One of the most frightening things is witnessing your TV suffer from burn-in. Once you notice even the slightest evidence of burn-in, it can be nearly impossible to ignore later on. This can ruin your immersive experience watching movies and TV shows, so it’s understandable to worry about this happening to your TV.
What exactly is burn-in? Well burn-in refers to a static image permanently stuck on screen due to uneven degradation of pixels. The most common elements to cause burn-in are channel logos, and other static elements such as subtitles. It’s easy to avoid burn-in nowadays, but once it happens it’s there to stay forever.
In this post, we’re going to find out whether QLED TVs suffer from burn-in, what other types of TV suffer from burn-ins, and the overall lifespan and quality of QLED TVs. We will also compare the quality of QLED and OLED TVs and which is more susceptible to this issue.
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What Exactly Is Burn-In?
Burn-in is a visible remnant stuck on the screen by static elements. It is often referred to as ghost images and no matter what you do, you cannot get rid of them. This is usually caused by leaving a still image on the screen for a long amount of time eventually causing that image to burn-in into the screen.
Screen burn-in is technically caused by uneven degradation of pixels on the screen, usually by self-illuminating pixels. Burn-in is usually a problem for plasma and OLED TVs where their pixels are self-illuminating therefore they have their own lifespan. When a static image is displayed on an OLED display, those pixels which make up the static image are deteriorating faster than the other pixels.
No matter what you do, you cannot get rid of burn-in as it’s a permanent problem affecting your TV screen. There are many claims that you can fix burn-in such as pixel shifting, and turning the brightness down, but these are all solutions to the less severe problem called “image retention”. Image retention isn’t permanent and is usually fixed by turning the brightness down for a bit.
Do QLED TVs Burn-In Like OLED TVs?
OLED TVs are notorious for suffering from burn-in, this is due to how they work, the technology used allowed for pixels to degrade faster than others hence causing burn-in. But QLED TVs work a bit differently, they use a backlight rather than self-illuminating pixels to produce their image, therefore, QLED TVs do not suffer from burn-in like OLED TVs do.
The lifespan of a QLED Display is much longer than that of an OLED one. This is because a backlight is used to create an image by shining light through a polarizing filter. This filter lasts longer than the organic material used in OLED displays, and QLED displays do not suffer from image retention either. You can expect a QLED screen to last up to 10 years, and retain its image longer than OLED TVs.
Overall, you don’t need to worry about your QLED display suffering from burn-in and this is a massive benefit as you can play your favorite video games that have static elements like minimaps and item bars without worrying about causing them to burn into your screen.
Do QLED TVs Break Easily?
QLED TVs do not use fragile material like OLED screens do. QLED screens are not instantly destroyed when in contact with moisture, OLED screens require extra protection inside to prevent any moisture from destroying the organic material inside. QLED TVs don’t require extra material which often contributes to QLED TVs being much cheaper too.
Comparing QLED To OLED, you will generally have a longer-lasting experience with a QLED screen therefore you’ll likely replace your TV less often if you were to only go for QLEDs. In the long run, you’ll save a lot of money, and QLED TVs are generally a better bang for your buck for the average consumer.
So overall, QLED TVs are the more durable option out of QLED and OLEDs. Over time, the Quantum Dots will not lose quality over time, so in 10 years you can expect your QLED TV to perform just as well as when your first brought it. You’re likely going to replace your QLED TV due to other defects such as a bad cable.
So What Are The Cons Of QLED TVs?
The most common cons for OLED TVs aren’t due to their lifespan and how they hold up over the years but rather how they perform. QLED TVs are known for having poor viewing angles, lower contrast ratios, and slower response times. Most of these issues aren’t related to burn-in or image retention, so there’s no need to worry.
But for home theaters, we wouldn’t recommend a QLED TV, we’d rather recommend QLED TVs for the average user setting up a TV in their living room. QLED TVs are able to get super bright in bright environments without causing burn-in/image retention, but when it comes to home theaters, QLED TVs lack when it comes to contrast ratios.
The final con for QLED TVs would have to be their poor viewing angle, QLED TVs aren’t as great as OLED TVs when it comes to supporting viewers who are not in the middle of the screen. QLED TVs use backlights to display their image which does not evenly illuminate the screen when viewing from an angle.
Conclusion
To conclude this post, QLED TVs do not suffer from burn-in and image retention issues, so you don’t need to worry at all, you’re perfectly safe buying a QLED TV as they rarely get any issues with the quality of their display. OLED TVs and plasma TVs are the only TVs that are affected by burn-in, QLED TVs have completely different technology inside protecting this from happening.
You can expect your QLED TV to last a very long time and retain its beautiful image quality through the years. A QLED TVs quantum dots do not degrade over time, and QLED TVs are rated to last up to 10 years which means throughout all those 10 years, no degradation of picture quality will occur.
