What you need to know
- It appears that Samsung has returned its burn-in protection measures to the Galaxy S23 Ultra following its One UI 6.1 update.
- Testing shows elements in its status bar have started shifting slightly every so often to help protect the longevity of the OLED display.
- One UI 6.1 started rolling out to several past-gen devices on March 28, bringing with it a few Galaxy AI features.
Samsung's latest One UI 6.1 update for past-gen devices has seemingly returned a useful longevity feature for your display.
According to Toranji (Persian), Samsung has returned its burn-in protection software for devices rocking an OLED display panel (via 9to5Google). The company's burn-in protection involves a Galaxy device's status bar, which is typically relatively static. From the publication's testing, the status bar on a Galaxy S23 Ultra shifts slightly to the right every few seconds to avoid burn-in.
Testing also showed that Galaxy phone's navigation bar elements shift to help preserve the display's quality.
Burn-in protection helps to ensure that users are left with lingering UI elements after the display is turned off or elements change. The publication notes that users first noticed a lack of burn-in protection on the device following Android 14 in November.
It's unclear if the Galaxy Z Flip 5, Fold 5, and Tab S9 series picked up the return of burn-in protection. It would be odd if Samsung didn't re-enable it for those devices, considering they all boast an AMOLED display like the S23 series.
More importantly, Samsung has kept its promise that it would return the protection measure — albeit a little later than expected. The company confirmed around the time of the S23's January security drop that it would return its burn-in protection. Samsung stated it would arrive with its "next update version," but testing shows its existence following the One UI 6.1 update.
The latest One UI update started rolling out in the U.S. on March 28, bringing the brand's Galaxy AI software to past-gen devices. The Galaxy S23 series, Flip 5, Fold 5, and Tab S9 series were granted access to features like Google's "Circle to Search," Live Translate, online summaries, and more.
A few Generative Edit and Chat Assist features also slipped into the update.
