lcd panel living room brands

a line of extreme and ultra-narrow bezel LCD displays that provides a video wall solution for demanding requirements of 24x7 mission-critical applications and high ambient light environments

a line of extreme and ultra-narrow bezel LCD displays that provides a video wall solution for demanding requirements of 24x7 mission-critical applications and high ambient light environments

STONE Technologies is a proud manufacturer of superior quality TFT LCD modules and LCD screens. The company also provides intelligent HMI solutions that perfectly fit in with its excellent hardware offerings.

STONE TFT LCD modules come with a microcontroller unit that has a 1GHz Cortex-A8 CPU. Such a module can easily be transformed into an HMI screen. Simple hexadecimal instructions can be used to control the module through the UART port. Furthermore, you can seamlessly develop STONE TFT LCD color user interface modules and add touch control, features to them.

Becoming a reputable TFT LCD manufacturer is no piece of cake. It requires a company to pay attention to detail, have excellent manufacturing processes, the right TFT display technology, and have a consumer mindset.

Now, we list down 10 of the best famous LCD manufacturers globally. We’ll also explore why they became among the top 10 LCD display Manufacturers in the world.

Interface Devises Business includes Display and Senor, Sensor, and Application Solutions. As a leading company in the global semiconductor display industry, BOE has made the Chinese display industry develop from scratch to maturity and prosperity. Now, more than one-quarter of the global display panels are made by BOE, with its UHD, flexible display, microdisplay, and other solutions broadly applied to well-known worldwide brands.

LG Display is a leading manufacturer of thin-film transistor liquid crystal displays (TFT-LCD) panels, OLED, and flexible displays.LG Display began developing TFT-LCD in 1987 and currently offers Display panels in a variety of sizes and specifications using different cutting-edge technologies (IPS, OLED, and flexible technology).

Founded in 2003, Innolink listed its shares in Taiwan in 2006. In March 2010, it merged with Chi Mei Optoelectronics and Tong Bao Optoelectronics, the largest merger in the panel industry. Qunchuang is the surviving company and Chi Mei Electronics is the company name. In December 2012, it was renamed As Qunchuang Optoelectronics.

With innovative and differentiated technologies, QINNOOptoelectronics provides advanced display integration solutions, including 4K2K ultra-high resolution, 3D naked eye, IGZO, LTPS, AMOLED, OLED, and touch solutions. Qinnooptoelectronics sets specifications and leads the market. A wide range of product line is across all kinds of TFT LCD panel modules, touch modules, for example, TV panel, desktop and laptop computer monitor with panels, small and medium scale “panels, medical, automotive, etc., the supply of cutting-edge information and consumer electronics customers around the world, for the world TFT – LCD (thin-film transistor liquid crystal display) leading manufacturers.

AU Optronics Co., LTD., formerly AU Optronics Corporation, was founded in August 1996. It changed its name to AU Optronics after its merger with UNIOPtronics in 2001. Through two mergers, AU has been able to have a full range of generations of production lines for panels of all sizes.Au Optronics is a TFT-LCD design, manufacturing, and r&d company. Since 2008, au Optronics has entered the green energy industry, providing customers with high-efficiency solar energy solutions.

Sharp has been called the “father of LCD panels”.Since its founding in 1912, Sharp developed the world’s first calculator and LIQUID crystal display, represented by the living pencil, which was invented as the company name. At the same time, Sharp is actively expanding into new areas to improve people’s living standards and social progress. Made a contribution.

BYD IT products and businesses mainly include rechargeable batteries, plastic mechanism parts, metal parts, hardware electronic products, cell phone keys, microelectronics products, LCD modules, optoelectronics products, flexible circuit boards, chargers, connectors, uninterruptible power supplies, DC power supplies, solar products, cell phone decoration, cell phone ODM, cell phone testing, cell phone assembly business, notebook computer ODM, testing and manufacturing and assembly business, etc.

Tianma microelectronics co., LTD., founded in 1983, the company focus on smartphones, tablets, represented by high order laptop display market of consumer goods and automotive, medical, POS, HMI, etc., represented by professional display market, and actively layout smart home, intelligent wear, AR/VR, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and other emerging markets, to provide customers with the best product experience.IN terms of technology, the company has independently mastered leading technologies such as LTPS-TFT, AMOLED, flexible display, Oxide-TFT, 3D display, transparent display, and in-cell/on-cell integrated touch control. TFT-LCD key Materials and Technologies National Engineering Laboratory, national enterprise Technology Center, post-doctoral mobile workstation, and undertake national Development and Reform Commission, The Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and other major national thematic projects. The company’s long-term accumulation and continuous investment in advanced technology lay the foundation for innovation and development in the field of application.

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The Hisense U8H matches the excellent brightness and color performance of much pricier LCD TVs, and its Google TV smart platform is a welcome addition. But it’s available in only three screen sizes.

The Hisense U8H is the best LCD/LED TV for most people because it delivers the performance of a much pricier TV yet starts at under $1,000, for the smallest (55-inch) screen size. This TV utilizes quantum dots, a full-array backlight with mini-LEDs, and a 120 Hz refresh rate to deliver a great-looking 4K HDR image. It’s compatible with every major HDR format. And it’s equipped with two full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 inputs to support 4K 120 Hz gaming from the newest Xbox and PlayStation consoles. Add in the intuitive, fully featured Google TV smart-TV platform, and the U8H’s price-to-performance ratio is of inarguable value.

Key to this functionality is the U8H’s employment of mini-LED backlighting with local dimming, which allows this TV to produce very bright light while still maintaining satisfyingly deep black levels that are typically free of blooming (or light bleed that’s visible around bright objects against a dark backdrop). This not only ensures impressive image contrast, it also makes the U8H a viable choice for most rooms, whether they’re brighter than average or dimmed down like a movie theater.

And thanks to Hisense’s inclusion of Filmmaker Mode, it’s easy to rein in the U8H’s brightness abilities for a more-subdued and filmic experience in a darker room. Our measurements revealed that this mode has a very accurate white balance, mostly accurate colors (green is a bit oversaturated, but not egregiously so), and a perfect “dark room” gamma (which controls how quickly the video signal transitions from dark to light). Additionally, the TV’s 120 Hz refresh rate means it can play Blu-ray discs at 24 fps without the judder that’s usually present on TVs with 60 Hz refresh rates.

In terms of design, the Hisense U8H is not as svelte as our upgrade pick, but it’s plenty sturdy and doesn’t look or feel cheap. Two narrow, metal feet jut out from beneath the panel and steadily hold the TV. They can be attached in two separate spots, either closer in toward the middle of the panel or out toward the edges, to account for different-size TV stands. The feet are also equipped with cable organization clasps—a nice touch for keeping your TV stand free of cable clutter. Though the TV is primarily plastic, its bezels are lined with metal strips, providing a bit more durability in the long run. I moved it around my home, and it was no worse for wear, but we’ll know more after doing some long-term testing.

The Hisense U8H has some difficulties with banding, or areas of uneven gradation, where transitions that should appear smooth instead look like “bands” of color (sometimes also called posterization). Like many current 4K HDR TVs, the U8H uses an 8-bit panel rather than a 10-bit panel, which affects the color decoding and color presentation process. This is usually relevant only with HDR video and games. When playing games on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, I saw a few instances where the content wasn’t rendered correctly and displayed ugly splotches of color on the screen. However, this almost always occurred during static screens (such as a pause menu or loading screen); I rarely spotted it during actual gameplay. Hisense has stated that it would address the problem in a future firmware update, but at the time of writing it was still present. This is a flaw that may give dedicated gamers pause, but we don’t consider it to be a dealbreaker for most people.

Finally, like most TVs that use vertical alignment (VA) LCD panels, the U8H has a limited horizontal viewing angle, which may be a bit annoying if you’re hoping to entertain a large crowd. Our upgrade pick uses a special wide-angle technology to address this.

If you’re watching in a darker room and want the most accurate picture you can get—preserving the director’s intent—select the U8H’s Filmmaker Mode as your picture mode. In a brighter room, we recommend the Theater Day picture mode. In either case, you should go into the backlight settings, disable the automatic light sensor, and set the backlight to your personal preference. This is true whether you’re watching SDR or HDR content.

Whether from the BRILLIANT™, BOLD™, or EMPIRE™ product series, our LED screens come in a vast array of sizes and pixel pitches for numerous indoor and outdoor applications. Whether you need an LED display screen for a conference room or one big enough to cover a skyscraper, SNA Displays has the custom-engineering knowledge and experience to make your vision come to life. We also have all-in-one, out-of-the-box LED screens perfect for on-the-go messaging.

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Many TVs use LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) panels that are lit by LED backlights. There are two popular types of LCD panels: In-Plane Switching (IPS) and Vertical Alignment (VA), and there are two main differences between each type. A VA panel usually has a high contrast ratio and narrow viewing angles. However, an IPS panel has low contrast and wide viewing angles. These are the main differences between each, and for the most part, panel type doesn"t affect other aspects of picture quality, like peak brightness, color gamut, or color accuracy.

For the purposes of this article, we"re going to compare two LED-backlit LCD TVs: the Sony X800H, which has an IPS panel, and the Hisense H9G, which has a VA panel. Due to their different panel types, there are three noticeable differences in picture quality: viewing angles, contrast, and black uniformity, so we"re going to look at each one.

Viewing angle refers to the angle at which you can watch the TV without seeing a noticeable drop in picture quality. IPS TVs are the clear winner here, as the image remains accurate when viewing from the side - you can see the differences in the videos above. This is their main advantage over VA panels. Most VA panel TVs have a noticeable loss in image accuracy when viewing from the side. The narrow viewing angle of VA-type TVs is also problematic when the TV is used as a PC monitor from up close since the edges of the display look washed out.

VA panels are far superior to IPS panels when it comes to this, so if you tend to watch movies in the dark, you likely want to get a TV with a VA panel. Most TVs use VA panels due to this main advantage, and high-end models may have a local dimming feature that further enhances black levels. On the other hand, IPS panels normally have low contrast, so blacks look closer to gray, but you may not notice the difference in contrast in bright environments.

Our black uniformity tests determine how well a TV displays a dark scene with a bright image in the center. Ideally, you want to see a completely black screen with the center cross being the only part that"s lit up, and this is important for people watching movies. No LED TV has perfect uniformity, and unlike viewing angles and contrast, the panel type doesn"t completely determine its black uniformity. However, most VA panels that we"ve tested have good black uniformity, while most IPS panels have sub-par black uniformity. This doesn"t mean that every VA panel TV has good uniformity, as this can change between units, and you can also improve uniformity using the local dimming feature.

LCDs function by having liquid crystals in little groups to form the pixels. These crystals react and change position when charged with electricity and, depending on their position, they allow a certain color of light to pass through.

There"s also another type of IPS panel, called Plane-to-Line Switching (PLS), which can be seen with the Sony X800H. This panel type was designed by Samsung and technically performs the same as an IPS panel. When you compare the pixels visually, IPS panels look like chevrons, VA looks like very straight rectangles, and PLS looks like round-edged capsules. You can learn more about pixels here.

The way the pixels are laid out can also affect text clarity. Many IPS panels, like the ones on the Sony X800H or the LG SK9000, use RGB sub-pixel layouts, while many VA panels have a BGR layout, like on the Hisense H9G. The sub-pixel layout doesn"t directly affect picture quality unless you"re using it as a PC monitor. Some applications may expect an RGB layout, so if you have a BGR sub-pixel layout, text may not look clear. You may need to increase the text scaling to read it properly, but this issue isn"t common with an RGB layout. You can learn more about it here.

Unlike LED TVs, OLEDs don"t use a backlight and instead have self-emitting pixels. This allows the pixels to individually turn on and off, resulting in perfect blacks. This means that they also have perfect black uniformity as there"s no blooming around bright objects like on some LED TVs. They also have wide viewing angles, sometimes even wider than some IPS panels, so OLEDs are a good choice for wide seating arrangements.

Samsung released quantum dot TVs in 2015, which they later labeled as QLED in 2017. These TVs include a quantum dot layer between the LED backlights and the LCD panel to achieve a wider color gamut. Other companies like Vizio and TCL also use this quantum dot technology on their TVs. Adding this extra quantum dot layer doesn"t change the characteristics of the panel type; the VA panel on the TCL 6 Series/S635 2020 QLED still has a high contrast ratio and narrow viewing angles. Although most QLED TVs use VA panels, you can easily use an IPS panel as well.

Manufacturers have tried different techniques to improve the viewing angles on VA panels over the years, aiming to produce a perfect LCD panel with both wide viewing angles and high contrast. While they have yet to achieve that goal, a few TVs have hit the market that try to combine the best of both panel types. The first TVs with this viewing angle technology came out in 2018, and only a few high-end models like the Samsung Q90/Q90T QLED and the Sony X950H had this technology in 2020. These TVs are a bit unique, delivering noticeably better viewing angles than their pure VA counterparts, but still worse than true IPS panels. This comes at the expense of a lower contrast ratio, as these TVs have worse native contrast than most VA panels, but they"re still better than IPS panels. Combined with their local dimming features, they still produce deep blacks.

Between IPS and VA panels, neither technology is inherently superior to the other as they both serve different purposes. In general, IPS TVs have wide viewing angles suitable for when you want to watch the big game or your favorite show in a large seating arrangement. They"re also beneficial for use as a PC monitor since the edges remain accurate if you sit up close. However, VA panels are a better choice for watching content in dark rooms, as their improved contrast allows them to display deep blacks. Choosing between the two is a series of trade-offs and qualities, so choosing the best TV for your needs depends on your usage.

Samsung has so far avoided producing OLED displays like those of LG. So, instead of striking a deal to use LG’s panels, Samsung branded its own LCD tech “QLED.” For a detailed breakdown, check out our QLED TV versus OLED TV comparison, but the general gist is this: QLED uses quantum dots to enhance performance by producing a purer, full-spectrum white light than LEDs are capable of on their own. In practice, QLED televisions are brighter (better for bright rooms) than less-expensive LCD TVs, and unlike OLED, can be more affordably built into large displays (100 inches and beyond).

OLED — Organic Light Emitting Diode — is the premier display technology today. OLED TV panels are capable of reaching black levels never before seen, with better contrast across the board, and because the pixels themselves light up, OLED televisions boast quicker response times (and less input lag) than other types of displays, and the picture integrity is stunning at any viewing distance. To see how OLED stacks up against regular old LED, take a look at our OLED vs. LED comparison.

Sony is one of a handful of companies offering OLED televisions (the list has recently expanded to include Panasonic, Philips, Hisense, and Vizio) thanks to a deal with LG allowing Sony to build TVs using LG panels. Due to the Cognitive Processor XR chip, Sony’s Bravia flagship TVs offer greater contrast, improved sound, low input lag, and faster web performance than we’ve ever seen. Sony’s newer TVs also offer VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) for gaming, particularly with the PlayStation 5.

Additionally, TCL expanded into Google TV territory last year with theirpopular 5- and 6-Series panels equipped with the latest Google TV operating system. While the new sets were briefly pulled from U.S. Best Buy shelves due to software issues, a fix was issued and the retailer now stocks the popular TVs again.

Chinese manufacturer Hisense has been steadily making moves in the TV market over the years, licensing Sharp’s brand name(and buying its North American factory outright in 2015), buying Toshiba’s business in 2017, and making TVs under all three names for the U.S. market. Hisense had a rocky start but found a rhythm in making value-conscious Quantum 4K panels. In fact, their quality has improved so much that one of the latest versions, the Hisense U7G with HDR support, is one of our new recommended picks for a TV under $1,000 — and it has new, affordable 8K TVs now as well.

With choices between Roku, Google TV, Fire TV, and more, buyers can pick the smart platform they like here, with plenty of options for budget-friendly purchases. The company is also making use of its TriChroma laser tech for improved color accuracy, and “ULED” panel technology to enhance images. Its latest Google TV picks also offer mini-LED panels, while the U6H Fire comes with Quantum Dot color, so you also have plenty of panel technologies to choose from. The latest 2022 models even have FreeSync and Game Mode Plus for gamers.

As with Samsung, Vizio is big on quantum-dot-powered panels. This is especially evident for the brand’s 2022 models, especially when it comes to the MQX and P-Series Quantum X series. And on top of quantum-enhanced colors and contrast, while you won’t find mini-LED tech on these 2022 models, the sheer number of traditional LED local dimming zones that are in place make for a totally arresting image packed with brightness, color detail, lifelike contrast, and minimal light blooming.

What size TV do you need? Here are a few tips for picking the right size TV for any room, including ideal viewing distance and picture quality versus size.

Shopping for a new TV sounds like it could be fun and exciting — the prospect of a gleaming new panel adorning your living room wall is enough to give you goosebumps. But with all the brands to choose from, and different smart capabilities (we can explain what a smart TV is) to weigh, as well as the latest picture tech to consider, it can be daunting. Is this article, we compare OLED vs. LED technology to see which is better for today’s modern TVs. Once you determine which panel type is best for you, make sure you check out our list of the best TVs to get our editor’s recommendations.

Non-OLED TVs are made of two main parts: An LCD panel and a backlight. The LCD panel contains the pixels, the little colored dots that make up a TV’s image. On their own, pixels cannot be seen; they require a backlight. When light from the backlight shines through an LCD pixel, you can see its color.

The “LED” in LED TV simply refers to how the backlight is made. In the past, a thicker and less-efficient technology called CCFL (cold-cathode fluorescent light) was used. But these days, virtually every flat-screen TV uses LEDs as its source of backlighting. Thus, when you see the term “LED TV,” it simply refers to an LED-backlit LCD TV.

Currently, LG Display is the only manufacturer of OLED panels for TVs, famed for top-line models like the CX. Sony and LG have an agreement that allows Sony to put LG OLED panels into Sony televisions — like the bright X95OH — but otherwise, you won’t find OLED in many other TV displays sold in the U.S.

The differences in performance between LG’s OLED TVs and Sony’s result from different picture processors at work. Sony and LG have impressive processors that are also unique to each brand, which is why two TVs with the same panel can look drastically different. A good processor can greatly reduce issues like banding and artifacting and produce more accurate colors as well.

Other brands that source panels from LG include Philips, Panasonic, HiSense, Bang & Olufsen, and more. You’ll also see lesser-known brands sparingly, but for now, they’re all getting their panels from the same source.

Samsung does make OLED smartphone panels, and the company recently announced it would start building new TV panels based on a hybrid of QLED and OLED known as QD-OLED, but it will be a few more years before we see the first TVs that use this technology.

Despite the name, microLED has more in common with OLED than LED. Created and championed by Samsung, this technology creates super-tiny, modular LED panels that combine light emission and color like OLED screens do, minus the “organic” part. For now, the technology is primarily being used for extra-large wall TVs, where colors, blacks, and off-angle viewing are excellent but with more potential for greater brightness and durability than OLED TVs.

LED TVs rely on LED backlights shining behind an LCD panel. Even with advanced dimming technology, which selectively dims LEDs that don’t need to be on at full blast, LED TVs have historically struggled to produce dark blacks and can suffer from an effect called “light bleed,” where lighter sections of the screen create a haze or bloom in adjacent darker areas.

With those considerations in mind, it’s important to note that all modern TVs — whether OLED, LED, or QLED — produce more than adequate brightness. The consideration then becomes where the TV will be used. In a dark room, an OLED TV is going to perform best, while LED TVs will outshine them (quite literally) in more brightly lit environments.

OLED used to rule this category, but by improving the purity of the backlight, quantum dots have allowed LED TVs to surge forward in color accuracy, color brightness, and color volume, putting them on par with OLED TVs. Those looking for TVs with Wide Color Gamut or HDR will find both OLED and LED TV models that support these features. OLED’s better contrast ratio is going to give it a slight edge in terms of HDR when viewed in dark rooms, but HDR on a premium LED TV screen has an edge because it can produce well-saturated colors at extreme brightness levels that OLED can’t quite match.

Because OLED pixels combine the light source and the color in a single diode, they can change states incredibly fast. By contrast, LED TVs use LEDs to produce brightness and tiny LCD “shutters” to create color. While the LED’s brightness can be changed in an instant, LCD shutters are by their nature slower to respond to state changes.

OLED, again, is the winner here. With LED TVs, the best viewing angle is dead center, and the picture quality diminishes in both color and contrast the further you move to either side. While the severity differs between models, it’s always noticeable. For its LED TVs, LG uses a type of LCD panel known as IPS, which has slightly better off-angle performance than VA-type LCD panels (which Sony uses), but it suffers in the black-level department in contrast to rival VA panels, and it’s no competition for OLED. Samsung’s priciest QLED TVs feature updated panel design and anti-reflective coating, which make off-angle viewing much less of an issue. While OLED still beats these models out in the end, the gap is closing quickly.

OLEDs have come a long way in this category. When the tech was still nascent, OLED screens were often dwarfed by LED/LCD displays. As OLED manufacturing has improved, the number of respectably large OLED displays has increased — now pushing 88 inches — but they’re still dwarfed by the largest LED TVs, which can easily hit 100 inches in size, and with new technologies, well beyond.

What size TV do you need? Here are a few tips for picking the right size TV for any room, including ideal viewing distance and picture quality versus size.

Can one kind of TV be healthier for you than another? If you believe that we need to be careful about our exposure to blue light, especially toward the evening, then the answer could be yes. Both OLED and LED TVs produce blue light, but OLED TVs produce considerably less of it. LG claims its OLED panels only generate 34% blue light versus LED TV’s 64%. That stat has been independently verified, and LG’s OLED panels have been given an Eye Comfort Display certification by TUV Rheinland, a standards organization based out of Germany.

OLED panels require no backlight, and each individual pixel is extremely energy-efficient. LED TVs need a backlight to produce brightness. Since LEDs are less energy-efficient than OLEDs, and their light must pass through the LCD shutters before it reaches your eyes, these panels must consume more power for the same level of brightness.

Contrary to what you may think, not all LCD TVs are built around the same core panel technology. They can actually have at their hearts one of two really quite different technologies: VA or IPS.

Each, as we’ll see, has its own distinct advantages and disadvantages – so much so that we personally think the type of panel a particular TV uses should be presented right at the top of its specifications list, rather than typically left off altogether. Especially as some brands have been known to actually mix and match VA and IPS panels at different screen sizes within the same TV series.

The VA initialism stands for Vertical Alignment. This name is derived from the way VA panels apply voltage to vertically aligned liquid crystals that have been mounted perpendicularly to the panel’s glass substrate, making them tilt as required to let the necessary amount of light through for each image frame.

The main advantage of VA panels is contrast. Their perpendicular crystal alignment provides greater control over the light passing through each pixel, meaning dark scenes and dark areas look less grey / enjoy better black levels.

The extent to which this strength is exploited can vary greatly between different manufacturers, and depends on any number of secondary factors. The type and position of LED lighting a particular VA screen might be using can have an impact, for instance. There are multiple variations on the VA theme available from different manufacturers, too. As a basic principle, though, black levels and contrast are consistently and often considerably better on LCD TVs that use VA panels.

Because of their ability to control light better, high-end VA panels generally deliver more brightness in real world conditions than IPS ones do. This further enhances their contrast capabilities, and arguably makes them more consistently able to do fuller justice to the wider light range associated with high dynamic range technology.

Being able to deliver dark scenes with relatively little overlying low-contrast greyness additionally means that VA panels tend to achieve more consistent colour vibrancy and toning.

VA panels for use in LCD TVs come from a number of panel manufacturers, including Samsung Display (which makes a so-called SVA variant) and AU Optronics (which makes an AMVA variant). TV brands are able to buy in panels from these and other VA panel manufacturers as they see fit.

Samsung Electronics is the most consistent user of VA panels in its LCD TVs. In fact, until recently pretty much every Samsung TV at every price level used a VA panel. For the past couple of years, though, IPS panels have unexpectedly cropped up in one or two parts of Samsung’s TV range, including 2021’s high-end QN85 series.

Sony predominantly uses VA panels on its most premium TVs, but it also habitually mixes IPS and VA panels across its wider mid-range and entry level LCD ranges. The same goes for most of the other big brands, too, including Panasonic and Philips.

IPS stands for In-Plane Switching. Like VA panels, IPS panels work by manipulating voltage to adjust how liquid crystals are aligned. Unlike VA, though, IPS panels orient their crystals in parallel with (rather than perpendicular too) the glass substrates present in every LCD panel, and rotate their crystals around to let the desired amount of light through rather than tilting them.

By far the biggest and most talked about advantage of IPS technology is its support for wider viewing angles. In fact, one way of identifying IPS panels has traditionally been to look for quoted viewing angles of 178 degrees.

When we talk about wide viewing angle support in relation to LCD TVs, we’re talking about how much of an angle from directly opposite the screen you can go before the picture starts to lose contrast, colour saturation and, sometimes, brightness.

With VA panels the angle you can watch them before the picture starts to deteriorate sharply can be really quite limited – as little as 20 degrees off axis. While we’d say the 178-degree claims for regular IPS panels are rather exaggerated, you can typically sit at a significantly wider angle than you can with VA and still enjoy a watchable picture.

The VA/IPS viewing angle situation is muddied a little by the introduction into a few high-end VA TVs of wide angle technologies based around filters or sub pixel manipulation. These technologies can be associated with other problems, though, such as reduced resolution, and can still struggle to suppress backlight blooming around stand-out bright objects with LCD TVs that use local dimming backlight systems.

Traditionally IPS panels have been associated with – on high-end screens, at least – wider colour gamuts than VA panels can readily manage. They retain this colour gamut better, too, when viewing the screen from an angle. This is why many professional designers, for instance, have tended to prefer IPS technology to VA. There can be some pretty extreme variance in the range of colour supported across different IPS price points, though, and improvements in premium VA solutions – especially the widespread use of Quantum Dot technologies – have largely evened things up, at least at the premium end of the VA market. In fact, with dark scenes, at least, IPS’s issues with black levels and ‘grey wash’ effect can give good VA panels a colour advantage.

As with VA, there are different variations on the basic IPS theme made by different panel manufacturers. LG Display is by far the biggest manufacturer of IPS LCD panels for TVs, but AU Optronics also makes them, as well as, more surprisingly, Samsung – though some of the non-LG Display IPS products seem to be more focused on PC monitors than TVs.

Given how dominant LG Display is in manufacturing IPS LCD panels, it’s not surprising to find that pretty much every LCD TV LG Electronics makes features an IPS panel at its heart. Other TV brands that use IPS panels on at least a few of their TVs each year include Panasonic, Philips, Sony and Hisense. In fact, the only big brand that has tended to shun IPS is Samsung (perhaps because of arch rival LG Display’s dominance of the IPS market).

If you’re able to actually get your hands on an LCD TV, try knocking gently on its screen. If it’s an IPS panel it will feel solid and the picture will only be slightly affected – or completely unaffected – by the impact of your knocks. If it’s a VA panel, the picture will distort quite noticeably around points of impact.

It’s tempting to assume that any TVs with obviously low contrast are IPS while any screen with a narrow viewing angle is VA. As well as depending on having a wide experience of lots of panels, though, there’s just too much variation in the high and low-end fringes of each technology for this approach to be reliable.

Arguably your best bet is to check out a TV model you’re interested in on an industry website called Displayspecifications.com(opens in new tab), which includes usually reliable information on the core panel of pretty much every TV released.

You might want to consider IPS TV if your room layout means one or more viewers regularly find themselves having to watch the screen from a wide angle (though don’t forget that a small number of high-end VA TVs feature wide viewing angle technology). IPS’s black level limitations tend to be less obvious in bright rooms too, if that fits with the sort of environment your TV is likely to be used in for the majority of the time.

Our long experience of testing VA and IPS TVs, though, has led us to conclude that in general, the sort of person most likely to be turning to us for buying advice will be happier with an LCD TV based on VA technology.

Whether you are binge-watching a show on Netflix or gaming on your PlayStation 5, you"ll want a good smart TV setup in your living room. But with hundreds of TV models to choose from, it"s hard to know where to start. While you might have an idea of the basic features you want from your TV, like size or resolution, there are good options available from dozens of brands. So which one is right for you?

According to St. Leger, LG makes the best quality screens for movies. “Its OLED panels pack a punch — with excellent processing, deep blacks and vivid colors across the board — while the webOS smart platform is possibly the best in the business,” he explained. “Low brightness means that [the OLED TVs are] best used for evening movies, though, rather than afternoon sports broadcasts.”

LG"s C2 OLED TV is widely regarded as one of the best TVs you can buy today, Gordon said, especially for gaming. It has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, so it’s fully compatible with the Xbox Series X and PS5, and you can play 4K games up to 120Hz without any issues. It boasts perfect black levels that make the picture pop right off the screen, Gordon added. This self-lighting OLED is an investment, but Gordon said its detailed picture, Dolby Vision IQ and Dolby Atmos compatibility is well worth the price if you can afford it. It’s great for living rooms, family rooms and larger bedrooms, the brand says.

LG"s mid-range TVs use a different type of panel than most LED TVs from other brands. According to our tech experts, these LED panels provide better viewing angles — colors don"t look "wrong" when you"re sitting off-center — at the cost of worse black levels (this is the opposite of what you’ll get with LG’s OLED TVs). And the lower price point doesn’t keep the LG from coming with some nice perks, like compatibility with smart assistant devices like Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa and Apple AirPlay 2.Samsung TVs: Best all-around brand with the best built-in audio

Samsung is known for its QLED panels, which use Quantum Dots for “fantastic color performance,” Gordon explained. “Its blacks aren"t as deep as its OLED competition (namely spotted in TVs from LG and Sony), but it has a much brighter picture, making it ideal for rooms with a lot of sunlight streaming through,” he said, explaining that with Samsung’s 4K AI upscaling, the TV"s software can make non-4K content look a lot closer to its high-res counterpart. Its adaptive picture properties are designed to adjust automatically as your room gets darker or brighter, according to the brand.

According to Gordon, the TCL 6 series has been widely considered the best TV you can buy for the money for the last few years. It has excellent colors, thanks to its QLED panel, alongside fantastic brightness and black levels for HDR movies. It also boasts next-gen gaming features for the PS5 and Xbox Series X, like variable refresh rate and auto low-latency mode. All put together, he said, it beats out many sets twice the cost.

The 5 series is a mild step down from the 6 series, with less impressive brightness and motion and none of the gaming features — however, it has an even more enticing price, Gordon said. “You’re still getting 4K UHD. You’re still getting a QLED panel. You’re still getting Dolby Vision HDR and, of course, built-in Roku TV with a relatively sizable price cut,” he noted.Vizio TVs: Great performance without the bells and whistles

Vizio"s P Series offers picture quality comparable to higher-end sets without the higher-end price tag, Gordon said. He noted that its smart apps are lackluster and its motion smoothing isn"t as good as Sony"s, but if you don"t use these features anyway, why pay extra for them? The panel"s Quantum Dot tech promises enhanced color, and the TVs also arrive with Chromecast built in.Meet our experts