anti-glare lcd panel in led backlight free sample

Sadly, the days of the matte-screen TV are long gone. These days, nearly all TVs have glossy screens. These mirror-like finishes are just bound to cause reflections.

Or maybe not. Even if you want to live in a "normal" room with actual light (weird, but you do you), there are steps you can take to minimize, and perhaps eliminate, reflections on your TV. You might not need to spend any money. You won"t have to live in a cave, I promise. Unless you want to, of course. Here are five tricks to help you make sure that no matter what lighting you have in your room, you"re still getting the best picture with an absolute minimum of reflections.

So no matter what TV you have, if there"s a light in your room that can "see" the TV screen, you"ll be able to see it too, and it will affect picture quality.

The easiest way to reduce reflections is to turn off the lights, right? Well, sort of. There"s a reason people like to leave the lights on when they"re watching TV: eye fatigue. Many people feel

It may seem like a roundabout way of solving anything, but you can make your TV dimmer to minimize eye fatigue in a dark room. If this works, you won"t need to leave the lights on. No lights, no reflections. Problem solved.

The techie name for this is a bias light. You want this light to be as color-neutral as possible, as any color in the lamp is going to subtract that color from the TV. A red light will make the TV look less red, for example.

Another option is to mount the TV on a wall mount that pivots, tilts, or both. So when you"re getting the reflection, you can move the TV slightly so the reflection is reflected elsewhere (and you can"t see it). Several companies make wall mounts that do this. A few things to keep in mind. Most LCDs look worse off axis (or off center). If you pivot these, you"ll be viewing them off-axis and picture quality might suffer.

A slightly more elaborate step is to make the lighting in your room more controllable. Smart lamps, outlets, and switches let you control individual lights, or groups of lights, and connect them to Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri. Then you can just say "Ceiling lights off" or something similar to turn off the offending lights without leaving your sofa.

If you have a lot of windows, you"re fighting the sun, and your TV isn"t going to win. Sure, today"s brightest LCDs are plenty watchable in many bright environments, but you aren"t getting the best picture quality with that much light in the room.

Motorized sun screens, either inside or out, are a huge help in more ways than one. I live in Southern California, and the west side of my house bakes all afternoon long. I put in some exterior sun shades and, not to sound like a testimonial, my house is now way cooler, temperature-wise anyway. It"s also darker inside, with far less direct light and therefore, fewer reflections.

I will say this, though: If you get the motorized variety, check whether they can be tied into a home automation system or whatever smart system you"re using. Most smart products tie in to Alexa, but fewer also play with Google and fewer still with Siri.

Light glare is one of the most common problems with any type of light, but it can be particularly troublesome for those who suffer from certain eye conditions. Anti-glare light solutions reduce the glare you see by blocking out unwanted reflections and reducing the intensity of the light source itself.

This article will discuss how to reduce glare on your eyes and why anti-glare lights benefit people with eye conditions. (This publication details the harmful effects of glares on your eyes)

Anti-glare light is designed for people who are sensitive to bright lights. It provides gentle lighting that makes it easier for your eyes to adjust and concentrate on reading or something else. The anti-glare allows you to see things clearly without hurting your eyes because of the intense light on a screen.

The anti-glare light is perfect for people who spend a lot of time indoors and do not get enough exposure to bright sunlight. You can use it while reading, studying, or even watching TV in your room at night when there are no sources of natural lights such as windows available. This way, you will reduce the strain on your eyes caused by looking at the bright screen for prolonged periods.

Anti-glare lights are used to reduce the glare of light. With anti-glare lights, you can reduce light overhead and other sources that cause excess light in a room or vehicle. This is important as too much lighting has been shown to affect your eyes and reduce nighttime visibility.

Lately, there has been an increase in the use of LED light bulbs. This can be attributed to the plethora of benefits offered by LED lights. However, the unidirectional light from LED light fixtures has increased the incidence of glare.

The use of no-glare lights is highly recommended both indoors and outdoors. Their use ensures a holistically enabling environment, increases human productivity, and prevents accidents.

When choosing an LED, you can measure its glare properties through the UGR (Unified Glare Rating). This rating describes how much an LED will produce glare and which number is best suited for the respective application.

According to the European Standard’ BS EN 12464: 2002‘, The following ranges of UGR can be applied to specific applications; UGR<19 is best for office-based work such as reading, writing, and meetings.

The anti-glare light fixtures eliminate the occurrence of glare and thus prevent the strain and fatigue experienced by the eyes. Therefore, glare-free lights should be used in all big and small spaces to reduce glare.

LED lights produce much more glare than what we’re used to from filament light bulbs and halogen lights. The strong contrast between bright light and darkness hurts their eyes.

The first step toward reducing glare from lighting sources is replacing it with the newest anti-glare LED lights. The old incandescent and halogen bulbs produce high levels of visible light, which can cause severe problems for people with certain vision conditions.

Replacing light bulbs in your home or workplace with anti-glare LED lighting products reduces the glare you experience and can reduce symptoms for those who suffer from eye problems such as myopia, macular degeneration, cataracts, etc.

The idea of purchasing and installing only glare-free lights is valid, but it is also essential to make the existing LED lighting fixtures glare-free. This can be achieved by inserting a filter over the present fixture. The installed filter disperses the otherwise unidirectional and angled light. What is an Anti-Glare Filter?

These filters reduce up to 90% of visible lighting. For example, they have been proved effective in reducing the intensity of interior lights by 50%. This is important for people who want to protect their eyes from harmful radiation emitted by electronic devices such as cell phones and tablets.

Furthermore, this filter can reduce about 80% of the ultraviolet (UV) rays that cause skin damage, sunburns, and cataracts. With its anti-reflective effect, these screens also help users see their screen clearly under bright natural or artificial lighting conditions such as sunlight or office cubicles where fluorescent bulbs are used.

Diffusers are semi-transparent and translucent glass covers installed over the lenses to reduce light. As a result, the light that passes through these materials has a reduced intensity. You will mainly find these in indoor applications such as classrooms and offices.

Glare is the inadvertent result of excessive light entering the eye. So a good idea would be to allow the users to control the light. Installing light dimmers instead of switches is also a great idea.

Managing glare in the case of indoor lighting is far easier than landscape lighting. Nevertheless, glare from overhead lights is a cause of great concern. In particular, the glare should be managed for outdoor spaces in the design phase.

For instance, any bright light, particularly the streetlamps and facade lighting, may give rise to glare. It occurs due to outdoor illumination in an otherwise dark space.

In such a situation, glare is avoided by installing lights so that they do not directly enter the eye or bounce off the reflective surfaces. A light designer could be of great utility in this case.

LEDs with bluer color temperatures ranging from 3500-6000K cause glare. You can significantly reduce the effect by using warmer color temperatures of <3000K. Warm lights work perfectly for indoor projects. Moreover, you must have noticed how many of the streetlights are warmer in shades.

Different lens covers can help control the output flight, making it comfortable. In addition, such lenses are designed to disperse the output light, thus reducing glare evenly.

Such fixtures have parabolic reflectors in a grid pattern inside the lamps. This design helps direct the light downwards or sideways, depending on the angle of the reflectors inside. In addition, the glare is controlled by adjusting the size and shape of louvers.

Anti-glare light will help reduce eye strain. This is especially beneficial for people that sit in front of computer screens all day long or watch television on a screen at night before bedtime.

This type of lighting does not create harsh shadows around objects and the like, making it easier to read books and other publications such as magazines and newspapers. When trying to see your work clearly, anti-glare lights become useful; this excludes situations where you need low levels of illumination (i.e., late nights).

Anti-Glare Lights do not emit harmful ultraviolet rays into spaces, making them safe even when used without proper protection from the sun. You can purchase them and use them in your car or office without worrying about UV damage during the day.

Anti-Glare lights also have a long lifespan, so you do not have to spend money on replacing bulbs often. This is especially beneficial for places such as theatres with no windows nearby. It becomes challenging to replace lightbulbs now and then because of a lack of ventilation/accessibility (i.e., closets).

Anti-glare lighting has proven to increase productivity while allowing people enough sleep even working odd hours. This makes anti-glare lights an excellent option if you want more than general room illumination but don’t like fluorescent lights.

The lighting in stadiums and courts is supposed to be precise because it directly affects the gameplay. The glare can reduce visibility for both the players and the spectators on the field. Therefore, any glare and discomfort must be reduced by choosing the best brightness of LED stadium lights and the positioning of lighting poles.

They look gorgeous! Anti-glare lights make spaces more beautiful and colorful even at low light levels. This allows people to create a certain mood or atmosphere with lighting making it easier for them to enjoy the space around them without having too much concern over eye strain, UV damage, etc.

Anti-glare lights are energy-efficient, reduce glare, & provide true colors while saving you yearly electricity bills. They should be the only bulb type used in homes or work settings for maximum savings effectiveness. Please note that they may cost slightly more than your average LED bulb to purchase initially but will save you much more over time due to their superior lighting quality and benefits.

We typically associate the word ‘glare’ with an intense light that enters our eyes, which can be quite uncomfortable. You’ve likely experienced this from the headlights on cars passing by or a sudden bright light coming into your view.

However, glare can occur in many circumstances. For professionals like designers or video editors who rely on computer monitors to create their work, glare can be enemy number one. If their screen is constantly disturbed by glare, the colors on their monitor may not be accurately displayed.

So, as the saying goes, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Understanding the types and causes of glare will help you better reduce it. Samsung Newsroom takes a look at the definition of glare, a hidden enemy of creators, and explores ways to solve the problem.

‘Bright light led to temporary blindness,’ ‘My vision is blurry,’ ‘The view was obscured by lights’ — All three scenarios could be caused by glare. But not all glares are the same. Glare can be categorized into three types: Disability Glare, Discomfort Glare and Reflection Glare.

Disability glare refers to a reduction of visual acuity caused by a bright light in the field of vision in the dark. A classic example is sudden blindness due to oncoming headlights when driving at night.

Contrary to disability glare that causes sudden blindness, discomfort glare does not necessarily impair the vision of objects. However, it can lead to discomfort or eye fatigue. For instance, you might suffer discomfort glare when a soccer or baseball stadium suddenly turns on a strong light. The pain levels vary by where you are and how bright the light is, and even if the light does not directly enter your eyes, it can cause emotional discomfort.

Lastly, reflection glare obscures a monitor or a certain object by reflecting light from the ceiling. This includes the reflection of fluorescent light on an office monitor or a situation where you can barely see your screen in sunlight. You are most likely to be caught in glare within a 45-degree field of vision called the ‘Glare Zone’.

ViewFinity S8 (Model name: S80PB) helps users to view accurate colors even in bright daylight. This is possible thanks to the Matte Display applied on ViewFinity S8 which reduces distraction caused by glare. Users can edit and review content clearly with consistent levels of brightness and colors even without a monitor hood.

In recognition of its technology, ViewFinity S8 is the world’s first ‘Glare Free’ monitor verified by UL (Underwriters Laboratories), a global safety certification company. UL’s ‘Glare Free’ verification is awarded based on UGR (Unified Glare Rating) certified by CIE (Commission Internationale de l’éclairage). ViewFinity S8 met the standard of UL’s ‘Glare Free’ verification in Disability Glare, Discomfort Glare and Reflection Glare.

ViewFinity S8’s ergonomic monitor stand allows you to customize the monitor’s height, tilt and horizontal position. In addition, the screen can be rotated up to 90° and installed on a wall, providing more options to personalize your work environment. The Matte Display on the top of the panel reduces light reflection even without a monitor hood, allowing you to freely adjust the screen.

ViewFinity S8 protects users from eye strain with major eye care features, including Adaptive Picture, which automatically adjusts brightness and color temperature for creators who use their monitor for long period of time. Additionally, Eye Saver Mode reduces blue light, a main culprit of eye fatigue, and Flicker Free protects eyesight by reducing screen flickering.

ViewFinity S8 offers a Matte Display for comfortable viewing, an ergonomic design for a customized work environment and various features to increase eye protection. As a result, ViewFinity S8 is the best choice for creators who want to showcase their creativity without distraction.

1 The image shown is for illustration purposes only to compare S80PB with the one without the Matte Display (e.g. 2021 ViewFinity S80A). The S80PB adopts the Matte Display.

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

ASUS Eye Care technology is designed to reduce the risk of Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS) symptoms caused by spending prolonged periods in front of a display.

Blue light emissions, display flicker and glare are some of the factors that cause CVS. ASUS monitors featuring ASUS Eye Care Technology ensure comfortable viewing, while caring your eyes at the same time.

High-energy blue-violet light in the 415 – 455 nm band of the light spectrum is capable of damaging the human eye. It can be particularly harmful to the lens and retina, and exposure may result in myopia and macular degeneration.

The blue light emitted from monitors can cause eye strain, headaches and even sleep disorders. Children are more susceptible to eye damage because the crystalline lens in their eye is less effective in filtering blue light, raising the risk of age-related macular degeneration.

Onscreen flicker is caused by the rapid on/off cycle of an LED backlight as it tries to maintain the brightness of the display. It is more noticeable when the display is set to dimmer settings.

Onscreen flicker bombards the eye with drastic brightness changes in milliseconds. These changes in light intensity cause the pupil to expand and contract, causing eye fatigue, strain and headaches.

Smooth, glossy surfaces tend to reflect light and cause unwanted glare. Along with being distracting, this glare can be the source of eye strain and fatigue.

Whether you’re looking for a monitor for work or play, ASUS has a wide range of monitors that cater to different needs. The latest ASUS monitors feature ASUS Eye Care or Eye Care Plus technologies to protect your eyes — ensuring safe and comfortable viewing experiences.

An integrated TÜV Rheinland-certified ASUS Blue Light Filter protects eyes from harmful blue light. Settings can be quickly accessed via the onscreen display (OSD) menu, and an intuitive slider makes it easy to adjust filter levels to suit any scenario or user preference.

TÜV Rheinland-certified ASUS Flicker Free technology uses Smart Dynamic Backlight Adjustment to reduce flicker. This technology helps prevent low brightness levels that lead to high-speed flashing of the LED backlight, which in turn helps minimize instances of eyestrain that can result when using the monitor for long periods. The result is a more comfortable extended viewing experience.

Taking a brief 10-minute rest every half hour or so, or adopting the 20-20-20 rule, can help prevent eye strain. The Rest Reminder feature lets you set pop-up reminders at 5-minute intervals, noting when it"s time to step away from the screen for a while.

Color Augmentation mode helps users with a color-vision deficiency differentiate colors. This mode lets you customize onscreen reds, greens, yellows and blues into hues that are easier to distinguish, improving the viewing experience.

The ASUS Anti-Glare Screen uses a rough matte surface to dissipate reflected light, making it easier for you to see what’s onscreen and reducing eye fatigue in the process. The panel effectively reduces reflections and glare caused by natural or artificial light.

ASUS monitors feature a smart ergonomic design that offers full tilt, pivot, swivel and height adjustments to ensure that you can achieve a more natural and comfortable viewing position.

All ASUS Low Blue Light Monitors feature an easily accessible onscreen display (OSD) menu that allows you to access four different Blue Light Filter settings onscreen.

TÜV Rheinland-certified ASUS Flicker Free technology uses Smart Dynamic Backlight Adjustment to reduce flicker. This technology helps prevent low brightness levels that lead to high-speed flashing of the LED backlight, which in turn helps minimize instances of eyestrain that can result when using the monitor for long periods. The result is a more comfortable extended viewing experience.

The ASUS Anti-Glare Screen uses a rough matte surface to dissipate reflected light, making it easier for you to see what’s onscreen and reducing eye fatigue in the process. The panel effectively reduces reflections and glare caused by natural or artificial light.

ASUS monitors feature a smart ergonomic design that offers full tilt, pivot, swivel and height adjustments to ensure that you can achieve a more natural and comfortable viewing position.

Sitting up straight decreases pressure on your neck and back. It’s also good practice to sit at least 20 inches, or an arm’s length, away from your computer screen, with the keyboard close and directly in front of you.

Having a balanced diet that includes green leafy vegetables, citrus fruits, nuts, fish and carrots gives you Omega-3, Vitamins A, C and E — all vital for healthy eyes.

An LED-backlit LCD is a liquid-crystal display that uses LEDs for backlighting instead of traditional cold cathode fluorescent (CCFL) backlighting.TFT LCD (thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display) technologies as CCFL-backlit LCDs, but offer a variety of advantages over them.

While not an LED display, a television using such a combination of an LED backlight with an LCD panel is advertised as an LED TV by some manufacturers and suppliers.

The local dimming method of backlighting allows to dynamically control the level of light intensity of specific areas of darkness on the screen, resulting in much higher dynamic-contrast ratios, though at the cost of less detail in small, bright objects on a dark background, such as star fields or shadow details.

A 2016 study by the University of California (Berkeley) suggests that the subjectively perceived visual enhancement with common contrast source material levels off at about 60 LCD local dimming zones.

LED-backlit LCDs are not self-illuminating (unlike pure-LED systems). There are several methods of backlighting an LCD panel using LEDs, including the use of either white or RGB (Red, Green, and Blue) LED arrays behind the panel and edge-LED lighting (which uses white LEDs around the inside frame of the TV and a light-diffusion panel to spread the light evenly behind the LCD panel). Variations in LED backlighting offer different benefits. The first commercial full-array LED-backlit LCD TV was the Sony Qualia 005 (introduced in 2004), which used RGB LED arrays to produce a color gamut about twice that of a conventional CCFL LCD television. This was possible because red, green and blue LEDs have sharp spectral peaks which (combined with the LCD panel filters) result in significantly less bleed-through to adjacent color channels. Unwanted bleed-through channels do not "whiten" the desired color as much, resulting in a larger gamut. RGB LED technology continues to be used on Sony BRAVIA LCD models. LED backlighting using white LEDs produces a broader spectrum source feeding the individual LCD panel filters (similar to CCFL sources), resulting in a more limited display gamut than RGB LEDs at lower cost.

The evolution of energy standards and the increasing public expectations regarding power consumption made it necessary for backlight systems to manage their power. As for other consumer electronics products (e.g., fridges or light bulbs), energy consumption categories are enforced for television sets.

Using PWM (pulse-width modulation), a technology where the intensity of the LEDs are kept constant but the brightness adjustment is achieved by varying a time interval of flashing these constant light intensity light sources,

A first dynamic "local dimming" LED backlight was public demonstrated by BrightSide Technologies in 2003,Sony in September 2008 on the 40-inch (1,000 mm) BRAVIA KLV-40ZX1M (known as the ZX1 in Europe). Edge-LED lighting for LCDs allows thinner housing; the Sony BRAVIA KLV-40ZX1M is 1 cm thick, and others are also extremely thin.

LED-backlit LCDs have longer life and better energy efficiency than plasma and CCFL LCD TVs.mercury, an environmental pollutant, in their manufacture. However, other elements (such as gallium and arsenic) are used in the manufacture of the LED emitters; there is debate over whether they are a better long-term solution to the problem of screen disposal.

Because LEDs can be switched on and off more quickly than CCFLs and can offer a higher light output, it is theoretically possible to offer very high contrast ratios. They can produce deep blacks (LEDs off) and high brightness (LEDs on). However, measurements made from pure-black and pure-white outputs are complicated by edge-LED lighting not allowing these outputs to be reproduced simultaneously on screen.

Quantum dots are photoluminescent; they are useful in displays because they emit light in specific, narrow normal distributions of wavelengths. To generate white light best suited as an LCD backlight, parts of the light of a blue-emitting LED are transformed by quantum dots into small-bandwidth green and red light such that the combined white light allows a nearly ideal color gamut to be generated by the RGB color filters of the LCD panel. In addition, efficiency is improved, as intermediate colors are no longer present and do not have to be filtered out by the color filters of the LCD screen. This can result in a display that more accurately renders colors in the visible spectrum. Companies developing quantum dot solutions for displays include Nanosys, 3M as a licensee of Nanosys, QD Vision of Lexington, Massachusetts, US and Avantama of Switzerland.Consumer Electronics Show 2015.quantum dot displays at CES 2017 and later formed the "QLED Alliance" with Hisense and TCL to market the technology.

Mini LED displays are LED-backlit LCDs with mini-LED–based backlighting supporting over a thousand full array local dimming (FALD) zones, providing deeper blacks and a higher contrast ratio.

LED backlights are often dimmed by applying pulse-width modulation to the supply current, switching the backlight off and on more quickly than the eye can perceive. If the dimming-pulse frequency is too low or the user is sensitive to flicker, this may cause discomfort and eyestrain similar to the flicker of CRT displays at lower refresh rates.

Competing display technologies for the best image performance; A.J.S.M. de Vaan; Journal of the society of information displays, Volume 15, Issue 9 September 2007 Pages 657–666; http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1889/1.2785199/abstract?

Novitsky, Tom; Abbott, Bill (12 November 2007). "Driving LEDs versus CCFLs for LCD backlighting". EE Times. Archived from the original on 28 November 2010. Retrieved 21 November 2020.

Scott Wilkinson. "Ultimate Vizio Archived 26 August 2009 at the Wayback Machine". UltimateAVmag.com. Posted Fri 29 May 2009. Retrieved 16 December 2009.

LED TVs: 10 things you need to know; David Carnoy, David Katzmaier; CNET.com/news; 3 June 2010; https://www.cnet.com/news/led-tvs-10-things-you-need-to-know/

Method of and device for generating an image having a desired brightness; D.A. Stanton; M.V.C. Stroomer; A.J.S.M. de Vaan; US patent USRE42428E; 7 June 2011; https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=US&NR=RE42428E

Chen, Haiwei; Zhu, Ruidong; Li, Ming-Chun; Lee, Seok-Lyul; Wu, Shin-Tson (24 January 2017). "Pixel-by-pixel local dimming for high-dynamic-range liquid crystal displays". Optics Express. 25 (3): 1973. doi:ISSN 1094-4087.

"Implementing directive 2005/32/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council with regard to ecodesign requirements for televisions", 2009; http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32009R0642

Controlling Power Consumption for Displays With Backlight Dimming; Claire Mantel et al; Journal of Display Technology; Volume: 9, Issue: 12, Dec. 2013; https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6520956

Energy Efficiency Success Story: TV Energy Consumption Shrinks as Screen Size and Performance Grow, Finds New CTA Study; Consumer Technology Association; press release 12 July 2017; https://cta.tech/News/Press-Releases/2017/July/Energy-Efficiency-Success-Story-TV-Energy-Consump.aspx Archived 4 November 2017 at the Wayback Machine

LCD Television Power Draw Trends from 2003 to 2015; B. Urban and K. Roth; Fraunhofer USA Center for Sustainable Energy Systems; Final Report to the Consumer Technology Association; May 2017; http://www.cta.tech/cta/media/policyImages/policyPDFs/Fraunhofer-LCD-TV-Power-Draw-Trends-FINAL.pdf Archived 1 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine

Broadband reflective polarizers based on form birefringence for ultra-thin liquid crystal displays; S.U. Pan; L. Tan and H.S. Kwok; Vol. 25, No. 15; 24 July 2017; Optics Express 17499; https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/viewmedia.cfm?uri=oe-25-15-17499&seq=0

Polarisation-sensitive beam splitter; D.J. Broer; A.J.S.M. de Vaan; J. Brambring; European patent EP0428213B1; 27 July 1994; https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=EP&NR=0428213B1&KC=B1&FT=D#

LCD panels are backlit by LED lights, so they rely on a backlight behind the panel to make the picture visible, and the LCD layer can"t prevent all light from escaping out of the screen. This means that even in a black scene, the backlight is still on, and some light escapes, causing blacks to appear gray.

In an attempt to mask this shortcoming, some LED TVs employ local dimming to target dark portions of the screen and dim the backlight in those areas. The intended result is that dark portions become darker, but everything else is left as bright as it should be, increasing the contrast between dark and light objects.

OLEDs use self-emitting pixels and don"t have a backlight, and because of this, they don"t have local dimming features. However, we score OLEDs as a perfect 10 for local dimming, because they do everything that a local dimming feature on an LED TV should do. Dark areas are completely off, leaving bright areas to stand out without any blooming.

Some TVs offer different local dimming settings. Low settings will usually dim the backlight less, but then the local dimming will also be less effective at improving the contrast. Higher settings will dim more, but may also make blooming, or other related issues, more visible. Local dimming preferences are subjective, so if you have multiple options, try out the different settings and choose the one you like best. Apart from that, there"s no way to get better results from local dimming. If this is a feature that matters to you, be sure to get a TV that scores highly in this test.

Contrast/Brightness: These settings aim to improve the contrast ratio by tinkering with the white and black levels. It doesn"t have a direct effect on the local dimming but can improve the picture quality. The contrast setting increases the luminosity of the brightest whites, while brightness (sometimes called black level), makes blacks darker. Keep in mind the brightness setting on some TVs controls the backlight, which doesn"t affect picture quality.

Samsung"s UHD Dimming: This processes the video in an attempt to mimic local dimming. It doesn’t dim the backlight but instead changes the contrast of different areas of the picture. Video purists usually dislike it, because it messes with the video settings of the TV, changing contrast from frame to frame. We don’t recommend using it.

Frame dimming: Frame dimming, or CE dimming on Samsung TVs, is a basic version of local dimming, but it dims the entire backlight instead of zones. Usually found on edge-lit TVs, it causes small highlights to become dim as well. It may improve the contrast a bit, but it"s not very useful for most scenes.

Local dimming features on LED TVs are a way to improve the contrast ratio. Since these TVs consist of LED backlights behind an LCD panel, local dimming aims to turn off, or dim, certain zones of the LED backlight, making blacks look darker and highlights brighter. However, there may be some issues with local dimming on some TVs as it could cause blooming around bright objects or for entire zones to light up when there"s a small object. Overall, most local dimming features on modern TV do an effective job at improving the picture quality in dark scenes, and only some lower-end models will have glaring problems.

Footnotes* Returns: The 30-day return period is calculated from invoice date. Exceptions to Dell"s standard return policy still apply, and certain products are not eligible for return at any time. See dell.com/returnpolicy.

* Offers subject to change, not combinable with all other offers. Dell may impose a purchase quantity limit (for example, 5 units per order). Taxes, shipping, and other fees apply. Free shipping offer valid only in Continental U.S. (excludes Alaska and P.O. Box addresses). Offer not valid for Resellers. Dell reserves the right to cancel orders arising from pricing or other errors.

* Rewards 3% back excludes taxes and shipping. Rewards are issued to your online Dell Rewards Account (available via your Dell.com My Account) typically within 30 business days after your order’s ship date. Rewards expire in 90 days (except where prohibited by law). “Current rewards balance” amount may not reflect the most recent transactions. Check Dell.com My Account for your most up-to-date reward balance. Total rewards earned may not exceed $2,000 within a 3-month period. Outlet purchases do not qualify for rewards. Expedited Delivery not available on certain TVs, monitors, batteries and adapters, and is available in Continental (except Alaska) U.S. only. Other exceptions apply. Not valid for resellers and/or online auctions. Offers and rewards subject to change without notice, not combinable with all other offers. See Dell.com/rewardsfaq. $50 in bonus rewards for Dell Rewards Members who open a new Dell Preferred Account (DPA), or Dell Business Credit (DBC) account on or after 8/10/2022. $50 bonus rewards typically issued within 30 business days after DPA or DBC open date.

Dell Coupon Offer:Offer valid 12/9/2022 - 1/5/2023 7:00AM CST. Coupon is valid with select other offers but not with other coupons. Coupon is valid on select order codes. One-time use only. Offer does not apply to, and is not available with, systems or items purchased through refurbished items or spare parts. Purchase limit of one item per order. Not valid for resellers and/or online auctions. Dell reserves the right to cancel orders arising from pricing or other errors.

^DELL PREFERRED ACCOUNT (DPA): Offered to U.S. residents by WebBank, who determines qualifications for and terms of credit. Taxes, shipping, and other charges are extra and vary. Your Minimum Payment Due is the greater of either $20 or 3% of the New Balance shown on your billing statement (excluding any balance on a Planned Payment Purchase prior to its expiration date) rounded up to the next dollar, plus any Monthly Planned Payment Due, plus the sum of all past due amounts. Minimum Interest Charge is $2.00. Rates range from 19.74% - 29.99% variable APR, as of 12/16/2022, depending on creditworthiness. Dell and the Dell logo are trademarks of Dell Inc. Six- and twelve-months special financing offers have different minimum purchase requirements. See Dell.com/nointerestdisclosures for important financing details.

^DELL BUSINESS CREDIT (DBC):Offered to business customers by WebBank, who determines qualifications for and terms of credit. Taxes, shipping and other charges are extra and vary. The Total Minimum Payment Due is the greater of either $20 or 3% of the New Balance shown on the statement rounded up to the next dollar, plus all past due amounts. Dell and the Dell logo are trademarks of Dell Inc. Three-month special financing is available on select purchases (a minimum purchase may be required). See Dell.com/DBCDisclosures for full promotional conditions.

Estimated Value is Dell’s estimate of product value based on industry data, including the prices at which third-party retailers have offered or valued the same or comparable products, in its most recent survey of major online and/or off-line retailers. Third-party retailer data may not be based on actual sales.

Celeron, Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Atom, Intel Core, Intel Inside, the Intel Inside logo, Intel vPro, Intel Evo, Intel Optane, Intel Xeon Phi, Iris, Itanium, MAX, Pentium, and Xeon are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries.

NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo, GeForce, GeForce RTX, GeForce MAX-Q, GRID, SHIELD, Battery Boost, CUDA, FXAA, GameStream, G-Sync, NVLINK, ShadowPlay, SLI, TXAA, PhysX, GeForce Experience, GeForce NOW, Maxwell, Pascal and Turing are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.

*IDC Whitepaper “Optimizing Performance with Frequent Server Replacements for Enterprises” commissioned by Dell Technologies and Intel, March 2021. Results are based on interviews with 18 IT practitioners and decision makers at midsize and large enterprises and a web survey of 707 IT practitioners and decision makers at midsize and larger enterprises using Dell Technologies server solutions across 7 industries. See full whitepaper: https://www.delltechnologies.com/resources/en-us/asset/white-papers/products/servers/server-infrastructure-resiliency-enterprise-whitepaper.pdf

*Expedited Delivery: * Expedited Delivery not available on certain TVs, monitors, batteries and adapters, and is available in Continental (except Alaska) U.S. only. Other exceptions apply. Not valid for resellers and/or online auctions. Offers subject to change, not combinable with all other offers. See Dell.com/rewardsfaq.

* Accidental Damage Service excludes theft, loss, and damage due to fire, flood or other acts of nature, or intentional damage. Customer must return damaged unit. Limit of 1 qualified incident per contract year. See dell.com/servicecontracts.

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

LCD displays don’t emit light by themselves. They need a light source, and LED backlights are now dominating the market. In this article, Orient Display’s Bill Cheung provides a complete overview of LED backlight technology, discussing different types, driver technologies, color deviation, brightness options and more.

LCD (liquid crystal display) has long been the dominant technology in the display world. Certainly, there are some emerging competing display technologies—such as OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) [1] and micro-LED—that have the potential to threaten LCD’s position in the market. But both are currently only used for niche and high-end markets.

An LCD display can’t emit light by itself. In order to have an LCD display [2] used in a dim environment, a backlight has to be used as the light source. There are a few different technologies that are able to produce backlight ranging from EL (electroluminescent), CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lamps) and LED (light emitting diode). However, a breakthrough in blue LED technology by Shuji Nakamura [3] led to LED backlights dominating the market.

One of the greatest benefits of LED backlighting is its long lifetime. Normally, LED lifetime can be measured with half-life when the original brightness decreases by 50%. With different LED chip manufacturing materials, technologies and environment used, the LED life can vary from 20,000 hours to well over 100,000 hours.

LED backlights have low power consumption and produce much less heat than other backlight technologies, which extends the durability and performance of the other display components. Furthermore, this reduces the risk of fire and explosion. LED backlights are also driven with DC (direct current) and low voltage (can be as low as 1.5V), which are good for battery drive and emit no interference to the circuitry. With the development of LED technology, the LED chips become small. So, it is possible to produce very thin backlight (0.5mm thick or thinner).

Although white LED is the most popular color, LED backlight can be made into different single colors, bi-colors and tri-colors [4] (Figure 1) (Figure 2). With RGB LED backlight color mixing, normal 8 color LED backlight can be produced (Figure 3).

LED backlight can be classified as bottom (array) lit and side (edge) lit backlights, and each have their plusses and minuses. The advantages of the bottom lit (array) backlight are that it is uniform and bright. Its disadvantage is high current draw, thickness, heat dissipation and cost. Meanwhile, the advantages of the side lit backlight are its thinness, flexibility in design, low current and lower cost. The main disadvantage of the side lit backlight is its non-uniformity—hot spots can be seen from most of the side lit backlight from certain angle. Figure 4 compares the bottom lit and side (edge) lit backlight LCD types.

Now let’s look at LED backlight structures. An LED backlight can be simplified into layers starting with a LED chip, light guide, diffusor and reflector (Figure 5). This is the lowest cost structure. Except for some very low current efficiency LCD displays—such as utility meters, battery-powered clock, watch, GPS and so on—most LCD displays need backlights to be visible in the dim lighting. Most often the backlight is actually at the back of the LCD. In rare cases, this light can be done as front light. The traditional LCD structure with LED backlight shown in Figure 6.

Direct current driving: This is the simple and low-cost way to drive a LED backlight, however, be mindful of the current limit otherwise the LED life can deteriorate quickly. The solution is simply to add a current limiting resistor in the circuit. Current limitation resistors value calculation formula: R = (V0– Vf)/If.Also be mindful of reverse drive, otherwise, the LED chip can break down easily.

LED driver with constant current: The advantage of constant current LED driver is that it will be the best option to use when building your own fixture or working with high powered LED because they avoid violating the maximum current specified for the LEDs, therefore avoiding burnout/thermal runaway. They are easier for designers to control applications, and help create a more consistent bright light.

LED driver with constant voltage: Using a constant voltage LED driver makes sense when using an LED or array that has been specified to take a certain voltage. This is helpful because constant voltage is a much more familiar technology for design and installation engineers. Moreover, the cost of these systems can be lower, especially in larger scale applications.

There are a variety of ways to connect a backlight and LCD module electrically. It can be done with wires that are soldered on the LCD or LCD module. It can be connected using pins, which can be soldered onto the LCD or LCD module. A third way is to use a FPC (flexible printed circuit), which can be soldered or plugged in a ZIF (zero insertion force) connector. And finally, there is the connector method. With this method you use connectors which can be plugged into mating connectors.

As the LED is manufactured via the semiconductor process, there are some color deviations that can be a quality control issue. One way to solve the issue is through a process of selection and sorting after manufacturing the LEDs. The LEDs are sorted into different categories or bins. How this sorting is done and what each bin actually contains is defined differently by each LED manufacturer. The backlight manufacturer can choose from which bin they take the LEDs for backlight color hue.

Some customers might request very fine binning by the LED manufacturer, which can be very expensive since only a very small percentage of the LEDs manufactured would meet the requirements for a specific bin. Figure 7 shows an example of the bin selection from Nichia, the most renowned LED manufacturer in the world. Figure 8 shows the 1931 CIE chromaticity diagram. And Figure 9 shows the color deviations (bin definition) by Cree for a qualified production lot.

In actual LED backlight production, most customers will accept the LED color for two big categories: white with yellowish (warm) and white with bluish (cold). Of course, the LED brightness will also need to be defined. For general application, most customers will accept a brightness tolerance of 70 percent.

It is extremely hard to estimate the LED backlight lifetime or MTBF (mean time between failures) because there are so many variable factors. However, the most important is the temperature on the LED chip. The factors that can affect the LED chip temperature include: surrounding temperature, humidity, driving current, voltage, backlight design (how many LED chips to be used, how close to each other, heatsink design), backlight manufacturing process (type and thickness of adhesive), quality of the LED chip and so forth.

To test the LED life is also very time consuming, requiring at least 1,000 hours. That’s the reason why no LED manufacturers can guarantee LED backlight life and most backlight manufacturers also are reluctant to provide lifespan data. As for LCD manufacturers, they need to discuss it with the customer to understand the applications and provide suggestions. It is normal that the LCD datasheet lists the typical life time and avoids providing a minimum lifetime. From Figure 10, we can see that over room temperature, the current needs to decrease as the temperature increases. At over 85°C, the LED is not usable.

To estimate LED backlight lifetime, you can use ballpark estimation or theoretical calculation. Let’s first examine the ballpark method. To take white LED as example, the nominal biasing current is 20mA. If we use a safe lifetime estimation, we can estimate using Table 1.

Now let’s use the theoretical calculation approach. As we previously mentioned, LED life is affected by a lot of factors: surrounding temperature, humidity, driving current, voltage, backlight design (how many LED chips to be used, how close to each other, heatsink designed), backlight manufacturing process (type and thickness of adhesive), quality of the LED chip and so on. LED chip manufacturers are not willing to give absolute values of LED chip lifetimes, but there is a theoretical calculation that we can use.

Temperature is the determination factor for LED chip life, while LED chip manufacturers use LED junction temperature to predict LED chip life more accurately. An example is:

Where Tjis PN junction temperature (°C); Ts1 is solder temperature cathode side (°C); Rthj-s1 is thermal resistance of junction to Ts1 measuring point (°C/W); W is IF × VF; and, for Nichia NS6W083A Tj Max = 120°C, Rthj-s1= 10°C/W.

Finally, let’s look at ways to increase LED backlight brightness. There are many ways to increase LED backlight brightness, but all these measures are balanced with performance and cost. Here are some of the methods:

For the LCD module side, using better aperture opening ratio, anti-reflection coating on surface, optical bonding. This results in higher cost. Actually, this measure is not to increase LED backlight brightness directly but to increase to the visibility to users.

Using 3M film [6]: BEF (brightness enhancement film or prism film), DBEF (dual brightness enhancement film), DBEF II, ESR (enhanced specular reflector) and so on. These increase costs a lot, but these high-performance films are essential in tight power management like mobile phones and other battery-powered applications.

Note: We’ve made the May 2020 issue of Circuit Cellaravailable as a free sample issue. In it, you’ll find a rich variety of the kinds of articles and information that exemplify a typical issue of the current magazine.

Would you like to write for Circuit Cellar? We are always accepting articles/posts from the technical community. Get in touch with us and let"s discuss your ideas. Sponsor this Article

Bill Cheung is an engineering lead and marketing manager at Orient Display, an LCD and display technology provider with over two decades of industry experience in delivering cutting edge display solutions. You can browse Orient Display"s knowledge base [7] to learn more about LCDs.

Whether your customer is a small coffee shop operating a drive thru or a local grocer looking for digital wayfinding signage, you want to ensure that their brand is not only prominently displayed but is protected from external elements like ultraviolet radiation. Throughout your customers’ search for the right way to display their products, they will likely stumble across a variety of industry terms, includinganti-reflectiveandanti-glare. As an industry expert, you know the difference between the two, but in casual conversation, they are sometimes used interchangeably.

If a potential customer is searching for the highest quality product to display their products and services, they should know exactly what they’re getting and how premium anti-reflective glass can save them money in the long run. Product education is vital to your success.

Educating new and existing customers that each term has different meanings and can impact how images are displayed is a critical element to growing your customer base. While both anti-glare andanti-reflective glasstreatments serve the same purpose — improving the visibility of an image display — there are some pretty significant differences conveyed in the final product. Below we dive into the differences between anti-glare and anti-reflective and how to effectively communicate them to your customers.

Anti-glare coating is a treatment method on glass that ensures external light sources, such as bright sunlight or other interior ambient lighting, do not affect the visibility or legibility of a framed image or document. Anti-glare acrylic has a matte finish that diffuses reflected light by reducing the coherence of the reflected image, but can, in turn, somewhat distort an image behind the glass caused by the diffusion’s loss of sharpness.

Anti-glare coatings tend to use diffuse particles or small etchings on the glass surface to achieve the desired visibility outcome. It is generally used for outdoor displays or for indoor areas that have bright, intense lights whenever a loss in image quality isn’t much of an issue; however, it is not recommended to be used in dimly lit areas since the blurriness/graininess of the coating will be much more obvious.

Anti-reflective glass is the gold standard in thin-film technology and is designed to minimize reflections by disrupting the energy contained in light waves, causing them to flow out of sync. The disrupted wave pattern virtually eliminates all reflection from the acrylic surface, resulting in a crisper image and true-to-life colors. The scientific term for this phenomenon isthe destructive interference of light. Additionally, anti-reflective glass coating does not consider only external light sources, but rather both internal and external ones.

The best way to communicate these differences to your customers is through multiple digital channels and touchpoints.Email, social media,Google My Businessand product education located on your website go a long way in crafting a memorable customer journey.

Almost everything is better with anti-reflective glass, but there are specificuse cases that make anti-reflective the far superior choice. For example, if your customer is in the market for outdoor signage to showcase their brand, anti-reflective glass will provide minimal reflection, maximum transmittance and protection from the elements (UV, fog, salt, impact resistance).

Our team understands the critical nature of cosmetic specifications to ensure outstanding product quality.Tru Vue Vista AR® Glassoffers superior outdoor performance, is impact-resistant, measures less than 1% total light transmittance, and enhances the viewing experience for any product you put behind it. This type of anti-reflective glass is one of the most versatile options on the market(check out our anti-reflectivepost temperable glass too)and is a premium product that can be customized to your unique needs and specifications.

Heilmeier, G. H., Zanoni, L. A. & Barton, L. A. Dynamic scattering: a new electrooptic effect in certain classes of nematic liquid crystals. Proc. IEEE56, 1162–1171 (1968).

Schiekel, M. F. & Fahrenschon, K. Deformation of nematic liquid crystals with vertical orientation in electrical fields. Appl. Phys. Lett.19, 391–393 (1971).

Gaspar, D. J. & Polikarpov, E. OLED Fundamentals: Materials, Devices, and Processing of Organic Light-Emitting Diodes. (Taylor & Francis Group, Boca Raton, FL, 2015).

Tull, B. R. et al. High brightness, emissive microdisplay by integration of III-V LEDs with thin film silicon transistors. SID Symp. Digest Tech. Papers46, 375–377 (2015).

Templier, F. GaN-based emissive microdisplays: a very promising technology for compact, ultra-high brightness display systems. J. Soc. Inf. Disp.24, 669–675 (2016).

Wong, M. S., Nakamura, S. & DenBaars, S. P. Review—progress in high performance III-nitride micro-light-emitting diodes. ECS J. Solid State Sci. Technol.9, 015012 (2020).

Masaoka, K., Nishida, Y. & Sugawara, M. Designing display primaries with currently available light sources for UHDTV wide-gamut system colorimetry. Opt. Express22, 19069–19077 (2014).

Takeda, A. et al. A super-high image quality multi-domain vertical alignment LCD by new rubbing-less technology. SID Symp. Digest Tech. Papers29, 1077–1080 (1998).

Lee, S. H., Lee, S. L. & Kim, H. Y. Electro-optic characteristics and switching principle of a nematic liquid crystal cell controlled by fringe-field switching. Appl. Phys. Lett.73, 2881–2883 (1998).

Féry, C. et al. Physical mechanism responsible for the stretched exponential decay behavior of aging organic light-emitting diodes. Appl. Phys. Lett.87, 213502 (2005).

Kim, H. J. et al. Optical efficiency enhancement in wide color gamut LCD by a patterned quantum dot film and short pass reflector. SID Symp. Digest Tech. Papers47, 827–829 (2016).

3M Optical Systems. VikuitiTM dual brightness enhancement film (DBEF) http://www.opticalfilters.co.uk/includes/downloads/3m/DBEF_E_DS_7516882.pdf. (2008).

Soh, M. Y. et al. Design and characterization of micro-LED matrix display with heterogeneous integration of GaN and BCD technologies. IEEE Trans. Electron Devices66, 4221–4227 (2019).

Ahn, H. A., Hong, S. K. & Kwon, O. K. An active matrix micro-pixelated LED display driver for high luminance uniformity using resistance mismatch compensation method. IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. II: Express Briefs65, 724–728 (2018).

Chaji, G. R. & Nathan, A. Parallel addressing scheme for voltage-programmed active-matrix OLED displays. IEEE Trans. Electron Devices54, 1095–1100 (2007).

Templier, F. et al. A novel process for fabricating high-resolution and very small pixel-pitch GaN LED microdisplays. SID Symp. Digest Tech. Papers48, 268–271 (2017).

Templier, F. et al. Advanced solutions for high-performance GaN MicroLED displays. Proceedings of SPIE 10918, Gallium Nitride Materials and Devices XIV. (SPIE, San Francisco, 2019).

Takita, Y. et al. Highly efficient deep-blue fluorescent dopant for achieving low-power OLED display satisfying BT.2020 chromaticity. J. Soc. Inf. Disp.26, 55–63 (2018).

Olivier, F. et al. Shockley-Read-Hall and Auger non-radiative recombination in GaN based LEDs: a size effect study. Appl. Phys. Lett.111, 022104 (2017).

Chen, S. M., Sun, X. W. & Kwok, H. S. Hybrid analog-digital driving method for high definition AMOLED. SID Symp. Digest Tech. Papers45, 1514–1517 (2014).

Hosoumi, S. et al. Ultra-wide color gamut OLED display using a deep-red phosphorescent device with high efficiency, long life, thermal stability, and absolute BT.2020 red chromaticity. SID Symp. Digest Tech. Papers48, 13–16 (2017).

Utsumi, Y. et al. Improved contrast ratio in IPS-Pro LCD TV by using quantitative analysis of depolarized light leakage from component materials. SID Symp. Digest Tech. Papers39, 129–132 (2008).

Hoffman, D. M., Stepien, N. N. & Xiong, W. The importance of native panel contrast and local dimming density on perceived image quality of high dynamic range displays. J. Soc. Inf. Disp.24, 216–228 (2016).

Guarnieri, G., Albani, L. & Ramponi, G. Minimum-error splitting algorithm for a dual layer LCD display—part I: background and theory. J. Display Technol.4, 383–390 (2008).

Guarnieri, G., Albani, L. & Ramponi, G. Minimum-error splitting algorithm for a dual layer LCD display—part II: implementation and results. J. Display Technol.4, 391–397 (2008).

Choi, T. H. et al. Effect of two-dimensional confinement on switching of vertically aligned liquid crystals by an in-plane electric field. Opt. Express24, 20993–21000 (2016).

Daly, S. et al. Viewer preferences for shadow, diffuse, specular, and emissive luminance limits of high dynamic range displays. SID Symp. Digest Tech. Papers44, 563–566 (2013).

Nishimura, J. et al. Super bright 8K LCD with 10,000 nit realized by excellent light-resistance characteristics of IGZO TFT backplane. SID Symp. Digest Tech. Papers51, paper 3.1 (2020).

Daly, S. & Feng, X. F. Bit-depth extension: overcoming LCD-driver limitations by using models of the equivalent input noise of the visual system. J. Soc. Inf. Display13, 51–66 (2005).

Guo, W. J. et al. The impact of luminous properties of red, green, and blue mini-LEDs on the color gamut. IEEE Trans. Electron Devices66, 2263–2268 (2019).

Kim, H. M. et al. Ten micrometer pixel, quantum dots color conversion layer for high resolution and full color active matrix micro-LED display. J. Soc. Inf. Disp.27, 347–353 (2019).

Chen, H. W. et al. Liquid crystal display and organic light-emitting diode display: present status and future perspectives. Light: Sci. Appl.7, 17168 (2018).

AU Optronics Corp. AUO Showcases Mini LED Backlit LCDs Across Diverse Verticals to Seize Smart Living Market Opportunities. https://www.auo.com/en-global/New_Archive/detail/News_Archive_Technology_190513 (2019).

Handschy, M. A., McNeil, J. R. & Weissman, P. E. Ultrabright head-mounted displays using LED-illuminated LCOS. Proceedings of SPIE 6224, Helmet- and Head-Mounted Displays XI: Technologies and Applications. (SPIE, Florida, 2006).

Zhang, L. et al. Monochromatic active matrix micro-LED micro-displays with >5,000 dpi pixel density fabricated using monolithic hybrid integration process. SID Symp. Digest Tech. Papers49, 333–336 (2018).

Fan, R., Zhang, X. N. & Tu, Z. T. Influence of ambient temperature on OLED lifetime and uniformity based on modified equivalent lifetime detection. J. Soc. Inf. Disp.27, 597–607 (2019).

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.

If you’re in the market for a TV, you’ve likely heard the hype regarding OLED models. They’re thin, light, and offer incredible contrast and color that’s second to none. OLED is only one letter apart from the more common display type, LED, so what gives? Can they really be that different? In a word: Yes. That extra “O” makes a big difference, but it doesn’t automatically mean an OLED TV will beat an LED TV in every use case. Some TV manufacturers like Samsung use their own technology, called QLED to confuse consumers even more. Make sure that you spend some time looking at our comparison piece: QLED vs. OLED technology before you make your purchase decision.

When OLED TVs first arrived in 2013, they were lauded for their perfect black levels and excellent color, but they took a bit of a hit due to brightness levels that couldn’t compete with LED TVs. There was also a huge price gap between OLED TVs (not to be confused with QLED) and their premium LED counterparts. In fact, legend has it that OLED used to mean “only lawyers, executives, and doctors” could afford them. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case.

OLED TVs are much brighter than they used to be, and the prices have come down, especially with brands like Sony introducing competitive options in 2021. The LED market is due for a bit of a shake-up, too. For now, however, it’s time to take a look at how these two technologies differ and explore the strengths and weaknesses of each.

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.

That said, not all LED TVs are created equal. There can be differences in the number and quality of the LEDs used, which leads to differences in things like brightness and black levels. You may also have seen something called “QLED TV.” This is a type of LED TV that uses quantum dots to achieve better brightness and color. We’ll discuss QLED more below, but here’s a great overview of the differences between QLED and OLED TVs.

The “OLED” in OLED TV stands for “organic light-emitting diode.” OLEDs have the unusual property of being able to produce both light and color from a single diode when they’re fed electricity. Bec