Consternation surrounding the display in the Google Pixel 2 XL is well known at this point, and to be honest most of it has been pretty overblown. But we have something new to talk about now: screen burn-in. It's something people with OLED screens worry about (to varying degrees) and something people who prefer LCDs like to poke fun about. But one of our Pixel 2 XL review units, in use for about a week, is already seeing some pretty crazy levels of burn-in. That's some pretty wild OLED burn-in on the Pixel 2 XL after maybe 7 days of full-time use pic.twitter.com/EPJTs6D0Kg — Alex Dobie (@alexdobie) October 22, 2017 Viewing a grey image on the screen, you get a clear look at where the navigation bar has started to settle in on the display. You also interestingly see the portions of pixels where the back, home, and recents buttons go — those don't seem to be burned in themselves (displaying white instead of black), but the outlines clearly show where they are compared to the black portion that's burned in. Or that may be some optical trickery and the buttons are burned in. We're just not sure what we're seeing here. Verizon is offering the Pixel 4a for just $10/mo on new Unlimited lines So as a quick refresher, what is burn-in?

Screen burn-in happens when a portion of the display has the same imagery long enough to cause a ghost image of it to hang around after you change the screen to display something else. It's usually most noticeable in the notification shade or status bar (the clock is notorious for "burning in") but it can also happen with navigation buttons or even home screen icons. It's usually an issue with OLED panels and usually takes a good few months before it starts to show up. When you change what's on your screen, leftover images can stay behind. But they shouldn't. There's also a phenomenon called image retention. Image retention, or ghosting, is a part of the screen staying barely visible even after you've moved away and have something new on the display. Like burn-in, this usually happens with buttons or icons, but anything on your display can leave a ghost image if it's static and on long enough. Image retention is usually associated with LCD panels, and plenty of people with an LG G6 or LG V20 have noticed it. Thankfully, image retention is temporary and will go away on its own after a short time. At first glance, what we see looks more like screen burn-in than image retention. While burn-in is more often associated with OLED and image retention is associated with LCD, there is crossover and you could see either issue on any type of display. As more reports come in and more people have examples to share the problem can hopefully be pinpointed. How to check your screen It can be difficult to see screen burn because we usually have so much information on our screens. Here's a quick test you can do to check your phone. Open this article in a web browser on your phone.

Click and open each of these thumbnails and view the images full screen