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One of the greatest advancements in television design to come to the fore during CES 2021 is mini-LEDs, the extra-tiny light-emitting diodes used in the backlighting of some of the newer and larger smart TVs. 2021 is shaping up to be the Year of the Mini LED TV, as Samsung and LG join TCL to use mini LED backlight technology to make TVs better than ever.
Here’s our quick look at TVs with mini LEDs in 2021, why mini LEDs are such an improvement over traditional LCDs, and why this mundane sound technology is one of the most exciting developments for TV buyers. For years.
Mini LED Basics
The mini-LED may seem like a relatively minor change, but the technology offers real improvements in LCD TVs. Lighting and brightness are key factors in creating a great TV picture. Besides color and contrast, brightness makes a huge difference in how a TV can display a picture. You can get a more detailed explanation of mini LED technology in our guide Micro-LED vs Mini-LED: what’s the difference?, but these are the main features.
As televisions have evolved over the decades, the technology used to place moving pictures in our homes has changed dramatically. Although older CRT and plasma technologies and current OLED TVs are self-immissive (producing their own light), since the switch to LCD panels, the majority of TVs on the market need a separate backlight as part of the frame. of the TV screen. This once meant fluorescent lighting, but modern TVs use smaller, more efficient LED backlights.
Behind the LCD panel is one of the many backlight options, producing the light that makes the TV screen glow. On basic TVs, this backlight can take the form of edge lighting, which rings the screen with LEDs, or full backlighting, which uses an array of LED lights to provide consistent backlighting on the screen. screen, and more high-end TVs have a full range with local dimming. , which divides this lighting matrix into distinct addressable zones. These areas can be brightened or dimmed independently, with brightness mapped to match bright or dark parts of the screen for a more dynamic picture.
This local dimming is one of the determining factors for the introduction of HDR formats, with LED brightness capable of reaching higher levels than older fluorescent-lit panels, with more controlled backlighting. The result is a combination of lighting technology and media formatting that results in deeper shadows, brighter reflections, and more vivid colors.
The mini LED promises a significant improvement over this development, allowing a much higher number of discrete dimming areas. Measuring about a fifth the size of a standard LED light, mini LEDs are really tiny. The mini range LEDs are only 0.008 inches (200 microns) in diameter. The smaller LEDs light up a smaller portion of the screen and can be clustered more closely, allowing areas limited to a handful of pixels rather than sections of the screen that can measure several square inches.
But that’s not the only thing the mini LED has to offer. The smaller physical dimensions of these individual LEDs will also allow LCD TVs to be thinner than they have ever been.
So with promising mini LEDs from slimmer TVs looking better and brighter than ever, you’d expect a steep price hike and only see this new technology in the more expensive models, right? Well, this is where the mini LED offers its best feature – affordability.
You’ll pay a bit more for TVs with mini LEDs in the coming months, but probably not much. TCL’s impressive 6-Series Roku TVs offer mini-LED backlighting at an extremely reasonable price – under $ 1,000 for all but the larger 75-inch model – and the improvements in picture quality are clear. We can only hope that this same price-conscious philosophy will be applied to new models from Samsung and LG, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Manufacturers are betting big on mini LED TVs
TCL introduced its first mini-LED TV in 2019, but the 2020 TCL 6 Series TV of the Year (R635) refined the technology and brought it to an affordable TV. The result has been some of the best TV values we’ve ever seen, and Samsung and LG have clearly paid attention, as they both have new mini-LED TVs on the way this year.
And now that big manufacturers have turned to mini-LEDs, new innovations built on top of these tiny diodes are already emerging.
Samsung plans to bring the new technology to its premium 4K and 8K TVs this year with the Samsung Neo QLED line. Samsung’s mini-LED technology includes tiny diffusers integrated into each mini-LED, eliminating the need for a separate diffuser panel between the backlight and the LCD screen.
Samsung pairs these mini LEDs with its QLED quantum dot enhanced LCD panels and calls the new models Neo QLED, and takes center stage on all of Samsung’s high-end 4K and 8K TVs. We’ve loved Samsung QLED TVs in the past, so we’re excited to see how the new models are improved with new technology.
LG is also jumping on the mini-LED bandwagon, adding the tiny backlights to several of its mid-range LCD TVs, which it calls LG QNED.
LG takes a different approach, adding mini-LED backlighting to its mid-range Nanocell TVs and updating these panels with hybrid technology that combines Nanocell filtering and quantum dot color enhancement. This trio of improvements just might make LG’s new QNED TV line the best LCD TV on the market, but we’ll have to test it to be sure.
Finally, TCL is the only company to offer mini-LED televisions that already have mini-LEDs on the market. After introducing the mini-LED to its 8 Series TVs in 2019 and the award-winning Roku 6 Series TV in 2020, TCL presents TCL OD-Zero, a new mini-LED implementation that eliminates the gaps between the mini-LED backlight and the LCD panel. The result should not only be slimmer TV designs, but an even better implementation of the mini LED.
TCL’s existing mini LED designs will continue to sell throughout the new year, with the 2020 6 Series 4K sets continuing to be the primary 4K offering of the new year. The TCL 6 Series model range will expand with new 8K models in 2021, but mini-LEDs will continue to be a defining feature of value-driven smart TVs.
Should you expect a mini LED TV?
With new mini-LED TVs on the horizon, but at least a few months from now, the reasonable question TV buyers need to ask is whether mini-LEDs are worth the wait. Should you expect a mini LED TV?
The answer is yes, but it is not mandatory. Our TCL 6-Series Roku TV (R635) review named the affordable smart TV an editor’s choice in part because its mini-LED backlighting offered superior control over brightness and brightness, and it still tops our list of best TVs as the best. price-performance ratio in the market.
If you’re looking to wait for a similar set of mini LEDs from Samsung or LG, you’ll have to wait for those TVs to launch this spring. We expect to get more details on models and pricing in February, and estimate that new TVs will launch in March or April.
Going forward, unless you are on the tightest budget, we will definitely recommend buyers to go with the mini LED when available. The improvement in picture quality is significant and the increase in the price of a TV is negligible, making it a must-have for TV buyers in the coming year.
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