The Samsung Galaxy S8 uses a virtual home button that is pretty much always-on, which led to some wondering if this could result in a display burn in over time. However Samsung has confirmed that this will not happen and upon further investigation, it was discovered that the Galaxy S8’s home button will shift around by a few pixels just to prevent it from staying in place.
Sounds good, right? Unfortunately according to a report from The Korea Herald, it seems that there is already at least one complaint from a Galaxy S8 owner who is reporting that they are experiencing screen burn ins, which for those unfamiliar is a discoloration of the phone’s display as a result of prolonged use of static images. This is also why in the past with CRT monitors, screensavers were typically used to prevent this from happening.
Those who are reporting about the burn ins are claiming that this has happened in the lower part of the screen where the pressure-sensitive soft key is placed, and where the virtual home button is located at as well. According to a Samsung spokesman, “An algorithm to prevent burn-ins is already equipped. Whether the consumer’s claim turns out to be true or not remains to be seen. At the moment, we are not receiving reports of other cases.”
Note that this is the only reported case that we have heard about so far, so it is possible either it is fake, or it could be a one-off incident where maybe that customer got a bad unit, but either way we’ll keep our eyes and ears peeled for more reports if they surface (which hopefully won’t be the case).
