The risk of burn-in is still viewed as one of the downsides of buying an OLED monitor, but one manufacturer seems to think that those fears are misplaced, for it’s now offering a four-year warranty for new models.
Monitor brands have been trying to reassure consumers for a few years that the risk of OLED burn-in is overblown. But the relatively short duration of their warranties may have been less convincing to some buyers.
Asus was the first company to offer a warranty against burn-in in 2022, when it said it would cover the risk for a period of two years. Shortly after, MSI responded by offering a three-year warranty on its OLED monitors, and it was followed almost immediately by Asus. Then Gigabyte did the same, offering protection for three years.
These actions prompted LG Electronics to issue a two-year warranty against burn-in, albeit only for U.S. consumers, followed by Sony, which committed to three years early last year.
Now Gigabyte is stepping things up another notch, offering a four-year warranty on its new 27-inch Aorus FO27Q28G monitor. It features LG Display’s latest Tandem WOLED panel, has a 1440p resolution with a 280Hz refresh rate, and also comes with a glossy film to help highlight the exceptional colour OLED is known for.
The extended warrant appears to demonstrate Gigabyte’s growing confidence in the reliability of LG Display’s latest Tandem WOLED panel. When the display was launched earlier this year, LG Display highlighted its longer lifespan as one of the main improvements. Samsung Display made similar noises about its newest QD-OLED panel, although nobody is yet offering a four-year warranty for any products equipped with it.
"With AI-based Gigabyte AI OLED Care protection and top-tier OLED panel technology built into the monitors, Gigabyte provides a premium 3-year standard warranty, with an extra 1-year warranty dedicated to panel burn-in coverage, giving users complete confidence and long-term peace of mind," Gigabyte said in a statement.
Besides the Gigabyte Aorus FO27Q28G, the company announced three other Tandem WOLED monitors at last week’s Computex event in Taipei, but it has not released any specification or warranty details.
Burn-in was a genuine risk in the early days of OLED panels. The risk is especially high for monitors, which often display static elements for extended periods of time. It refers to the degradation of the individual OLED pixels, which used to occur with alarming regularity on the earliest such products. However, LG Display and Samsung Display have made significant advances, both on the hardware side and the software side – using sophisticated algorithms – that make their latest panels much more durable.
Given that OLED panel shipments have increased significantly in the last few years in TVs, monitors, tablets, laptops, smartphones and other gadgets, the relative dearth of new burn-in reports suggests that the risk really has been diminished quite a bit.
That’s not to say it will never happen. Should someone consistently use their OLED monitor for 12-hour long gaming or work sessions, there’s still a chance that those strengthened pixels might be worn down. That’s why some users are still cautious, and it’s clearly those people that Gigabyte is trying to reassure with its enhanced warranty.
