14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ come with always-on home buttons on their displays, to replace the physical home button which was ditched on this year’s flagship. But there has been the question regarding burn-in caused by the capacitive home button.
Samsung Netherlands has confirmed on the company’s Twitter account that the home button won’t be built into the display of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ smartphones. GalaxyClub tested the feature and noticed that the home button changes its location slightly, with a few pixels at a time, to prevent burn-in.
It’s an ingenious mechanism that users don’t notice, but makes sure that no long-term damages are brought to the Infinity Display. Because the capacity home button moves only a few pixels at a time, there’s no risk of it leaving a permanent mark on the screen.
No display burn-ins for the Galaxy S8
Display burns-ins result when an item on the screen has been in the same location for a long time, resulting in leaving a permanent mark on the screen. Sadly, the mark would be visible even when the display is turned off, considering that the image was basically burnt into the screen.
The same problem can be spotted with smartwatches and other devices that use always-on display. To avoid this from happening, screensavers were used in the past, but there’s no need to do so with the Galaxy S8.
When Samsung first introduced the Always On Display feature on the Galaxy S7, some were worried that notifications displayed on the screen would result in AMOLED burn-in. But at the time, Samsung did inform consumers that the position of the clock and notifications would slightly change from time to time, in order to avoid leaving a permanent mark on the screen.
The capacitive home button on the Galaxy S8 works in the same way as the Always On Display feature, as the white square icon at the bottom of the device is visible even when the phone is asleep.