How to protect your phone screen from burning in

Your phone screen will burn in sooner or later to one degree or another. The fact is that it cannot be repaired, but there are ways to prevent it and slow down the process. In this article, you will read a few recommendations on how to prevent your screen from burning in.

What Is AMOLED Screen Burn-In

If you have ever noticed an afterglow on your screen, especially where the navigation bar or active parts of the window are located, it’s possible that part of your screen has burned in.

Your screen is based on the operation of thousands of pixels within an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED), which over time will wear out and individually no longer work as they used to. This causes burn-in. The most vulnerable areas of the screen are those where navigation and status icons frequently appear.

White light is the most resource-intensive for pixels. For white light, all three main lights are used – red, green, and blue. Blue is usually the weakest and lasts the least.

How to check on AMOLED Screen Burn-In via test on Android

At some point, every user with an OLED display will face burn-in. However, it’s rarely you will see fully visible unless you display a solid color at maximum brightness. The Android operating system provides you with a wide variety of apps that detect burn-in damage. The best of these is Screen Test. And it’s free.

What are the tips for preventing AMOLED from burning-in

Here’re some tips on how to reduce your chances to face burn-in:

• Lower screen brightness and screen timeout. It’s all logical here, the longer you keep the screen active, the less it will live. Especially if you only use bright screen mode. To prevent it, just go to Settings, then go to Display, reduce screen brightness (or set to automatic brightness) and lower screen timeout
• Turn on Dark Mode (Android). If you have Android 10 and above, you can easily set the dark mode on your phone. Not only does it help your AMOLED pixels, it also saves battery life, and most importantly, it doesn’t hurt your eyes as much. To turn on dark mode, go to Settings > Display > Dark mode and turn it on
• Enable Gesture Mode. Now it’s possible to get rid of the navigation bar in Android 10. Once enabled, gestures allow navigation by swiping your finger on the screen. You can enable Gesture mode by following these steps:
  • Go to Settings > Gestures
  • Choose System navigation
  • Choose Gesture navigation

• Change wallpaper to black (Android). For those who care about the way their desktop looks, this option may not be quite to their liking, but if you don’t care about the image, the best way to prevent burning-in and save battery power is to set the wallpaper with one solid black color
• Change your launcher (Android, iPhone). In case you don’t have Android 10 or latest, the default Android Launcher isn’t OLED friendly. In Android 5.0, it forces the App Drawer wallpaper to white (the worst color for OLED screens). Though one of the best launchers for darker colors is Nova Launcher. Not only is it more responsive, it provides you with better customization options. You can download the app here
• Install Dark Reader extension for Firefox Mobile (Android, iPhone). The most extensible browser that exists is Firefox, so try installing this add-on for it, which makes the background of web pages dark and the text white
• Install AMOLED-Friendly Keyboard (Android). Android also gives you the ability to customize your on-screen keyboard, so take advantage of that and install SwiftKey, which allows users to change the color and themes of their keyboards

Now you can prolong the life of your screen, although you should understand that these methods will not save you from the time when the equipment begins to wear out.