When ‘next gen’ (eg. PS5) becomes the new ‘current gen’, then the old ‘last gen’ becomes retro.

Yes, over 2.5 years of heavy use; Including ~8hrs of spreadsheets and SQL (Mon - Fri), in addition to waaay too many hours of WOW (fixed HUD) than I’d care to admit.

Consider also then, that Wulff Den ran an OLED Switch for 18,000 hours (two years straight) at max brightness, on a relatively “cheap-quality” (his words) panel: YT link

Additional point: My iPhone Xs was my daily driver until 18 months ago, and now has been relegated to a baby monitor duty (static video for ~18hrs a day) and also does not have any burn-in visible. The brightness on it isn’t cranked all the way to 100%, but neither I would your desktop.

LG and Samsung (the key W-OLED & QD-OLED manufacturers) have implemented firmware-level optimisations to ensure that burn-in is minimised, if not outright eliminated in real-world situations. Again, refer to the Wulff Den video for the amount of effort he had to go to in order to cause the burn-in he did.

All I’m advocating for is not taking “the Internet says” as gospel, as a LOT of the OLED information is either outdated or irrelevant (cheaper/seconds OLED panels from tertiary manufacturers who omit maintenance cycles from their firmware).

It’s a C1; I got it in November ‘21.

This year they’re releasing the C4s, and the C3s are going on heavy discount.

I’m using an LG C1 48in OLED as my primary work/play display (8+ hours use per day), and it has no sign of burn-in.

The general fear over burn-in is over-exaggerated, and the technology has improved leaps and bounds over those early generations.

Granted there was no standardisation in the industry, but I’m pretty sure they used the same remote across most of my portable MiniDisc players growing up (ie. from MZ-R55 to MZ-R900… the MZ-NH1 had a different remote altogether)… I didn’t even realise there were restrictions?

The issue with the inline controls that evolved since (and morphed into Bluetooth controls) is that they’re too basic, compared to what I’d like.

On the go, I long since ago switched to wireless audio - using AirPods Pro and a ‘vintage’ Apple Watch 3, but I would gladly opt for a wireless/bluetooth lapel clip style object with the same controls those old Sony had.

I’ve had a quick look around - but haven’t managedd to find anything that would fit the bill. Honestly, not even sure if smartphones offer sufficient functionality over Bluetooth to make something like that work out of the box?

If you’ve never used an inline remote, it’s really hard to explain why they were so much better from a UX perspective than what’s available now.

If I want to control media on my smartwatch, I need to flick focus on my wrist - usually stopping me from being able to fully use that hand, identify the right controls on the touch screen (and that it’s even on the right screen, and not obstructed by notifications) and hope that they register correctly.

Those old inline remotes were basically a useful ‘Bop It!’; control inputs varied: twist a dial, tilt the end, button press, slide, scroll dial and provided full tactile control which could be truly used one-handed (when clipped to my shirt).

It is a true shame that they were left by the wayside, when multiple devices ended up amalgamating into the modern smartphone.

I have one - but its touch screen is no replacement for bespoke, tactile controls.

This is all well and good, especially from a nostalgia perspective (in addition to the general pushback against cloud everything); but what I miss most about portable music nowadays is the lack of decent inline remotes (think early 2000s Sony MiniDisc players).

The player stated in your pocket, and the remote handled everything, volume, playback, and even had a dot-matrix screen to identify and navigate playlists!