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Comment by Nursie | Hacker News Reader

How bad is it?

I ask because I'm interested in a tv and the prices are starting to enter the realm of sanity (IMHO).

I have a 2010 Plasma, and people said that would suffer from burn-in. The only issue I ever had with it is when I left a game or menu up for several hours, and a shadow image would be left. The smudges went away pretty fast when something else got displayed, and all is well 9 years on.

So ... does anyone know how bad the OLED problem is? Is it a bit overblown like the concerns about SSD writing shortening their useful lives? Or is this really something to be concerned about, and the industry is trying to brush it under the carpet?

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I watched this burn in test a few weeks ago. It looks like a great test.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOcLasaRCzY

These guys are doing god's work. Their website was an impeccable resource when I was buying my first new TV in a decade about a year ago. Absolutely unparalleled quality of reviews for different TV models in the market. Makes the job of cutting through all the marketing B.S. and finding the TV model you really need a whole lot easier.

It started showing some form of burn in for 2016 LG TV model during 2018. But as far as I can tell burn in are still only seen within very minority of users. ( Otherwise you would have read about it on the news ) So if you are not picky, OLED is the way to go. 2017 and 2018, as well as 2019 models all have improved in longevity, and so will the Top Emission WOLED coming in 2020 / 2021, but it will take some more time to test before being sure of it.

Given the price of WOLED panel fall below the price of LCD panel, there will be a price point of OLED tv where it is well worth to buy one even if it might fail in 4 - 5 years time. And that price point will be different for everyone, some consider $1200 55" were good to go, some wait for $1000, some will only buy one for $800.

But if you intend your TV to last for 10 years, then I suggest you wait a little longer.

For regular TV usage, it's probably fine, but I would not recommend buying one to use as a PC monitor. I did that about a year ago, and I really regret it.

Burn in patterns are everywhere, and especially visible in red channels, so the overall image has a greenish hue. Things like taskbars, tiling window borders, browser titlebars, game HUDs (HP bars especially since those are often bright red), have all left their permanent mark on the display, and have become super distracting.

I'll probably get another OLED eventually to replace this one (I'd try to sell the current one but kind of doubt anyone would pay decent money for it given the state it's in), but will probably use it exclusively for movie watching and maybe occasional gaming sessions. I've been completely spoiled by the movie watching experience of the infinite contrast ratio in a dark room. Nothing else is even comparable. But I'll have to babysit the next one much more carefully to make sure it doesn't suffer the same fate as the one I have.

Huh... thanks for the advice. Sounds like you might have a warranty claim there?

(YMMV depending on which country you live in I guess)

Personal opinion from what I am reading around and from owning an oled TV. I am in no way an expert.

I own an oled for 1 and a half year now without issues. From what I read online is that issues with burning might occur after having static images for a very very long time. E.g if you are watching cnn for a long time everyday its static images might burn. Thats my understanding of it. Supposedly also LG has a fix on the new oled models that make burning even much less possible.

Other than that which hasn't happened to me at all, the image is considerably better than any lcd/led model out there.

Again this is just my personal opinion/experience.

Cool, thanks. Was thinking of the newest LG models, probably a C (rather than B) line one. The new tax year is still a couple of months away though!

I've had an LG OLED for 2 years now, and have had no problems with burn-in so far. Before that i owned a Panasonic plasma screen and while it's still pretty nice for the bedroom, it does have Netflix pretty badly burned into it in certain color spaces.

I had Panasonic Plasma before, and LG C7 OLED since a year

The plasma had some burn in of channel logos that was visible on grey background only.

Zero burn in after 1 year with the OLED.

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