Is having OLED display on Lumia 730 a deal breaker for those who invest in a phone for 4-5 years?

[AvinJ]

First of all, this question is asked keeping in mind the markets where the phones are offered off contract. Hence, the resultant intent on keeping it for more than 1-2 years.

So, from what I gather, the main disadvantage OLED displays face is the screen burn-ins within a short span. If I must, yes there are these luring advantages of OLED displays like: Because OLEDs do not require back lighting, they consume much less power than LCDs and hence we can expect to have more battery juice as compared to the same power battery for a LCD display phone; or the fact that OLEDs have large fields of view, about 170 degrees (hence perfect for Lumia 730, "the selfie phone").

But the very fact that you are paying a larger sum for the off-contract phone and hence (or if) you want to keep that phone for a period of at least 4-5 years (which happens to be my case), can you simply go for OLED screens with the screen burn-ins they face? This issue is kinda similar to the debate that for intending to buy a phone for a period of 4-5 years, you should look for a removable battery since unibody design phone users face the trouble of investing more after 2 years (mostly) to get their phone opened up and replace the bad performing battery.

Since I never had have owned a phone with OLED displays (most Samsung devices have OLED by the way), and I want to buy Lumia 730, I would want to know if I would be wrong to buy Lumia 730 with OLED display just because of the fact that I want to keep my phone functional for next 4-5 years?

 

[xandros9]

I honestly wrangle with that in my head every so often.
But I guess a good thing to look at is older OLED phones and maybe see how they're doing.

I dont know the answer, wish I did, but the display tech would definitely give me pause.

 

[adam220891]

Keep a phone for 5 years? Oh my...

 

[D M C]

That depends on you.
What you want better battery life or some gimmicky features.

OLED offer better battery life

 

[Narathan]

It does lose brightness over time as OLED uses organic layers and could burn out faster if you use it at full brightness all the time. My dad has a Galaxy S1 (yes... the first one) and the screen still looks pretty nice, however you can definitly see it has became washed out and a bit duller. But that phone is 4 years old now.

Lifetime - While red and green OLED films have longer lifetimes (46,000 to 230,000 hours), blue organics currently have much shorter lifetimes (up to around 14,000 hours[source: OLED-Info.com]).

Personally, I would go with LCD if you're planning on keeping a phone that long. My HTC 8X still looked great after 2,5 years.

 

[Chris Wayne2]

What makes you think that people who change their phones every 4-5 years are even interested in the 730/5 anyway?

 

[Torcher Death]

4-5 years ?? When the support for WP8.1 series is supposed to end in July, 2017... But who am I to judge, still have a 3310 at home.