Burn-in: what it is, and what it is not
The short answer
Burn-in is uneven ageing of an OLED panel. Pixels that have shown the same bright image for thousands of hours dim slightly, leaving a permanent faint ghost of a keyboard, status bar or navigation buttons. It is not repairable in software and the only fix is a new panel.
It is wear, not damage
Nothing is burnt. Each OLED subpixel is an organic compound that dims very slowly every hour it is lit, and the three colours do not dim at the same rate. Blue ages fastest, which is why a burnt-in area often reads slightly yellow or green rather than simply dark.
If part of the screen has shown the same bright thing for thousands of hours, that part has aged more than the rest. Turn the screen white and the aged area appears as a faint darker patch shaped like whatever was there: a keyboard, a status bar, an on-screen navigation strip, or the fixed interface of a game or a delivery app.
Because it is wear rather than a fault, it does not spread, it does not recover, and no update or app reverses it. Anything sold as a burn-in fixer simply ages the surrounding pixels to match, which makes the whole panel worse.
Image retention is a different thing, and it does go away
If you see a ghost of the last screen for a few seconds or minutes after switching away, that is image retention, not burn-in. It is temporary, it is normal on OLED, and it clears on its own.
The test is time. Show a plain white or grey image for ten minutes. Image retention will fade; burn-in will still be there.
People often panic about the first and describe it as the second, which is why it is worth knowing the difference before paying anybody.
Who gets it, and after how long
Most people never do. It takes thousands of hours of the same bright static image in the same place, which in practice means years of heavy use, and manufacturers work hard to avoid it: the status bar shifts a pixel or two periodically, brightness is limited on static elements, and the whole interface is designed to move.
The phones that arrive here with it usually have a reason. A device left permanently on one screen, a work handset running a single app all day, a phone used as a shop display or a car dashboard, or one run at maximum brightness for years.
An always-on display is the exception people expect to cause it and mostly does not, because the clock moves around the panel deliberately.
- Years of heavy use, not months
- Highest risk: one bright static interface, at high brightness, for hours daily
- Common shapes: keyboard, status bar, navigation buttons, game HUDs
- Dark mode and lower brightness both genuinely slow it down
- Auto-brightness helps more than any setting people usually change
What can actually be done
The only real fix is a new display assembly. That is the honest answer and it is why it is worth deciding whether the phone is worth it, which depends on the phone, its age and whether the battery is finished as well. We will tell you what both come to together so you can judge it properly.
What genuinely helps a panel that is not there yet: lower the brightness, use auto-brightness, use dark mode where the interface allows it, and shorten the screen timeout. None of that reverses existing burn-in and all of it slows what happens next.
What does not help: burn-in fixer apps, colour-cycling videos, and leaving the screen on a white image. Those work by wearing the rest of the panel down to match, and the panel ends up dimmer overall.
Common questions.
Not in software. It is uneven physical ageing of the panel, so the only fix is a new display assembly. Anything sold as a burn-in remover works by ageing the surrounding pixels to match, which leaves the whole screen worse.
Probably not. If it fades within seconds or minutes it is image retention, which is normal on OLED and temporary. Show a plain white image for ten minutes; if the mark is still there, it is burn-in.
Far less than people expect. The clock and icons move around the panel deliberately and the display runs dim. Hours of a bright static app at full brightness is much harder on a screen than an always-on clock.
It helps, genuinely. On an OLED a black pixel is an unlit pixel, so a dark interface ages the panel less. Brightness matters more again: a bright screen ages faster than a dark one whatever the interface.
Effectively no. An LCD has one backlight behind the whole panel rather than per-pixel lights, so there is no uneven ageing to produce a ghost image.
Where this leads.
Next in screens and displays.
Something actually broken? Bring it in.
Free diagnostic, a firm price before any work, and a 360-day warranty on every completed repair.
Book a repair 24/7 · No fix, no fee · 360-day warranty · Free diagnostic