AW3423DWF, Active protections to mitigate the risk of OLED panel burn-in

Question

Hey, as a new owner of the Alienware AW3423DWF, I'm really surprised that Dell doesn't actively address burn-in prevention. Yes, they have the best warranty and replacement policy in case of burn-in, but wouldn't it also make sense to actively prevent it?

I bought this monitor primarily for gaming, but I occasionally connect my work laptop to it, where I don't have admin rights to change any settings, this is where the problem arises.

The monitor lacks a built-in screensaver, doesn't address static elements, taskbars, HUDs, or logos. It does absolutely nothing beyond basic maintenance. Why? As the owner of a premium panel, am I supposed to modify half my system just to prevent burn-in, while competitors actively solve this issue?

Justifying it with warranty coverage, sure, it has one, but that expires eventually. And Reddit is full of complaints about burn-in.

DELL-Chris M · Answer

The 'Active protection' responsibility is placed on the user. Open the online AW3423DWF User's Guide to page 62. The built-in Menu- Others- OLED Panel Maintenance - Pixel Refresh and Panel Refresh can be run manually by the user. Pixel Refresh: To reduce temporary image retention on the screen, you can manually activate this function after using the monitor for a couple of hours.Panel Refresh: To prevent permanent image retention caused by static content when you use the monitor for 1500 hours, you can manually activate this function to refresh the pixels.

Vojtik · Answer

Sorry. But what kind of response is this? Dell Alienware holds leadership in OLED gaming monitors, and this reply feels like, 'We didn’t do it; the customer will handle it manually.' And that’s not even mentioning that pixel refresh and panel refresh operate on the principle of balancing RGB and ensuring uniform backlighting of individual pixels, which over time gradually reduces the monitor’s overall brightness. I'll translate this into plain language:Dell: 'We have no intention of taking any action in this regard; we don’t even implement a basic screen saver in our monitors. We sell expensive monitors, and if a customer doesn’t want burn-in, they’ll have to manually refresh pixels/screens like a fool—lowering their brightness in the process, though it happens gradually, so they won’t notice.' Am I saying this correctly? Now, seriously—how about thinking for a moment about the fact that the entire competition has these active protection features? I don’t want my Alienware monitor to suffer burn-in after a few years just because someone on Dell’s development team was too lazy to implement even basic functions like a screensaver, taskbar dimmer, or logo protection!

Vanadiel · Answer

@Vojtik​ Pixel refresh runs in the background at certain time intervals. It also shifts the whole screen gradually every so often. The shift feature you cannot disable. As for burn in, if you use static desktops it will guaranteed burn in no matter what protection the monitor offers.  Since I use OLED panels myself, I end up setting my desktop to hide all icons, auto hide the taskbar, and set a uniform grey as desktop background image. I also turn the monitor to standby after 5 minutes of inactivity under Windows. I did this because prior to this I did have icons burned in, and even the Windows background desktop burned in with all burn-in prevention features turned on.

Vojtik · Answer

Is it really so difficult for Dell to implement such a basic function as a screen saver during inactivity? Isn't the electronics of Alienware monitors prepared for this?
If I connect the monitor to a work laptop, I am dependent on the organization's settings, and the OLED suffers the most, while competitors have a screen saver, logo protection, HUD protection, and taskbar protection running...
Do these active protections really have no impact on burn-in? I find that hard to believe

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AW3423DWF, Active protections to mitigate the risk of OLED panel burn-in

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