OLED burn-in and image retention test
Solid full-screen fields, one after another, so a ghosted logo, a channel bar or an uneven patch has nowhere to hide. Best done in a dim room on an OLED that has been on for a few minutes. Includes a screen wash that can clear temporary retention.
The test
This test needs JavaScript to run. Everything below still explains what to look for and what a bad result means, so the page is useful either way.
Seven full screen fields
Step through with the arrow keys and scan the whole panel on each. You are not looking for single dots here, but for faint ghosted shapes and uneven brightness where static content used to sit.
How to read it
No retention or burn-in. The 50 percent grey field is the most revealing, so give it the longest look.
Temporary image retention, not permanent. Common after a long news channel or game session. The screen wash below usually clears it.
Burn-in. Most often a channel logo, a news ticker, or a game HUD. This does not fade and cannot be repaired.
Uneven wear across the panel. Shows most on the grey and white fields, and is a milder cousin of burn-in.
These do not burn in the way an OLED does. A faint result here is far more likely to be dirt or backlight bleed than burn-in.
Screen wash for temporary retention
If you found a faint ghost that looks like it might fade, a moving full-field wash can speed that up. It cycles bright colors across the whole panel, which exercises the pixels that were stuck showing static content.
Leave it running for a few minutes, then recheck on the grey field. Repeat if it is still fading. This clears temporary retention only. It cannot repair permanent burn-in, and if you are sensitive to flashing images, skip it.
What this test can and cannot tell you
Burn-in is widely misunderstood, so here is the honest line.
Reliable on an OLED. Solid fields are exactly how this is checked. If there is a ghost or uneven wear, one of these fields will show it.
The fade test tells them apart. Temporary retention fades over minutes to hours, or after a wash. Permanent burn-in does not change. If it is still there tomorrow, it is permanent.
Not possible. Permanent burn-in is physical wear on the OLED material. No pattern, wash or setting reverses it. The wash on this page only helps temporary retention.
Wrong test. These backlit panels do not burn in the way OLED does. What looks like a ghost is usually dirt, backlight bleed or dirty-screen effect, which our other tests cover.
Will mislead you. Cameras exaggerate faint brightness differences. Judge with your own eyes, straight on, at your normal brightness.
How burn-in happens, and how to avoid it
Static content is the cause
A channel logo, a news ticker, a game score or scoreboard, or the taskbar of a PC left on screen for hours. The pixels showing those bright fixed elements wear faster than the ones around them.
Retention comes first
Long before permanent burn-in, an OLED shows temporary retention: a faint ghost of static content that fades on its own. This is normal and not a fault. It is a warning, not damage.
Turn on the panel care features
Every OLED has pixel-shift, logo dimming and a pixel-refresh routine. Leave them on. They exist precisely to spread the wear and run a clearing cycle while the TV is idle.
Vary what you watch
Burn-in needs the same bright element in the same place for a very long time. Ordinary mixed viewing almost never causes it. Hundreds of hours on one news channel or one game HUD is what does.
Questions people ask
How do I check my OLED for burn-in?
Display solid full-screen colors one after another and scan the whole panel on each. This test cycles grey, white, red, green, blue and black. Burn-in shows as a faint permanent ghost of something that used to be on screen, most often a logo or a bar, and it is clearest on the 50 percent grey field.
What is the difference between image retention and burn-in?
Image retention is temporary: a faint ghost that fades over minutes or hours once the static content is gone. Burn-in is permanent physical wear that never fades. The way to tell them apart is time. If the ghost is still there tomorrow, it is burn-in.
Can OLED burn-in be fixed?
Permanent burn-in cannot be repaired by anything, including this tool. Temporary image retention often clears on its own, and a moving full-field wash like the one on this page can speed that up. If a mark survives a long wash and a night off, it is permanent.
Do LCD and QLED TVs get burn-in?
Not in the same way. They are backlit and do not have the self-emissive pixels that wear unevenly on an OLED. They can show temporary retention very rarely, but permanent burn-in is essentially an OLED and plasma concern. On an LCD, a mark is far more likely to be dirt or backlight bleed.
Should I worry about burn-in on my new OLED?
For normal mixed viewing, no. Modern OLEDs have pixel-shift, logo dimming and automatic refresh routines that make burn-in very unlikely in typical use. The risk is real only with the same bright static element on screen for hundreds of hours, such as a single news channel or a game HUD left running.
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