The on-screen Home button of the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus boasts an anti-burn-in measure that’s meant to prevent OLED burn-in, the Dutch division of Samsung revealed on Tuesday. While responding to a question from a customer on Twitter, a representative of the South Korean consumer electronics manufacturer said that the Home button of its new pair of Android flagships gradually fades in and out when the Always-On Display (AOD) feature of the phone is enabled. Limited testing of the functionality performed by some users confirmed as much, seeing how the on-screen Home button is not only fading like described above but is also slightly changing its position on the screen over time, all with the goal of preventing burn-in.
This particular functionality was already featured in Samsung’s range of Tizen-powered smartwatches like the Gear S3 Classic and the Gear S3 Frontier and it seems that the anti-burn-in measure that the company came up with is efficient as not a lot of owners of those devices have ever complained about such an anomaly. Given that state of affairs, Samsung will likely opt to implement this feature in its future flagship products that support AOD. One particular device that’s expected to boast this functionality is the Galaxy Note 8 that’s scheduled to be released in the second half of this year. The successor to the discontinued 2016 phablet will likely boast a screen that’s somewhat bigger than the 6.2-inch QHD+ display panel featured on the Galaxy S8 Plus, but should otherwise be identical to the one present on the company’s latest Android flagship.
Regarding the Galaxy S8 family, Samsung’s new high-end phone lineup was officially released on Friday following a month-long marketing campaign that’s still far from over. While Samsung’s mobile division went through a troublesome final quarter of 2016 due to the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco, it’s now expected to make amends for that ordeal as both the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus are predicted to break many sales records and outsell all other Android-powered competitors released this year. An update on the commercial performance of Samsung’s new handsets should follow later this spring.