Burn-in Test

How to test for screen burn-in

1. Set the screen to its normal brightness and, if you can, dim the room. Press Open full-screen test.
2. Look at the 50% gray pattern first. Burn-in shows up as darker or discolored ghost shapes where a fixed image used to sit: the status bar, navigation buttons, a keyboard, a channel logo or a taskbar.
3. Click or press → to move through white, red, green, blue, black, the gradient, the checkerboard and the color bars. Some ghosts show only on one color; the gradient shows uneven brightness and the checkerboard shows blur or crosstalk.
4. If you see a faint ghost, it may be temporary image retention. Tick the box and run the auto cycle for 10-30 minutes, then check the gray pattern again.
5. If the ghost looks exactly the same after the cycle, it is permanent burn-in. See the sections below for what you can and cannot do about it.

Burn-in vs image retention

• Nothing but an even color on every pattern: no burn-in. Faint vignetting (darker corners) on a large OLED is normal.
• A ghost of a fixed image on gray or white that fades after the cycle: image retention. The pixels were driven at the same level for too long and recover with varied content. Common on OLED phones after long sessions in one app, and on some LCDs.
• A ghost that stays after the cycle: burn-in. On OLED the pixels in that area have aged more than their neighbors and output less light, so the shape is permanent. On LCD a permanent shadow is rarer and usually means the liquid crystal has taken a set.
• A pink or green tint across a band: uneven aging of one color's subpixels, usually from a fixed white element. Also permanent.
• Patches on the gradient: brightness or color unevenness (mura), a panel quality issue rather than burn-in.

Why OLED screens burn in

Every pixel in an OLED screen is its own tiny light. Pixels that spend hours showing the same bright thing age faster than the rest, so when the whole screen shows one gray, those pixels are a little dimmer and the old image appears as a shadow. Modern panels fight this with pixel shifting, logo dimming, periodic refresh cycles and brighter, longer-lasting materials, so burn-in on a phone or TV bought in the last few years takes years of heavy, static use. Static elements at high brightness are the risk: a navigation bar, a game HUD, a news ticker, a desktop taskbar.

LCD screens do not burn in the same way because the backlight is shared. They can suffer image retention when a static image sits for a long time, especially on older IPS and VA panels, and it almost always clears with a few hours of varied content or a dark screen. The dead pixel test and the white screen and black screen pages help with the other panel checks: stuck pixels, backlight bleed and clouding.

Can burn-in be fixed?

Image retention: yes. Run the auto cycle here, or show varied full-screen video for a while, and it fades. Many TVs also have a "pixel refresh" or "panel refresh" in the settings that runs when the TV is off; run it once if your TV has it.

Permanent burn-in: no. The aged pixels cannot be restored. A TV's pixel refresh can reduce the contrast of the ghost by slightly aging the surrounding pixels to match, which is why those routines run rarely and take an hour. Apps and videos that promise to "fix" burn-in do the same thing less precisely, at the cost of panel life. Prevention is what works: lower brightness, auto-hide the taskbar or navigation bar, use dark mode, turn on pixel shift and screen savers, and avoid leaving a static picture on an OLED for hours. If a new screen shows burn-in within the warranty period, claim it; several makers cover it.

Common problems and fixes

A faint shadow of the keyboard or status bar

Run the auto cycle for 10-30 minutes and check the gray pattern again. If it has faded, it was image retention; lower the screen brightness and use dark mode to slow it down. If it is unchanged, it is burn-in and cannot be removed.

A ghost of a TV channel logo or a game HUD

Run the TV's own pixel refresh from the picture settings (sometimes under "OLED care" or "panel maintenance"), then test again. Future-proof it with logo dimming and the screen saver options in the TV menu.

Corners or edges darker than the middle

Normal vignetting on large OLEDs and backlight unevenness on LCDs. Not burn-in, and usually invisible on real content. The gradient and 50% gray make it look worse than it is.

A pink or green band after months of a bright static element

Uneven color aging. Permanent, but less visible at lower brightness and with a warmer color setting. Claim the warranty if the screen is new.