Hi guys. I'm the proud owner of a Galaxy Nexus with no screen defects (except for black splotches that only show up on black screen in a pitch dark room, so that doesn't matter). My brightness usually remains around 15%. It's been only 2.5 months, and I've noticed something. If the screen is displaying WHITE (with the top bar and the navigation keys hidden), the top-right of the screen has a slightly blue tint (at the place where the clock, WiFi, and the signals are displayed, and these elements are usually blue as you might know). I know I'm acting like a little OCD, but that's what my observation is. I don't want my beautiful screen to depreciate this way
My question is, how do I avoid this burn-in?
In addition to that, I also want to hide the on-screen navigation keys (but that's not a priority right now, would be good if you could help with that as well). In short, I want to avoid all sorts of burn-in to this AMOLED screen due to elements that are constantly displayed on the screen (like the navigation keys area, the status bar (and the clock, battery etc.).
Sorry if this is a repeated post or if this isn't the correct section. I've searched the forums but didn't find a solution.
Thanks in advance...
There really isn't much you can do about the burn in, specially on SAMOLED displays, it's part of their life cycle. One thing that does come to mind to slow down the burn in is to use something like PA's PIE, which turns the nav and status bar areas into usable real estate.
The Essential PH1 had this function where you can control the notch per application. Anyone know if Google is planning to do this on the Pixel 3 XL? It's nowhere to be found even in the dev options. Not sure if the November update has anything new (didn't get the update yet).
Not per app but you can "hide" the notch by moving the notification bar down below the notch and that screen area is just black. Pixel doesn't have the option to make the bar black always and keep the icons up there like other phones do.
fury683 said:
Not per app but you can "hide" the notch by moving the notification bar down below the notch and that screen area is just black. Pixel doesn't have the option to make the bar black always and keep the icons up there like other phones do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nacho Notch does that.
Question about "Hide Cutout"...when you turn this on, does it simply just turn that area black or does it turn off the pixels so it prevents burn in?
fury683 said:
Not per app but you can "hide" the notch by moving the notification bar down below the notch and that screen area is just black. Pixel doesn't have the option to make the bar black always and keep the icons up there like other phones do.
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Click to collapse
Yeah I know about that option. I wanted to see if we can somehow control it per app. That way, we don't lose all the screen real estate when you play certain games.
Is image persistence normal for S20's screen or OLED screens in general?
For example, playing a bright video game with black aspect ratio bars, leaves a lasting persistent image, where on dark pastel backgrounds you can clearly see where bars and game were.
Or writing a long article, leaves remnants of Android's nav. buttons, Chrome's address bar, and even keyboard visible, when tested on dark pastel backgrounds.
These persistent images gradually disappear, but it takes a long time to disappear completely. Do you experience something similar to this?
Thanks.
Scroll down for testing methods, post #5. Start by opening dark gray image, view full image, zoom in, do you see discoloration?
Image retention (persistence) is a somewhat common issue with all OLED. That said you shouldn't be experiencing it unless your constantly rocking your screen at 100% brightness, or near there, for hours on end.
I found this cNet article which explains it really well.
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/oled-screen-burn-in-what-you-need-to-know-now/
scaredy-cat said:
Is image persistence normal for S20's screen or OLED screens in general?
For example, playing a bright video game with black aspect ratio bars, leaves a lasting persistent image, where on dark pastel backgrounds you can clearly see where bars and game were.
Or writing a long article, leaves remnants of Android's nav. buttons, Chrome's address bar, and even keyboard visible, when tested on dark pastel backgrounds.
These persistent images gradually disappear, but it takes a long time to disappear completely. Do you experience something similar to this?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Galaxy S7 and S8 had issues with Screen Burn which Samsung improved going forward from the S9. If the ghost images gradually disappear it isn't Screen Burn which causes permanent discoloration. If under warranty you may wish to get the device replaced, it doesn't seem the problem will correct itself over time. The other options I would consider are uninstalling apps which you enabled just before the problem appeared or performing a Factory Reset.
if you're playing games and the background is constantly moving, then there should be little, or no image retention. However, if you are using Google Maps and high brightness and stationary for a long period of time (eg stuck in traffic) then I would consider some image retention could be present.
Thank you for your answers. Bold text for topics. Testing methods at the end of this reply.
Was not aware OLED screens' image retention is such a common issue, but I knew OLED screens are prone to burn-in, read about it online, and saw it on my relatives' older devices, so out of the box I turned on the dark mode and changed wallpaper to black.
I preferred regular Android's navigation buttons to gestures, because of ergonomics, due to phones center of mass (wish it was more bottom heavy), when using with one hand, balancing phone while performing gestures always feels like I'm about to drop the phone, I also find gestures to be slower, simple tap vs sliding your finger. And on top of that, I have carpal tunnel syndrome, so it's much easier to simply reach and tap. But now I started using gestures, as a burn-in preventative measure.
By the way, having Chrome open for around 20 minutes, and quickly switching to Display Tester's BurnIn detection, I can already distinguish Chrome's address bar section, and clearly see tab switcher button. This will gradually disappear, but the fact that afterimage appears so quickly and remains for so long is concerning, since I feel such image retention might indicate my display may be prone to burn-in, but of course, I don't know this for sure, just my uneducated guess.
Having dark mode keyboard open for around an hour, and I can see remnants of it even on grey backgrounds of folders.
Back to reply..
I never use my screen at full brightness, it's always set to somewhere around 50%, and as I said earlier, image retention starts to occurs in a matter of minutes. Images do gradually disappear, but it takes a long time, and when I use screen for hours with static elements, it felt like it took awfully long time to disappear, but to determine how long exactly it takes for them to appear and disappear, I need to do more thorough testing.
Yes, when playing games, indeed, a lot of things are moving, except for Heads-up Display, but I first noticed this image retention issue playing an older video game called "Super Cat Bros". That game is not optimized for such wide-screen phones as S20, so on each side you have a black bar, display is split into 3 sections - bar-game-bar. That game is very colorful and has lots of solid colors, so after I finished playing, in dark user interface backgrounds I noticed discoloration, later looking at solid color backgrounds l noticed clearly where each section was, so bar-game-bar. Because sides of a display were turned off, and all action happened in the middle, you can clearly see which part of the screen was the most active.
This is why I'm coming to conclusion, that dark mode alone is still only a small part in burn-in prevention, you should blackout everything, including websites (I remember firefox had plug-in like that, capable of replacing background and font colors), switch to a dim keyboard preferably without visible keys with orange-red colored font, download oled friendly icon packs, watch movies cropped in, so you're not left with permanent discoloration in place of "black bars", and play games full-screen, only then wear will be uniform. Seems like too much work. I wish micro-led displays would become widespread sooner.
I don't think factory reset or uninstalling apps will help, because it appears to be not software related.
At least not software user can update, such as display's firmware, but I don't know for sure just how independent display is from other phone's guts. Even then, I don't think firmware can fix this.
The phone is under warranty, since it's new, used for a few moths, and unmodified, but sadly is probably not an option, because in my country, gaslighting customers is fairly common. Service center will probably take it away for a few weeks, then return it scratched up, and say they didn't find any issue. So unless it's a serious burn-in, that's visible always and on every background, it'll be extremely difficult to make a return, and even then they'll probably tell it's normal wear, but then at least you can without explaining too much contact consumer protection and show them the problem.
Software used for discovery and testing:
• Super Cat Bros (video game)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.FDGEntertainment.SuperCatBros.gp
Play it for an hour (or more) and then test on solid darker pastel colors, do you see discoloration? Report for how long you played and how long discoloration was visible. Do not reopen game when retesting discoloration, because it may appear permanent. I know some people are not good at seeing minute differences in shades, but at first it should be very obvious which parts were black bars and part where game ran.
• Display Tester (app)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gombosdev.displaytester
Very good display tester, free, lots of features and tests, and works on wide-screen displays, enable "use immersive mode if possible" in the settings. I think default color in BurnIn tester is very good at revealing discoloration, but you can play with sliders, just remember position which reveals discoloration the best.
• I'll also attach solid color image, which works for revealing discoloration.
And another dark gray image, which also helps reveal discoloration, use in dark room at around 50% screen brightness (play around), no matter how much you zoom in or out, it appears like screen has gradient, notifications bar icons are also visible, not sure if it's temporary or a permanent discoloration. I recommend opening these images with a gallery app, set to full screen, or simply pinch to zoom, and tap screen one time to hide gallery's UI elements. Tilt phone left and right, move towards and away from yourself, do you see discoloration?
You can also open them up with browser, and examine your screen, but I found you can't hide all UI elements, so better use gallery or other image viewer.
So ever since I have had my 6 pro I notice that when I have a black wallpaper or a dark colour set the top last maybe centimetre from across the top of the display washes out/ fades out Into grey and I have noticed that changing between different colour profiles either makes it less apparent or more worse. I'd like to think it's software as I don't think it's doing it anywhere else but the home screen but I could be wrong.
I think this is a thing to show the QS panel, we had a bug on the betas where there was a line up at the top of the screen to show it too. IIRC that one occurred only on lockscreen though.
That's actually part of the pixel launcher. I hate it with a passion. My mod, which is available now, removes it by default. If you are not rooted you have to use a 3rd party launcher. If you are rooted but don't want to use my mod you can edit the image. Its called workspace_bg.9.png.