When should you worry about OLED burn-in on PCs? We asked an expert

OLED monitors were everywhere at CES 2026, but in a pretty exciting way, if only because they’re one of the few things that isn’t hugely affected by RAM prices. And if anyone knows about their OLEDs, it’s Tim Schiesser from Hardware Unboxed. Adam cornered him at the convention to ask him about OLEDs and this fantastic series of burn-in tests that the HUB team has been running for almost two years now.

OLED burn-in is a serious concern for PC users, especially if you plan to invest hundreds of dollars on one. The static nature of a computer’s user interface lends itself much more to burn-in than, say, an OLED TV or phone.

But is it something You should we be worried? Well, it depends, according to Tim. If you’re primarily gaming, probably not: it would act more like a TV than a monitor. But if you use it a lot for typical Windows tasks (50% of the time or more), this could be a problem.

There are things you can do to alleviate it. Use full-screen apps and games whenever possible. Hide the Windows taskbar (if you don’t find it annoying like Tim and I). But the 2-3 year burn-in warranties that come with many OLED monitors might be reassuring. On top of that, most of them come with new technologies and techniques that try to alleviate ghosting issues, like static and taskbar image detection, localized dimming, that sort of thing.

But there’s not much you can do to avoid productivity tasks on an OLED, especially if you spend hours a day on that monitor. One of the most promising new developments is presence detection in the latest monitors. This has been around for a long time as a battery and power saving feature, but directing it towards preserving OLED panels is an interesting approach that could do much more than the various temporary approaches.

This could be a big problem as OLEDs become more popular for PC gaming, especially as prices drop. But before you buy one, you might want to wait for the upcoming OLED Monitors Unboxed burn-in test, which should be released soon. And since you’re already heading to YouTube, why not subscribe to PCWorld for more interviews and check out The Full Nerd for our weekly discussions on all things tech?