Screen burn in

[meshuggy]

First of all I gotta say that if you can't see the burn in marks (its actually the opposite of a burn in) in Ericas Video (posted earlier) you'r just ignorant. Her video shows a very typical burn in that she was able to easily capture on camera.

Second I may advice not to use Burn-In Apps that flash different colors throughout the whole screen. The burn in you are talking about is about certain areas of the screen that are black most of the time. Those areas wear out less than others (which is the opposite of a burn in). If you'r really looking for an app that focuses an certain areas of your screen I'd recommend "Burn In Savior".

As for the Note 4: It doesnt even have a pitch black status bar to avoid this issue. My Note 3 had a true black status bar and it burned in after some weeks of use. I used "Burn in Savior" to just lit up the status bar area over night for about 5 days and the burn in got much better.

Sorry for my bad englisch..

 

[TheAmazingDave]

My screen hasn't "burned in" after many many hours now of screen-on time. I have, however, experienced ghosting of the buttons, which the "burn-in tool" wiped out completely after 15 minutes or so of running. Of course, if the OLED panel was actually burned, this wouldn't do anything at all.

If I turn my phone on right now and examine it, there is not a slightest hint of this "burn in" at all. None. Period.

No ignorance here, sorry to burst your bubble.

 

[shalemail]

I think there are people out there with an ax to grind (or an agenda) and they like to throw around absolutes. I too have seen no hints of burn in, or ghosting. Maybe I am the lucky one, dunno. (I am not saying it hasn't or doesn't happen - just not to me.)

I do know that people are not ignorant for not buying into a panic mentality just because someone is yelling about a wolf in the chicken coop.

Maybe it's me?

 

[lunatic59]

Here's how you recreate Erica's results. Turn your screen on maximum brightness and keep it awake for several hours. Then immediately run her "tests". I'm not saying that's what she did, but you can get any AMOLED screen to ghost under those conditions. If you can reverse it, then it's not burn-in or fade out or whatever you want to call the degradation of AMOLED pixels. Really, it's only a problem if you can't get rid of it.

 

[jaj324]

Here's how you recreate Erica's results. Turn your screen on maximum brightness and keep it awake for several hours. Then immediately run her "tests". I'm not saying that's what she did, but you can get any AMOLED screen to ghost under those conditions. If you can reverse it, then it's not burn-in or fade out or whatever you want to call the degradation of AMOLED pixels. Really, it's only a problem if you can't get rid of it.

No need to do any of that to see the ghosting. It's just there. It's not a problem if you don't think it's a problem. As for me, it was a problem.

 

[lunatic59]

No need to do any of that to see the ghosting. It's just there. It's not a problem if you don't think it's a problem. As for me, it was a problem.

A cannot unilaterally accept that "it's just there" because I don't see it, not even a hint of it under extreme scrutiny. Now, there are those that do see it and are okay with it and those that aren't okay with it. That's fine. What I take issue with are the claims that it's a widespread or universal problem because it was shown in a few instances. Have we moved from bendgate to burngate?

 

[TheAmazingDave]

nvm, not gonna argue about it anymore.

Haters gonna hate.

 

[algs26]

Grabbed these pics at the AT&T store:

 

[lunatic59]

That looks more like physical damage, not burn in. Display models get abused.

 

[TheAmazingDave]

Phone in-hand exactly one month on Christmas.

Zero hints of burn-in. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nothing from the nav icons, and not even a hint from the status bar.

My Nexus 6 and Moto 360 stole the show among a sea of SGN3's, iPhone 6 and 6+s, and a Moto Droid at our company Xmas party over the weekend.

 

[shalemail]

Well I am in nearly a month now on mine too. No signs of problems. So add me to the group of those with no complaints. IF there is an issue it seems to be isolated to either bad units or extreme conditions.

Can we drop this and get over it?

Dave, I feel you man, at the family and friends Christmas party Saturday the N6 and Moto 360 were the topic of several conversations. I am certain that more than one 360 will find it's way under the tree of some of the people that were ooohing and ahhhing over it Saturday.

 

[lunatic59]

Can we drop this and get over it?

No, never.

Dave, I feel you man, at the family and friends Christmas party Saturday the N6 and Moto 360 were the topic of several conversations. I am certain that more than one 360 will find it's way under the tree of some of the people that were ooohing and ahhhing over it Saturday.

I was in the check-out line in the liquor store (getting the holiday spirit ) and the cashier says "nice watch". So I say, yeah, it's the 360 ... just got it. Pretty soon there were like five people from the line hovering over my wrist. It's a show stopper.

 

[jaj324]

Phone in-hand exactly one month on Christmas.

Zero hints of burn-in. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nothing from the nav icons, and not even a hint from the status bar.

My Nexus 6 and Moto 360 stole the show among a sea of SGN3's, iPhone 6 and 6+s, and a Moto Droid at our company Xmas party over the weekend.

There was a cell phone show at your company Christmas party??

 

[TheAmazingDave]

There was a cell phone show at your company Christmas party??

We're a bunch of IT guys, so showing off our toys is par for the course.

 

[vr4]

That looks more like physical damage, not burn in. Display models get abused.

Physical damage? You can clearly see nexus above the arrow on the blue screen and the landscape picture is clearly lighter on the half inch or so of the right side of the screen.

Fwiw I almost exclusively have my turbo in landscape and you can see a slight color difference on the rh side of the screen when vertical where the status bar is while in landscape.


Dave... Are you the same amazing Dave from mr2oc?

 

[TheAmazingDave]

Dave... Are you the same amazing Dave from mr2oc?

In the digital flesh.

 

[lunatic59]

Ah. I see what you are talking about now. I incorrectly assumed that you meant the two white spots in the blue field and the triangle at the top of the other screen. My apologies.

 

[mikedt]

Grabbed these pics at the AT&T store:

The bottom one can make out the word "nexus", and is the top one on its side, and it's usually the black button area that's showing? I've seen similar things with AMOLED demonstration Samsung S5s in a showroom, could see the notification bar and home screen icons burned-in. These were also in a showroom, they're on continually at full brightness, showing the same thing, continually for months on end, likely 24/7. Which is NOT general typical usage for consumers.

Myself, I had an AMOLED Samsung S, and that did eventually become noticeably duller and greener after about two years, as well as showing distinct burn-in of the notification bar icons. Two years I thought was OK with my usage, the screen broke in the end with that one, so I replaced it with a new phone.

 

[TheAmazingDave]

I was in a T-Mobile store last weekend, and handled their N6 demo unit.

It's hard to say how long it's been out there, but when I got to it, it was sitting on at full brightness.

You know what?

Spoiler

Zero burn-in on the screen.

 

[electricpete]

I'm encouraged to see this thread died out with no posts for almost a year. That seems to imply that it's not a problem for most people.

For you guys that have had/used the phone for a year or so, I'm curious to hear an update on your experience (I understand that mileage may vary). Is your screen burn-in detectable when you look really hard for it? Is it troublesome?

 

[lunatic59]

Been using it as my daily driver with pretty much the same launcher and home screen layout since November 2014. I see absolutely ZERO burn-in. The screen is as clear as the day it was un-boxed.

 

[shalemail]

Been using it as my daily driver with pretty much the same launcher and home screen layout since November 2014. I see absolutely ZERO burn-in. The screen is as clear as the day it was un-boxed.

I agree, this has been my only phone for 14 months now save for one week trying the One+One and about 3 days with the motoXpure. I have ZERO issues with burn in and I still love the screen, even at half brightness it is easy to see in the sun and produces beautiful colors.

 

[mikedt]

That looks more like physical damage, not burn in. Display models get abused.

Not physical damage, and yes display models do get heavily abused, that's why can see "NEXUS" burned in. In store-demo-mode it's been showing "NEXUS" in bright white against a dark background at full brightness, 24/7, for months on end. But that's not something the average user is likely to be doing, so burn-in is not really a problem with regular use.

 

[electricpete]

I think I can detect signs of burn in on my nexus 6, after less than two months of use.

It is visible at the boundary above my nav-bar (more noticeable) and below my status bar (less noticeable). The good news is:
1 - it is only visible under very limited conditions (I had to work hard to capture it on video).
2 - it is caused by my choice to use perpetually black status bar and nav bar (different than stock where the navbar and status bar are "transparent" and show the color of the app behind them). Edit - actually I think stock status bar is translucent and stock navbar is black.
3 - I can't see any trace of the navbar icons or status bar icons at all. It seems just that large swath of black that created the effect.

usage details

• My screen on time per day is in the range 2-5 hours.
• Brightness is in auto with the slider in the middle.
• I'm reasonably sure that this was not present when I got the device because:
  • 1-it was "new" from Amazon in factory sealed box (although at a bargain price $299 for 64gb which makes me wonder slightly);
  • 2 - I inspected it pretty careully when I was reading about burn in shortly after I got my device;
  • 3 - the burnin pattern showing seems tied to the pattern that I myself setup about 6 weeks ago...Or maybe not.

Video is here (focus on the boundary just above the nav-bar ... it's easier to see than the status bar) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UO84SCeykrD6Ecb9p3yWfoUe4KN2pJs2Eg/view?usp=sharing

It doesn't particularly concern me for reasons discussed above (primarily because I have to work really really hard to even see it - grey launcher background in dark room helped to show it). I'll probably go back to translucent status-bar in the future and be a little more careful in general. Maybe I'll look at pie controls instead of navbar. Since it's not noticeable during normal usage, I'm not inclined to do the high brightness reverse screen burn, but I might invert colors from time to time when it suits me (inverting colors is an easy way to create dark mode in chrome browser..except for the nav bar and status bar which become white).

I post with a tiny bit of trepidation, seeing the previous discussion got a little heated. I hope you guys can see the line above the status bar area in the video (trust me I'm not making this up). And I'm not saying this is expected for anyone else. I just thought it would be a useful data point to share.

Another datapoint is xda thread on the subject of nexus 6 screen burnin.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-6/general/burn-t2955765
Poll at top of the page shows 180 respondents have seen signs of screen burnin on their N6 while 618 have not. One might suspect that the small fraction of users who see burnin are more likely to find their way to that thread to cast a vote (so it's probably not representative of the general population of N6 users). On the other hand I'll bet there are a few people who never even notice they have a slight burn in that could only be seen looking very closely under the right conditions.

I see in the linked thread that some people react irrationally as if any detectable burnin after a short time means the phone will become unusable after a year. I know it's not the case. It's minor, it's understood/predictable (other than maybe variability among users/phones) and it's very manageable.

Overall I remain super-satisfied this great device. Big screen. Easy to modify with great dev support (gravitybox is amazing). Fast updates. Fast and reliable phone. If I needed another phone, N6 would still be at the top of my list.

EDIT - I had a thought that elevated screen temperature due to my phone case design might be a reason I'm an outlier. I created a thread to explore that idea here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-6/help/wondering-burn-caused-elevated-t3316535

 

[electricpete]

Here's how you recreate Erica's results. Turn your screen on maximum brightness and keep it awake for several hours. Then immediately run her "tests". I'm not saying that's what she did, but you can get any AMOLED screen to ghost under those conditions.

Well, that's not what I did. I just now turned on my screen after sitting an hour with screen off and it's there immediately (within the 30 seconds it took me to switch the display to grey/immersive) .

There also seems to be a "polarity" difference between the permanent (*) burn-in that I've seen, and the temporary image retention I've heard described by others (although I've never seen this temporary image retention on my phone or any photographed image of the N6). In the permanent burn-in, the normally-dark areas end up showing brighter than the the normally bright areas when we temporarily show a uniform background (usually grey). In contrast for the temporary image retention, I gather normally light areas remain lighter than the normally dark areas when temporarily showing a uniform background.

If you can reverse it, then it's not burn-in or fade out or whatever you want to call the degradation of AMOLED pixels.

*I agree in the strict sense that AMOLED aging or drift (which is the mechanism for burn-in) is permanent and not reversible. However it is the non-uniform aging that catches our attention by the contrast between adjacent areas. Uniform aging slightly dims the entire screen and may tend to shift the color slightly away from blue (the quickest aging LED) and toward red (the slowest aging LED), but it's hard to perceive those uniform changes since we have no adjacent contrasting visual reference. One way to make the aging more uniform is to brightly display an inverted pattern for a time, in order to accelerate aging of the pixels that previously were black (less aged) so they'll catch up with the others. That approach doesn't reverse anything, but it makes it less noticeable.