After a year-long effort to get a QD-OLED monitor to burn in, one tester's results are better than you might expect but not quite perfect

pcgamer.com:

Burn-in, it's the final frontier for OLED technology. Fix that, and we can all ditch our LCD panels, right? Well, according to one year-long test, we're tantalisingly close to that outcome, but not quite there.

Monitors Unboxed has posted its one-year follow up of the MSI MPG 321URX, the very same model we tested last summer. It's been intentionally using the display in the worst possible way for an OLED, namely as a desktop production screen for work and video editing and absolutely no gaming at all.

Roughly, that's about eight hours a day on the Windows desktop with worst case scenario settings including Windows Light mode, not auto-hiding the task bar and so on. In fact, Monitors Unboxed also only allowed the MSI MPG 321URX's pixel cleaning and compensation cycles to run every eight hours instead of the recommended every four.

All told, Monitor Unbox estimates something in the region of 2,700 to 3,000 hours racked up. The result? A very slight line down the middle of the display that's a consequence of routinely running two main application windows side-by-side, plus a touch of burn in where the taskbar resides.

It's really important to note that both of these «burn-in» remnants are just barely visible and even then only on certain shades of grey background. Monitors Unboxed says that the burned in areas are entirely invisible most of the time and barely a distraction when they are.

Still, there is some burn-in, it's not absolutely zero. Interestingly, Monitors Unboxed has found that the progression hasn't been entirely linear. At nine months the burn-in seemed to have regressed a little compared with six months. At one year, it's back to roughly where it was at six months. That probably reflects the impact of the compensation cycles.

Monitors Unboxed says that its usage has been particularly heavy and suboptimal for an OLED and that it equates to at least 18 months and more likely two years of normal «mixed» use of desktop work and gaming for most people. That