OLED-Burn-In
The second wave of OLED notebooks raises the obligatory question about the longevity of such screens: Especially the first generations of smartphone displays and TVs had to struggle with "burned-in" images. They occur when picture elements with high contrast and brightness are displayed in the same place for a long time: The radiant OLED pixels age faster than adjacent dark pixels, causing them to lose brightness. In even areas, you can then see the "burned-in" ghost images due to the differently bright pixels.
Of course, we cannot yet answer how the OLED screens of the notebooks tested here will perform in the future. However, conclusions can be drawn from the past: The retailer's OLED-equipped
HP Spectre x360 13 from c't 17/2016 [1] has since been used as a work device in the editorial office, which is why we were able to examine it again.
While the maximum brightness dropped from 328 cd/m² to now 292 cd/m² in the roughly three years - which is virtually unnoticeable - the measured color space remained constant. Although the user left the Windows taskbar displayed the entire time and the desktop is home to many icons on a black background, several c't editors could not make out any visible burn-in artifacts. Averaged out, the notebook screen should have been on for about four to five hours per day during all that time.
Since the Spectre x360 13 from 2016 is equipped with OLED panels from Samsung, just like the 2019 notebooks tested here, and the technology continues to make progress, the devices tested here should perform just as well with a similar usage profile. And brightness losses of a similar magnitude are also found in conventional LCD screens.
However, we cannot give a general burn-in warning. Unlike notebooks, smartphones and smartwatches are used much more often outdoors. The manufacturers therefore demand much higher brightness of sometimes over 1000 cd/m² from the panel supplier, which in turn leads to a much faster aging of the pixels due to the higher energy pumped into it.
If you want to protect your notebook's OLED screen, you should not use it at maximum brightness permanently, set Windows 10's color scheme to dark (only possible from 1903 onwards), hide the task bar, and let the desktop's background image automatically switch between several themes.
Quelle: c’t 2019, Heft 20, Seite 95 (Online-Version); c’t 2019, Heft 20, Seite 95
