have the same hours of usage he has in 3 month. After a year i will have easily 2500-3000hour on the panel. A normal IPS will most likely loose a bit of brightness because the background lights will burn out but the picture will be more or less the same after a full calibration. An OLED panel will be nearly dead after that many hours with work and gaming mixed load.
OLED also suffer from major brightness loss which is unfixable. Burned out leds on an traditional panel can be replaced in 1-2h of work.
Until OLED undergoes vast improvements in longevity, I think mini-LED will still have its place for users who want a worry-free monitor for both productivity and gaming. Just the knowledge and worry of pixels deteriorating unevenly within months will worsen the experience for some users.
It's important to note of course that even LCDs suffer from longevity issues, as shown by RTINGS. It's just that OLEDs are a lot more expensive, which compounds the issue.
The problem is that there are almost no good mini led displays on the market. The Neo G7 is the only one that can compete, but it falls short since there hasn’t been any new mini-leds that improve over it in the years since its release. I’d gladly buy a mini-led with more zones and better response times over any of the current OLEDs, but monitor makers have seemed to ditch the tech entirely.
mini led is also expensive.. Will also "lag" more.
Youre better off with traditional edge lit if not going OLED.
@@jaszjsz As long as you don't care about HDR. HDR looks horrible on edge lit displays.
Also, mini leds works good only in hdr designed content as far as I know, so if you consume any sdr content, it will look the same as any onther lcd( I may be wrong). On the other way, OLEDs have a punchy image in any kind of content.
@@noidsuperi have tbe AOC AG344UXM i picked up on sale. Unbelievably happy with it.
Sad to see the 3rd Gen QD-OLEDs still getting this kind of burn-in after 3 months, but pretty much reinforces why I'll most likely never use OLED panels as part of my main setup again. (Roughly 50/50 split between gaming and productivity). Obviously everyone's specific use cases are gonna be different, but the fact that OLEDs will still burn in eventually is something I'd rather not deal with. Plus the constant micromanaging of full-screening apps, moving around windows, hiding taskbars, and auto-switching wallpapers is just annoying. Not to mention having to do the pixel and panel refreshes every so often just to delay the inevitable.
they constantly say "new gen - ni burn in". always lie
Watching this trow me to wait new gen miniled monitors with 4k dimming zone! (TCL,Samsung Q series).
As someone who likes to use the same ultrawide for work, gaming and watching movies/videos, this is an amazing video and I thank you for it. It validates my decision to avoid OLED and I have no doubts anymore that it was correct.
Yup, for 16:9 it seems OLED is safer but since I love the convenience and immersion of 21:9 I’ll stick to LCD.
I've been using my LG G1 for 14K+ hours now, just like this video, I can find the burn-in, but in real world scenario's it's not noticeable.
I would like to add that I myself wasn't trying to cause burn-in however, I auto hid the taskbar, used the build-in safety features in their most aggressive modes, and usually ran the panel between 0 and 30% OLED Pixel Brightness.
please continue with the testing!
Thank you for this testing. This is enough for me to swear off OLED (unless or until the technology get better). I will stick to my LG ultrawide that I have had for 4 years and still going strong.
Thanks bro. After watching this series with egerness i think im goig to forgo OLED all together the blacks are nice and all but i dont want to babysit a monitor only for it to fuck up pretty soonish. My lcd ips 27" and Uw VA panel have over 13k hours on them using maya and unity aswell as browsing and gaming. The screens are as good as when i bought them pretty much. If i upgrade im leaning towards mini led for sure.
Yup, my 160Hz 3440x1440p UW is around 20,000 hours with 50/50 gaming and productivity programs. I cannot blow money on something that will disintegrate with normal
PC use.
LG C1 48 inch here (WOLED), used as PC Display ONLY, 12 000 h, no burn-in whatsoever!
Signs of burn in after 3 months already? How do you expect to work on that for a year? Or two?
This video is so useful, thanks for it. This somewhat proves that OLEDs are not meant for productivity working. Glad to have bought a MiniLED instead of an OLED one. Ciao.
This is sounding good for my prediction of "6 months before it becomes noticeable, [...] but I suspect that by the end of a year it'll start getting hard to ignore."
That still sucks to expect noticeable burn-in after a year on a monitor you spent $1,000.00 for.
@@Darkswordz Yeah I agree, which is why I went with IPS for my recent 270hz 1440p monitor purchase.
the monitor will soon hit a major pixel refresh cycle (at 1500h if im not wrong) and the burn in will be gone, you guys don't have a clue about oled monitor
@ODIOPOWER the pixel refresh clears up image retention thats what this is.
And oh my goddddddd I hate how youtube randomly just unmarks replys. Dumbass youtube devs
@@ODIOPOWERyeah I can’t beleive no one is mentioning this
Thanks for the heads up on the difference between MSI models. I was thinking about getting the cheaper one and couldn’t seem to find a reason why not. No firmware upgrade is huge! Thanks again!
this made me second guess getting on of these panels
Appreciate the insight. I was skeptical when I heard certain techtubers claiming that burn in was essentially a non-issue now. I'm going to stick with mini LED until microLED becomes more generally available. If I were _only_ gaming then OLED might make sense, but I game _and_ work on the same monitor so it needs to be able to do both equally well.
I've been using a LG C1 48 inches for over 3 years, while doing a PhD, so it´s been used, for the vast majority of the time, for productivity. I believe my panel is over 8000 hours (I use it on average for 12-14 hours/day, but being an european model, it doesn't register how many hours it's been on; I'm using a ballpark figure, and the total of 4 pixel refreshers I counted, that these panels do every 2000 hours), and I still see no signs of burn-in. I do take some care (hidden taskbar, changing the wallpaper every minute, dark mode in all applications), but it would be interesting seeing if the more mature W-OLED technology, when compared to QD-OLED, is more or less prone to burn-in.
WOLED comes with burn in, essentially. Vertical banding is absolutely visible on WOLED out of the box, and it gets better with image cleaning over time, but also gets worse at times too. Basically anything dark/medium gray will show a lot of uniformity issues that makes the screen look like a window that has been rained on for years and not cleaned. It's not too bad most of the time, but even in movies it can be an issue as you'll see the pattern here and there in darker scenes. So it sucks, but I guess the lack of uniformity might also condition you to not notice burn in when it does happen a little, because WOLED doesn't have perfect uniformity anyways. It's even more apparent the dimmer the screen is too. Like at 100% sRGB brightness, you might not notice it, but anything at like 150 nits or below, and you'll definitely see it, and the lower the brightness the more visible it becomes. This means you really want to avoid dark modes on WOLED unless it's near black, otherwise you might as well just use light modes so you don't see the uniformity issues, and hope that the light modes wear the pixels to more evenness. So dark modes may actually be worse for burn in on WOLED because you'll be having small bright elements while most other pixels will get used a lot less. The key is to try to make as many pixels as possible get worn more often so you can try to get some wear and tear uniformity.
I have owned several oleds since 2015 and seen plenty of tests. Never seen such an oled burn in that fast, that is actually insane.
And the tests i have seeb actually left the oled on the whole time and did not shut it down. So this tests is not even close to an extreme use case.
@@peoplez129wat. Uniformity is not burn in
Thank you, for doing the testing on this one.
Thanks for the update. Looks like OLED just isn't for me.
For this use case, maybe not, but if you'd use the panel more for gaming than productivity, Steve experienced less burn in than this (nothing visible under any normal use, one faint line in the centre is the display on some gray screens) after 2 years of using the aw34dw as a primarily gaming display, with some browsing and media consumption.
@@dog-jk2hn a monitor would be good after 8 years of usage, not only 2, like my last LCD monitor. 2 years is like a discardable product.
I will turn my monitor on at 8am and using CAD drafting and rendering software for 9 to 10 hours straight, then straight into some gaming or you tube or whatever, sometimes not turning it off again until between 11pm to 1am. So roughly 15 hours a day it will be used, and I do this 7 days a week because I am an insane workaholic who loves gaming. roughly 5000 hours of use a year. I don't believe OLED is ready for me yet.
Could be an idea to use PowerToys and utilise FancyZones and save profiles for 52/48 51/49 50/50 49/51 48/52 and toggle to a different layout every week for splitting the screen. This would “shift” the centre line just slightly left and right without visually being annoying.
There are solutions but what Tim is trying to do is treating the monitor like a normal productivity one and comparing how long it lasts.
3 months and signs of burn in appearing is definitively not a good thing, and I say that as an Alienware 4k 32" OLED user.
It would probably decrease the issue slightly but it's annoying having to find all these work arounds
This idea is great but this would only leave a larger vertical bar in the middle after 6+ months. Also, the idea of babying a $1000+ display is just crazy for me.
@@jackoberto01Essentially it’s babying a monitor on top of all the other OLED maintenance precautions.
Great video! Thank you for doing this. It would be nice to see some pictures of the screen hosted on Google Drive or Tech Spot maybe so we could look at it without compression since it's hard to see the burn-in you're describing.
I hoped for better results...
It's actually a little better than I expected.
I just upgraded to the Gigabyte Aorus FO32U2. I have it side by side with a VA and the difference is stunning.
16 hours in a day when i am sick at home is a reality.
Could you please do a 3-way comparison of 42" (approx) OLED monitors: the LG C2/3, the ASUS ROG Swift and the newer Chinese KTC? I am mainly interested in using these as a gaming monitor, video streaming next, then productivity and finally as a TV if possible. THANKS and love your work!
Lemme tell you what to do so that you can use your oled 24/7 on windows. Turn on HDR for windows, max out brightness on monitor. Then, turn down to the minimum brightness on HDR/SDR brightness balance on windows graphics settings. Done. What you did is to make SDR look very dim, which always should be the case anyway, otherwise it might cause eyestrain after all. And you made your HDR peak brightness bright as it can be. Best of both worlds. If you don't use HDR content 24/7, which nobody does, you can use your monitor 16 hours if you must. Just alt tab into SDR desktop background or hit the power button when you go afk, if you were ever using hdr content at all, that is. If not, keep using it at that brightness till cows come home.
It would be nice if this channel acknowledged the vast majority of the comments here being that there are many of us who will not touch OLED because of burn-in and require “something else” that meets our need of working from home with some gaming on the side. Just about single video you make being exclusuvely about OLED and gaming, you may as well rename it to OLED Monitors Unboxed. Please do some productivity monitor videos/recommendations. I am a software developer, I need lots of screen real estate (run 2x27” currently) with great text clarity, color accuracy I care less about. I would love to try an ultrawide for gaming but a single monitor is not enough space for work assuming it is only 34” or whatever.
I think we should just come to terms with the fact that an OLED monitor's usability cycle is pretty much the duration of its warranty. If you want the perks of OLED, you're going to have to buy a new one every 2-3 years with current technology, unlike other panel types where a monitor can easily last you 8-10 years.
Just what the world needs: more disposable electronics
😂😂 8/10 years? Maybe Las gen and before. Monitors last 3 years max now. Purely because of the MHZ. Give it 2 years games like warzone will average 300 400 fps lol those 144 240 monitor's will be no goodm agter 3 years witj my oled I'll go with a 500 600 mhz monitor by then lol
@@RedundancyDept I think the main issue should be for companies to be required to be transparent with the customers. A lot of people don't know that they're buying a 2-3 year lifecycle product when they go for an OLED, they just think "oh look at the contrast and picture quality". Manufacturers should explicitly state that these products are expected to work as advertised for 2-3 years.
@@GaryGreys-ri4wi Huh? My last 144hz (PG279Q) is alive and well after almost 7 years. I only stopped using it because I upgraded to a 4K display.
@@GaryGreys-ri4wiOkay and now in English 😭
This could be very bad news for the Asus ProArt PA32UCDM considering it’s supposed to be used for productivity.
You know what other monitor technology can burn in? CRT. Probably even more so than OLED. And yet we all used them and most of us didn't have much problems with burn in. In fact one of the most useful burn in mitigators that Windows has is a relic of the CRT era: the screensaver.
Just bought an aw3423dwf, coming from a lg 27gp850, i will use the oled for gaming (at this point max 10 hours a week) and the lg for work (coding), it seems a nice combo
This series went from how long does it take to burn-in to how long before Tim needs a new display.
This is the exact reason why I haven't jumped on the OLED bandwagon for monitors yet. For me, mini-LED is the way to go for now although it has inferior HDR performance compared to OLED. The perfect HDR monitor unfortunately does not exist yet.
LG C2 42" pc monitor here, after one year and a half and ~5900 hrs, no sign of any burn-in. Mixed usage, games, movies, youtube, web browsing, with some oled precautions (black background, dark mode, hidden taskbar). Also I'm in a dark room, so I can keep brightness pretty low when web browsing, even during the day, I only turn it up for movies and games. From the rtings tests, it does look like woled, while the colors are not as good, is more resilient to burn-in, perharps due to the white subpixel.
That's what I did too, although mine is 4933 hours at the time of writing. Here is hoping we can get up to 8,000 hours without any burn-in.
Same hours C1 here. There are also no signs of burnout. Dark theme, hidden taskbar, all OLED protection technologies are turned off and the brightness is almost always 100%. A mixed work scenario (games, work, movies, browsing).
@@georgevul3 Brightness almost always at 100% with no burn in!? Wow! Mine's just the opposite except for movies, TV shows, videos, and games! :D
LG C2 here aswell with about 3000 hours so far, zero signs of burn-in with mixed use. Not taking any precautions, just letting the TV do it's own thing.
I also have 100% OLED pixel brightness in both SDR and HDR and I have Windows HDR enabled all the time.
Seems pretty resilient.
The point is that anyone who does work on his PC will need to have static toolbars for about 140h per month. Such is my case for CAD design. I also game on the same monitor but at that point it doesn't matter, the work would ruin an OLED monitor before the year is out. For gaming and media it's probably the best choice but it seems useless for any kind of serious work.
One thing I hope this series can help to answer is at what point the image retention becomes so bad that most people who can appreciate the advantages of an OLED would prefer an LCD.
How much and how quickly image retention sets in is important, but when choosing monitor type, it is about the full experience that each offers.
One thing to consider is that there're no signs of burn in in literally anywhere else on the screen, just the middle bar portion, which is obviously related to the half/half usage of the app. So burn in shouldn't realistically be that easy to show if you're using productivity applications in dark mode and in full screen.
Hopefully.
Thank you for doing burnin video cycle, interesting that some effect can be noticed already. Now curious to see if the (9000h?) panel refresh would make a difference to accumulated burn in.
Also this clearly shows that before burn in there basically is degradation... after 3 months, that's wild! Never would buy OLED for desktop again in this case, give that burn in / degradation lowers your overall brightness aswell!
I have been using my Cx since almost 4 years now and still no image retention or signs of burn in. I do use Blue light protection and hdr off ( lowers brightness)when using Desktop outside of gaming and watching movies and use every mitigation feature like black Desktop and Dark mode on all applications. When gaming or watching movies I have brightness set to the maximum. If you are working with Desktop I would definitely avoid oled vs media consumption oled is still King!
isn't it also at 100% brightness?
@@StevoHDA yep plus no mitigation features were used in the testing. Great observation.
Actually, I kind of like that MSI forces you to use panel protect after 16 hours. It's very easy to start putting something like that off, and once you get into the habit of ignoring the warnings, you will start to forget that they're even there, in the same way that people stop hearing the low battery warning beep on their fire alarms if they ignore it for long enough. If you do that with an OLED monitor, it will dramatically shorten its lifespan, which is not something you want to happen on a $1000 monitor.
In other words, don't use it for productivity.
This is invaluable tests, thank you.
650-750h is...NOTHING...Yeah, I understand, You are running light mode, but that's not the point. Current OLED monitors, are NOT sutiable for normal-LCD-like usage. End of story. $1000 monitor that suffers from burning after 650-750h of normal usage is a joke. I'm sorry, but this technology is only usable for gamers, nothing else. Maybe in 4-5 years from now, OLED will be sutiable for day to day usage, but right now, it's overpriced enthusiasts gadget.
Thank You for Your work!
Solely for gaming and watching movies it's great experience, but yeah, you need IPS panel for everything else.
Yeah, I've spent that much time just transcribing and writing songs. That includes staring at the screen, noodling, or just eating when I run out of ideas. Shit technology as far as my use case is concern. Then you add the time I spend in DAW. Seems gamers are the "normal" and general public users for this screen now. It's not for anything that goes beyond normal use.
That's true. Ive been using my oled for browsing other than gaming and I noticed burn in after 6 months. Im 1 year in now and its not too bad honestly but still, it feels bad knowing its getting worse by the day.
@@burai647 Planned obsolescence.
@@klanas40 Yep. I've got a VA panel next to my QD OLED because it has the best color volume at the expense of black smear.
Really curious how this differs to rtings torture test. The Alienware is holding up pretty well in 1 yr torture test
we need similar test with new LG woled
Thanks for doing this. Because of burn-in issues, it's why I'm not considering an OLED this gen. Perhaps next gen will be better, in part bc of the switch to Blue Phosphorescent LEDs in 2025.
dang burn in after 3 months?
This is the extreme example.
Besides, burn-in happens constantly with any display, you just don't see it (and get used to the dimming and color shifts).
More like 2, but yes
Very useful content! Thx for this test!
How does this work with the 3 year burn in warranty these monitors come with? Burn in after 3 months surely means significant problems after 1-2 years.
I'm still avoiding OLED panels, both as a monitor and as a TV. I remember the days of plasma TVs and their awful burn-in, and I have no desire to deal with that again.
There is nothing to worry if you game or watch movies. I play on my LG B1 since it was released and absolutely no sign of burn in.
Tv's really do have very little issue with burn in nowadays. Much less static content.
Can run cycles more often also. But it's clear to me now I will never be buying a oled monitor.
@@bartoszmiki6774 That's a TV bro. Most people use monitors for both productivity and gaming.
It depends on content…
I watch movies and TV series… no problem with oled!
I use computer for Office programs, editing etc… a problem to oled!
Take a look at the number of TV channels who plaster their logo on the screen 24-7. If you watch such a channel a lot, that's gonna burn in.
My own feeling is that there might end up being a "longevity" revolt with OLED'S used for 50% work or more, if things don't improve?. As I gave my Mum (who is a pensioner), my old but fantastic Samsung S27A950D TN 27' Monitor as her own old 24' was straining her eyes too much. But the point being that the SAMSUNG is now 10 years old - and still looking great with no defects. I (deliberately) chose to upgrade to a 32' LCD myself, as I do imagine that for work like tasks as discussed in this video - I don't expect OLED'S to last more than 5 years if that?. Hence my own personal feeling that a lot of people will reject OLED'S in the future if burn-in isn't solved in future models... but that's just me, and I do REALLY LIKE the quality OLED display's, I just still don't want to own one right at this point.
Honestly, we need better tech. How can people be ok with disposable monitors? Always a compromise: IPS with raised blacks, VA with black smearing, OLEDs with the hideous subpixel layouts and burn-in after 3 months of USE (we shouldn't be calling this "deliberate burning-in").
I just hope MicroLED tech matures faster to replace OLEDs, giving us all the benefits of every other tech: infinite contrast ratio, high peak brightness, zero delay while NOT beign disposable.
I agree with you, and yet apologists will still come here and tell people with burn in how they're using it wrong.
Spending over 1k for a monitor that literally shows how it's dying is insane.
Yeah, computer monitors are in a tough place. Desktop work causes burn-in on OLEDs and disables local dimming on high-end LCD panels, which means low contrast in SDR mode. These problems remain no matter how much money you have to throw at the problem.
TVs, by contrast, can get away with local dimming in SDR and they typically care much less about burn-in on OLEDs. A TV with excellent image quality is also much much cheaper than a truly "HDR capable" monitor, even when the TV is three times larger. I decided years ago that chasing image quality on my computer monitor wasn't worthwhile; in a gaming context, IPS' raised blacks don't really bother me, and for movies, I have a vastly superior television. It looks like that calculus hasn't changed.
You can wait all your life for the best technology and never use it at all, because you wait 10 years for the best technology, and then you will find out some more problems and you will wait 10 more years for a new technology that will fix the problems of the previous one, and then there are some more problems and what? All your life you wait.
Burnin notes to self for future ultrawide picture by picture: µLED > WOLED > QOLED remember dark mode + hide icons/taskbar + auto turn off when no cursor hovering/windows focused (no idea how, maybe custom webcam/trackir eyescan) maybe drop picture by picture OS part to 60Hz if possible during FreeSync on main (most of that a non-issue with µLED in future years).
It's a pretty well known fact that QD-OLEDs will burn in faster than WOLED. Rtings already made a few interesting videos about it. Even LG called Samsung out in the past, because of their burn-in issues.
I would be more interested in a burn-in test on the new LG (240-480 Hz dual mode) OLED panels to see how it holds up against QD-OLED.
3rd gen QD-OLED are the best in terms of burn in, they're comparable to WOLED. In short, all OLEDs are trash with burn in.
Weren't those issues because comp cycles weren't running properly?
In their latest update they specifically mentioned the Samsung S95C as having LESS burn-in, and looking at their images, I agree.
Yeah.. that was false news. In reality both are as bad. Theyre were problems that they did not run the refress cycle!
@@JoaoMXN Agree, and the amount of people in these comments making excuses for OLED is pathetic. OLED is expensive shiny-looking e-waste.
What’s concerning is that this beautiful tech is unbelievably fragile with regular PC use case scenarios.
These things are far too expensive to be degrading like this.
These results are making me question switching from miniLED to OLED again, considering mine already has crazy black levels!
If you're happy with what you have just keep it.
only 3 months? jesus christ :/
Could you enable a tiny static dot (crosshair) in the middle of the screen and check a few months later to see burn-in?
The middle dot of a crosshair is often the most static part of multiple games.
You could also test it if it makes a difference to use a crosshair which is low/high in opacity
This basically makes these OLEDs a non-starter. I'm not dropping 1k USD on something that starts breaking after a few months. If I want to throw my money away on shit that perishes, I will buy my girlfriend flowers.
He clearly said he didn’t perform the pixel cleaning as often as it was recommended. It could be that if he does a few right now there will be no signs of burn-in after that. He just doesn’t do that to make it the worst test possible. And we had long known it might burn it and that this was why there were preventing / curing mechanisms, but he didn’t use those as much as it was recommended.
@@KeepAnOpenMind Both Alienware and MSI has their pixel refresh available every 4 hours while Gigabyte makes their pixel refresh available every 6 - 8 hours. No clue how long before ASUS' Pixel clean triggers.
@@KeepAnOpenMind I got all that, but as he said, he's just using it like you'd use any monitor; without caring for the OLED, which is kind of the point: If the screen can't care for itself, it's a problem. And 3 months is not that long, let's be honest. Maybe it would take 6-8 months if being a little more "careful", but how will it look after a year or two? Price is too step for it to essentially be a consumable.
Why do you need OLED monitor for 100% using Office apps?
@@mannotwiththeplan Desk space. Some people cant fit 2 monitors and some of those people do more than just game/watch videos on their screens. Hell, I'd love to have an LG LG 32UN880 as my office monitor while i game / watch videos on my OLED but that's not gonna happen with my current set up.
700 hours for my use case of a home PC for home office of 1-2 days and weekend gaming is about 30 weeks of 20 hours(mostly less than 20) a week usage. This is more than half a year of usage with no burn in really. Not bad.
When will 480hz 27inch Oled drop ?
It wont till 2026
1440p august/sep
Tim is using this with light mode and not taking much precautions to minimise burn-in. I expect things to even out a bit in a few months. Pixel shift should even things out a bit.
Yeah the best case for oleds is they lose brightness uniformly over time. I have two and I’m okay with it. Every oled phone I’ve had always got the status bar burned in by the time i upgraded and i expected that going in with monitors/tvs
Pixel shift won't improve this at all.
If this is anything like the Alienware equivalents, it will pixelshift every few minutes. After 700~ hours, it will have been through 14k position changes.
Thats well beyond the point of having uniformity issues. I found that you can get away with about 90 switches in this time and still get a reasonable distribution(actually one of my biggest annoyances with current OLED displays, pixel shifting every few minutes is absurd).
Not to mention that pixelshifting isn't going to even out anything over the display. It is at most very localized blur.
@@Hyperus it's been a while. I think I was talking about light mode and pixel shift will help mask text burn-in because those are 2-3 pixel wide? So the effect is not as obvious?
White text on black will result in the white text become dimmer over time and that's ugly when the screen turns bright. Rting is another good place to see this.
Can't remember what I was talking about. 😅
I can't remember what I said in the first video when you asked us to leave a guess for how long, I think I said around 8 months, It's looking like it might be close to see noticeable burn in.
These OLED's are garbage, I don't want to baby sit a monitor.
I'm actually watching this on a 52 inch Sony Bravia TV from 2006, Used daily as tv and monitor on second pc in lounge room, Perfect picture still.
That's because OLED isn't meant to be used for productivity, duh, as a result of inherent limitations with the technology, duh, that's why they're actively working on improving it with each panel generation, duh
We going to mini-led with that 🗣️🗣️🔥🔥
I if would like to use an OLED I would need a second main display to switch when not gaming. This is ridiculously bad, especially for that price!
That is my setup i use a main IPS display with all windows icons on it for browsing and static image work and an WOLED display with no windows icons on it and black wallpaper. Only using it for gaming and movies. So Burn in will not be an issue for me for a long time.
@@yosifvidelov I still want to browse on mine but prefer using edge for this, since the full screen mode allows the tabs to appear only when your mouse goes there.
Chrome is garbage in this sense but am not sure about other browsers.