Moto 360 Users Reporting Image Retention Issue; Gold Edition Spotted

Motorola's first smartwatch, the Moto 360, has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons lately. First it was a teardown report that dragged Motorola into a controversy related to the battery capacity being publicised by the company.

Now, multiple Moto 360 users are reporting image retention issue on the LCD display, which continues to show the spherical charging status bar even after removing the smartwatch from charge. Additionally, a promo image showing a Gold variant of Moto 360 briefly appeared before being changed completely.

Android Police reported the issue and first picked it from a Google+ user named Corey M, who posted an image of a Moto 360's screen showing the image retention issue after charging. The Google+ user said, "The device got stuck powering off and it got extremely hot. Now I get a screen burn-in (not sure the technical term) effect every time I take it off the charger. Having ambient screen 'ON' leaves my watch face burnt in the display. Customer service has been a drag."

Soon the issue was also reported by a Reddit user who wrote on the Moto 360 thread titled 'Charging screen image burn-in', "Has anyone else run in to this issue? I've had the 360 for three days now without any problems. I just let it charge for about 20 minutes and picked it up to see this (I just reset the phone with the hope of it being a software issue). What I've tried so far to no avail: Resetting watch and powering off for an hour."

For those unaware, the image retention or image persistence is defined as the LCD and plasma display equivalent of screen burn with temporary screen burn effects.

Android Police in a report points out that the screen burn-in issue on LCD displays is temporary as compared to that seen on AMOLED displays. Some of the common fixes noted in the report include "shutting the screen off for some length of time and displaying a moving image to knock the pixels back into line."

Currently the image retention issue on the Moto 360 has been reported by few users; however, a fix in the upcoming software update can be expected.

In other news, a possible Gold variant of Moto 360 was spotted in a teaser image shared by Motorola. Android Police first spotted the promo image and even contacted Motorola for confirmation about a possible Moto 360 Gold variant. Here's what Motorola had to say about the Gold coloured Moto 360, "Although we can't comment on gold specifically, we're always exploring new materials and we intend to provide Moto 360 in a selection of styles in the future." The Moto 360 is currently available in Black and White colours.

Motorola's smartwatch was listed as 'sold out' soon after going on sale online in the US; although the stock of Moto 360 was replenished on Motorola's official store last week.