Is it possible to prevent burn in?

[MikeJezZ]

You may have noticed me around in some topics regarding burn in's already, even before the 950 was released when it was revealed that it will use AMOLED

I went from iPhone 5 to Lumia 640 some months ago, and was so excited about the Windows Phone so I decided to get the flagship 950.

Even though AMOLED is the prettiest display, it comes with a great cost - it get's damaged much quicker than other types of displays.

I am a person who uses my phone alot. I probably use it around 4 hours a day, between the tasks of writing texts, writing lyrics, and surfing the web.

Now I had a Samsung Galaxy S3 around 3 years ago, where I use it around as much. I used to play alot of games, search the web and such things. It got burn in heavy on the screen after 9 months.
Funny thing is though, that it was the clock that primarily were burned in, which didn't have the most on-screen time for me.

I know people are saying that burn in can occur on any type of screen, which is probably true - but I've only seened it on CRT monitors and AMOLED.

I'm a person that keeps my phones for years, and doesn't replace them everytime a new flagship phone launches.

Will it be possible, to have a phone with a AMOLED screen, with around a daily useage of 4 hours a day, without getting burn in the first couple of years? Because it drove me nuts on my Galaxy S3, that I could see the clock and the icons. Like this:

(this is not my picture of the screen, but it was something similar I had after 9 months of use).

I never experienced it on my countless number of LCD phones, but I've seen it on the only AMOLED phone I've owned, and that's what worries me.

I admit, I had the brightness kinda high because I liked it that way. But some people say that it doesn't matter about how high your brightness is, you still get burn in no matter what.

Would suck to buy a 700 USD phone (EU) that got burn in after a year.

 

[jmwhite19]

I think its mostly inevitable at some point, even my Dell XPS 9530 has the Windows taskbar burnt in slightly, but I would do the following to mitigate it.

Enable Glance Screen with a fairly detailed background or solid colour, but don't set it to appear all the time, the 15 minutes setting should work. The clock position and whatever else you set to appear on it shifts position regularly so that shouldn't get "burned-in"

Set your lock screen to a fairly quick timeout value like 1 minute.

Use Dark mode

Consider not having "Apply colour to navigation bar" enabled so the navigation bar remains dark.

 

[MikeJezZ]

I would disable Glance to be honest so it didnt show anything at all.

So if I want a phone for more than 2 years and without burn in, I shouldn't probably go with a amoled phone?

 

[ZuLuuuuuu]

I have a ~3 year old Lumia 820 with Amoled screen and with Glance always on and I didn't notice any burn-ins yet.

 

[willied]

I had an 822 for 3 years with no burn in. I'm not concerned about it happening on the 950.

 

[MikeJezZ]

Does anyone know if MS has warranty against burn in on OLED displays?

 

[Paolo Ferrazza]

Does anyone know if MS has warranty against burn in on OLED displays?

I guess you are becoming a bit obsessed by this. Anyway how long is the warranty where you live? Here it is 2 years by default so if that's the case you'll be able to replace the screen for free... If you have burnin after more than two years, well, keeping a phone for more than 2 years is already a good time, then you can change it or change the screen only.

 

[Charles Brown8]

I had an 822 for 3 years with no burn in. I'm not concerned about it happening on the 950.

Ditto, I've got a Icon I've had 2+ years with no burn in. Never have worried of it either.. I'd place usage medium / heavy.