How much burn-in coverage is right for OLED? ASUS and MSI reveal policies for their PC monitors

Burn-in with OLED screens remains something of a controversial issue, especially with PC monitors, and we've just had some interesting news in terms of warranty coverage for this potential problem.

Two monitor makers have revealed their extended warranty coverage for burn-in - a permanent blemish on the display, as opposed to temporary image retention, which happens all the time - and one firm has gone longer than the other.

As VideoCardz spotted, TFT Central flagged up on X (formerly Twitter) that ASUS has updated the warranty for its OLED monitors to include two years' worth of coverage for burn-in (in the product specs, though the main warranty page for ASUS hasn't yet been changed).

In a similar vein, MSI has issued a more clear-cut statement on the warranty period of protection against burn-in, which is three years in this case.

The company also acknowledged that OLED burn-in has been a major concern for many folks, and that it has certain technologies in place to help defend against the issue. Namely MSI OLED Care 2.0 which offers a number of burn-in prevention measures such as taskbar detection and logo detection to name a couple.

Panel protection

Of course, every monitor and TV maker using OLED panels has some kind of protective measures to help mitigate against the possibility of burn-in.

The problem is a bigger concern for PC monitors, of course, because if you spend a lot of time on the Windows desktop (or your preferred OS), interface elements may be on-screen in the same place for very lengthy periods of time.

Given ASUS's stance, the question is - do you believe two years is enough for burn-in coverage? Obviously, you get a year's worth of warranty anyway, so an extra year feels rather like the minimum possible movement in a forward direction. We'd be happier seeing our OLED-toting PC monitor having three years of backing from the vendor, for sure.

That said, if you're a more cautious PC owner, and are happy to not be cranking up brightness (and contrast) levels - that's not good for your eyes, anyway, especially over long sessions at the computer - the odds are with said mitigation technologies, you probably won't run into trouble.

Furthermore, while it's certainly true that the initial incarnations of OLED tech were more prone to this kind of defect, subsequent generations have improved considerably.

But with the lack of a concrete burn-in warranty over the long haul beyond a few years, and ever-present variations in panel quality anyway, the more paranoid PC owners out there may still be reluctant to pick up an OLED monitor.