Burn-in is the one big worry with OLED monitors. But evidence that it shouldn’t be a dealer breaker for gamers is approaching critical mass thanks to another long-term assessment released today.
YouTube channel Optimum has been using a 32-inch 4K LG WOLED monitor for around 3,000 hours over two years and has found only minor burn-in. This is a particularly handy metric given that one of the best known existing trackers of OLED burn-in by Monitors Unboxed has been based on a monitor with a Samsung QD-OLED panel. Now we have something similar for LG WOLED.
Reposting for the 3rd time
TLDR: I took the plunge on OLED TV in 2021 as a primary monitor and it’s been incredible
I’ve been using an LG C1 48" OLED TV as my sole monitor for my full-time job, my photography, and gaming since the start of 2021. I think it’s at around
300045008500 hours of screen time. It averages over 10 hours of on time per weekdayIt typically stays around
4090 brightness becausethat’s all I needI now have a bright office, being fairly close to my face the size. All of the burn-in protection features are on (auto dimming , burn-in protection, pixel rotation) but I haveWindowsMac set to never sleep for work reasons.Burn in has not been a thing. Sometimes, I leave it on with a spreadsheet open or a photo being edited overnight because I’m dumb. High brightness and high contrast areas might leave a spot visible in certain greys but by then, the TV will ask me to “refresh pixels” and it’ll be gone when I next turn the TV on. The task bar has not burned in.
Update in 2026 at 8500+ hours: there is minor garaininess to midtone, flat grays. Not distracting or even a risk for photo sensitive work, but I can find it if I know to look for it.
Experience for work, reading, dev: 8/10
Pros: screen real estate. One 48" monitor is roughly four 1080p 22" monitors tiled.The ergonomics are great. Text readability is very good especially in dark mode.
cons: sharing my full screen is annoying to others because it’s so big. Video camera has to be placed a bit higher than ideal so I’m at a slightly too high angle for video conferences.
This is categorically a better working monitor than my previous cheap dual 4k setup but text sharpness is not as good as a high end LCD with retina-like density because 1) the density and 2) the subpixel configuration on OLED is not as good for text rendering. This has never been an issue for my working life.
Experience with photo and video editing: 10/10
Outside of dedicated professional monitors which are extremely expensive, there is no better option for color reproduction and contrast. From what I’ve seen in the consumer sector, maybe Apple monitors are at this level but the price is 4 or 5x.
Gaming: 10/10
2160p120hz HDR with 3ms lag, perfect contrast and extremely good color reproduction.
FPSs feel really good. Anything dark/horror pops A lot of real estate for RTSs Maybe flight sim would have benefited from dusk monitor setup?
I’ve never had anything but a good gaming experience. I did have a 144hz monitor before and going to 120 IS marginally noticable for me but I don’t think it’s detrimental at the level I play (suck)
Reviewers had mentioned that it’s good for consoles too though I never bothered
Movies and TV: 10/10 4K HDR is better than theaters’ picture quality in a dark room. Everything I’ve thrown on it has been great.
Final notes/recommendations This is my third LG OLED and I’ve seen the picture quality dramatically increase over the years. Burn-in used to be a real issue and grays were trashed on my first OLED after about 1000 hours.
Unfortunately, I have to turn the TV on from the remote every time. It does automatically turn off from no signal after the computers screen sleep timer, which is a good feature. There are open source programs which get around this.This TV has never been connected to the Internet… I’ve learned my lesson with previous LG TVs. They spy, they get ads, they have horrendous privacy policies, and they have updates which kill performance or features… Just don’t. Get a streaming box.
You need space for it, width and depth wise. The price is high (around 1k USD on sale) but not compared with gaming monitors and especially compared with 2 gaming monitors.
Pixel rotation is noticeable when the entire screen shifts over a pixel two. It also will mess with you if you have reference pixels at the edge of the screen. This can be turned off.
Burn in protection is also noticable on mostly static images. I wiggle my window if it gets in my way. This can also be turned off.
Please name those open-source programs that allow you to turn it on automatically.
LGTVCompanion, probably.
I’d have to see it for myself but “minor” burn in after only 2 years doesn’t sound acceptable at all
And 3000 hours is 10 hours a day of on time for 300 days…how long are people using their monitors to stretch it to 2 years? I use my PCs and monitors for work, which is usually 7-8 hours a day, if I game later, then add another hour or two. That means burn in for normal use is in under a year.
Yeah this post is a delusional ad disguised as a review
The internet is dead
I agree, my monitors have 10+ years and it’s now at a point to be a good value. 2 years is nothing.
My oldest monitor is only a little over 10 years old and I think of it new. And it was less than a third of the cost.
Let’s be generous and say it actually takes 4-5 years for noticeable burn in
Maybe I’m looking at the wrong model but this appears to be a $1400 monitor lol
That’s an absolutely insane value degradation but I suppose the target market are simply rich people and legitimate screen addicts
I have outright tortured my screen for the last 2 years and “minor” literally means it can only be seen at 0% brightness on a flat grey screen, and only if you know where it is already. If you go up even a single notch on the brightness it disappears completely.
You will get 10+ years out of them easily, just run the brightness at 25-50% instead of full blast all day.
I have a Gigabyte AO48U and one of the common complaints about it is that it auto-dims when a white background is on but I absolutely love this feature because fuck white backgrounds to death.
Sounds like you won’t get close to 10 years if after 2 the burn in starts
And I gotta keep my brightness down all day too just to be safe?
Lmao that’s simply why I’m not buying one 🤷♀️
Thousand+ dollar monitors degrading after a few years of normal use and that’s somehow acceptable to people…maybe when I’m rich lol
You should watch the video. “Minor” is an overstatement. It’s completely invisible in normal use, and only barely visible if you put on a blank blue or grey background and squint really hard.
I dunno I’ve noticed blooming and other effects normally described as invisible or hard to see
Sometimes sure it’s either extremely rare or hardly noticeable but it’s still often a near constant enough annoyance
And what happens after 2 more years?
So can we put the issue to rest now? OLEDs last longer than LCDs
That’s… not really a logical conclusion from the article, or from anyone’s experience with either technology.
Anecdotally, back in 2012 I bought a secondhand LCD TV made in 2009. That was used as my primary work, gaming, and media display for 4 years before being relegated to a bedroom TV.
I moved that TV to my shop in 2019, it’s been playing a rotation of videos since then - coming up on 7 consecutive years.
There’s no ghosting or visible degradation on that TV, you’re commenting on an article describing degradation on a display used 4 hours a day for 2 years.
My shop also runs a bunch of other older LCD monitors - at least 5 of them are 12 or more years old and in active use every day.
It’s another data point to quickly growing trove of evidence. You can’t speak for everyone, especially not TV repair shops. Anecdotally, I would know, I work with one. The longevity of TVs has been steadily declining for the past decade, and modern LCDs have a lot more points of (regular) failure than OLEDs, and their deterioration is a lot more distracting than the burn-in of early OLEDS.
What deterioration for LCDs?
