ASUS Is Upgrading Its OLED Gaming Monitor Warranty For Coverage Against Burn-In
ASUS is giving gamers who are interested in buying an OLED gaming monitor a bit of added peace of mind that burn-in won't rear its ugly head, and if it does, that they will be covered. Somewhat tucked away in the specifications for its OLED displays, ASUS now explicitly states that burn-in is covered as part of its two-year warranty. LG did the same last summer.
The updated policy isn't immediately evident when browsing different OLED models that ASUS carries. Some of the product pages do prominently list a "2-year warranty" with a clickable link to "Learn more," though the link is either dead ("We're sorry, the page you're looking for can't be found") or it takes you to a support section that doesn't specifically mention burn-in.
However, as spotted by TFTCentral, you can find the updated terminology when looking at the specifications section for each OLED monitor. And indeed, the listings we looked at—including both the ROG Swift PG34WCDM and ROG Swift PG32UCDM—mention burn-in coverage. To see it, click on the 'Tech Specs' tab at the top of each product page and then scroll down to the warranty section at the bottom.
Whether two years of burn-in coverage will be enough to sway buyers who are concerned about the phenomenon, that remains to be seen. Still, it's nice to see ASUS leave out any ambiguity as to whether burn-in would even be covered in the first place.
OLED has come a long way since the early days, as it applies to burn-in. Manufacturers employ various measures of protection to reduce the risk of an image being permanently seared into the display. ASUS employs what it calls "OLED Care" software, which consists of several mechanisms to avoid burn-in, such as adjusting the brightness of logos and a pixel cleaning option.
As ASUS describes it, pixel cleaning "recalibrates the screen when the monitor has been active for a period of several hours. The process takes just a few minutes and activates automatically when the monitor is turned off."
Compare to other display technologies, OLED still typically offers the best image quality, as well as a virtually non-existent response time because of how the technology works. And more recently, we've seen prices on OLED displays (particularly in the TV space) come down.
The downside is the potential for burn-in, which is something that doesn't affect LCD screens, including immensely bright mini LED panels. Still, it's nice to have options all the same.
