It came to light that Asus extended its OLED monitor warranties yesterday, offering a 2-year burn-in cover (h/t TFT Central) for the first time. We don’t know whether it is a coincidence or if MSI has found an opportunity to one-up its rival, but today, it was announced that MSI OLED monitors are set to benefit from a new 3-year burn-in warranty. Now it’s your move: Asus, Gigabyte, LG, Samsung, etc.
MSI describes the plight of OLED monitor buyers clearly and succinctly. “While OLED panels have become the preferred choice for high-end gaming, the OLED burn-in issue has consistently been a major concern for all users,” it says on its new blog. Indeed, we know Tom’s Hardware readers are concerned by this issue.
The solution MSI talks about above isn’t just about having greater confidence in the newest OLED panels and thus extending OLED burn-in warranties for three years. MSI is also applying some behind-the-scenes technology dubbed ‘MSI OLED Care 2.0’. Therefore, the new extended warranties apply to monitors which work with MSI OLED Care 2.0, and which are listed below:
- MAG 271QPX QD-OLED
- MAG 321UPX QD-OLED
- MAG 341CQP QD-OLED
- MPG 271QRX QD-OLED
- MPG 321URX QD-OLED
- MPG 491CQP QD-OLED
- MEG 342C QD-OLED
Interestingly, MSI first detailed its OLED care technology last March. Perhaps it has had enough time to truly ascertain how well the tech protects OLED monitors from burn-in. It may have been running a bunch of the above monitors 24-7 since a year ago, much like the good folks over at RTINGS.com. We last wrote about RTINGS OLED burn-in research findings in December when it revealed that all the monitors it torture-tested over ten months suffered some degree of burn-in. However, that accelerated testing was said to be roughly equivalent to roughly four years and two months of real-world use.
MSI OLED Care 2.0 works a lot like the technologies applied by other monitor and TV makers. In essence, the tech mixes techniques such as pixel shift and pixel luminance adjustments (when the monitor is on) and pixel refresh (when the monitor is on standby). Quite a lot of smarts are required to apply pixel luminance adjustment technology. MSI says its OLED Care 2.0 can detect potential burn-in-inducing display elements like on-screen logos, UI taskbars, and media playback boundaries – reducing the luminance in these areas to lower the burn-in potential. Also, a static screen detection function can dim the whole display if it thinks the user has wandered off (settings in the OSD).
We welcome extended warranties to cover OLED burn-in, as this type of display panel is featured in some of the best gaming monitors. We also hope the warranty cover lives up to the expectations of monitor users. Sadly, we need to check for longer-term user experiences to see if companies are fully honoring such warranties and not hiding behind obscure T&Cs when things go wrong.
