tft lcd vs led tv brands

For many years, TVs with LED backlights have dominated the market. Manufacturers release many LED models every year that have different features. You won"t get the same excellent dark room picture quality as an OLED but LED TVs have a few more advantages than OLEDs (check out our article about OLED vs. LED). LED TVs" biggest advantages are their brightness, which allows them to get brighter than OLEDs, and they"re immune to permanent burn-in. LED TVs are also sometimes called LCD instead; LED refers to the technology used to create the backlight, whereas LCD refers to the technology used to produce different colors and shades. As all LCD models currently on the market use LED backlights, the two terms are often used interchangeably.

We"ve bought and tested more than 300 TVs with LED backlights, and below are our recommendations for the best TVs with LED panels that you can buy. See also our picks for the best TVs, the best PS5 TVs, and the best TVs for Xbox Series X.

The Samsung QN90B QLED is the best TV with an LED panel we"ve tested. It"s an impressive TV with amazing picture quality and a great selection of gaming features. It uses a Mini LED backlight, with way more dimming zones than most LED TVs, which allows for greater control over the local dimming feature for better dark room performance, with less distracting blooming around bright objects. It also gets exceptionally bright, meaning it can handle lots of glare in a bright room.

Unlike most high-end LED TVs, it"s also a good choice for a wide seating arrangement, as the image remains consistent when viewed at an angle thanks to Samsung"s "Ultra Viewing Angle" technology. It also has a great selection of extra features like a built-in Tizen smart interface that"s easy to use and has a ton of apps available to download, so you can easily find your favorite shows. It"s also excellent for gaming, as it supports 4k @ 120Hz gaming from the new-gen consoles, and it supports a variable refresh rate to reduce tearing.

The best LCD TV for a home theater is the Hisense U9DG. It"s a unique LED TV because it uses dual-panel technology. It means it has two LCD panels stacked on top of each other, delivering the equivalent of a local dimming feature with two million dimming zones; most other TVs only have a few hundred at most. This technology helps provide the TV with the best contrast ratio we"ve tested on any LED TV. The black level is nearly perfect, even in bright scenes, and there"s almost no blooming around bright objects.

This outstanding dark room performance with local dimming enabled results in an amazing HDR viewing experience. It displays a very wide color gamut for HDR content with great out-of-the-box accuracy, so colors appear how they should. Really small highlights pop the way the creator intended in HDR, but its overall HDR real scene peak brightness is just okay, and it"s not as good as the Samsung QN90B QLED. Still, the reflection handling is excellent, even if you"re watching movies in a room with a few lights around.

The best mid-range TV we"ve tested with an LED panel is the Hisense U8H. It"s an excellent TV overall, with fantastic contrast and an impressive Mini LED local dimming feature, delivering deep blacks in a dark room with very little distracting blooming around bright objects. It has exceptional peak brightness and reflection handling, ensuring it can easily overcome glare in a bright room. It has worse processing overall than the Samsung QN90B QLED, though, so it"s a bit of a step down. There"s more noticeable banding in areas of similar color, and it has slightly worse motion processing as well.

It"s a great TV for gaming, with many of the same great features found on the Samsung, including 4k @ 120Hz support from the Xbox Series X and PS5 consoles. It has a fast response time and incredibly low input lag, ensuring a smooth and responsive gaming experience, which is great for competitive gamers.

The best LED TV we"ve tested in the budget category is the TCL 5 Series/S555 2022 QLED. It"s a great TV overall, with superb contrast and fantastic black uniformity, making it a great choice for a dark room. It has a decent full array local dimming feature, but there"s a bit more blooming than there is on the Hisense U8H, and it"s not as bright. It has a wide color gamut, so colors look vibrant and realistic, and it displays HDR content the way the content creator intended.

If you"re shopping on a tight budget, the best cheap LED TV we"ve tested is the Hisense A6H. It"s an okay TV overall, but unlike the more expensive models on this list, most sizes aren"t well-suited for a dark room, as blacks look gray and washed out in a dark room. On the other hand, it"s a good choice for a kitchen or any room where you tend to move around with the TV on, as the image remains consistent when viewed from the side.

It runs the Google TV smart interface, which has a massive selection of streaming apps available, so you can easily find your favorite shows or movies. It"s also a decent TV for gamers thanks to its superb low input lag, ensuring a responsive gaming experience. It even supports a variable refresh rate feature to help reduce tearing in games.

The Samsung QN95B QLED is an excellent TV that offers nearly identical performance to the Samsung QN90B QLED, but its inputs are all housed in an external One Connect box. It makes it easier to keep your cable management clean, but it"s not worth the price difference.

Replaced the Insignia F50 QLED with the Hisense A6H, as the Insignia is discontinued and very hard to find. Replaced the Hisense U6H with the TCL 5 Series/S555 2022 QLED, as it"s a bit better overall. Added the Samsung QN95B QLED, TCL 6 Series/R655 2022 QLED, and Insignia F50 QLED as Notable Mentions.

Replaced the Samsung QN90A QLED with the 2022 model, the Samsung QN90B QLED, and replaced the Hisense U6G with the 2022 Hisense U6H. Removed the Samsung QN85A QLED, as the Samsung QN90B is a better choice.

Restructured the article to better match user expectations. Added the Insignia F50 QLED as the "Best Cheap LED TV", and removed many out-of-date Notable Mentions.

Our recommendations above are what we think are currently the best LCD TVs to buy for most people in each price range. We factor in the price (a cheaper TV wins over a pricier one if the difference isn"t worth it), feedback from our visitors, and availability (no TVs that are difficult to find or almost out of stock everywhere).

If you would like to do the work of choosing yourself, here is the list of all our LED TV reviews. Be careful not to get too caught up in the details. While no TV is perfect, most TVs are great enough to please almost everyone, and the differences are often not noticeable unless you really look for them.

In market, LCD means passive matrix LCDs which increase TN (Twisted Nematic), STN (Super Twisted Nematic), or FSTN (Film Compensated STN) LCD Displays. It is a kind of earliest and lowest cost display technology.

LCD screens are still found in the market of low cost watches, calculators, clocks, utility meters etc. because of its advantages of low cost, fast response time (speed), wide temperature range,  low power consumption, sunlight readable with transflective or reflective polarizers etc.  Most of them are monochrome LCD display and belong to passive-matrix LCDs.

TFT LCDs have capacitors and transistors. These are the two elements that play a key part in ensuring that the TFT display monitor functions by using a very small amount of energy without running out of operation.

Normally, we say TFT LCD panels or TFT screens, we mean they are TN (Twisted Nematic) Type TFT displays or TN panels, or TN screen technology. TFT is active-matrix LCDs, it is a kind of LCD technologies.

TFT has wider viewing angles, better contrast ratio than TN displays. TFT display technologies have been widely used for computer monitors, laptops, medical monitors, industrial monitors, ATM, point of sales etc.

Actually, IPS technology is a kind of TFT display with thin film transistors for individual pixels. But IPS displays have superior high contrast, wide viewing angle, color reproduction, image quality etc. IPS screens have been found in high-end applications, like Apple iPhones, iPads, Samsung mobile phones, more expensive LCD monitors etc.

Both TFT LCD displays and IPS LCD displays are active matrix displays, neither of them can produce color, there is a layer of RGB (red, green, blue) color filter in each LCD pixels to make LCD showing colors. If you use a magnifier to see your monitor, you will see RGB color. With switch on/off and different level of brightness RGB, we can get many colors.

Neither of them can’t release color themselves, they have relied on extra light source in order to display. LED backlights are usually be together with them in the display modules as the light sources. Besides, both TFT screens and IPS screens are transmissive, it will need more power or more expensive than passive matrix LCD screens to be seen under sunlight.  IPS screens transmittance is lower than TFT screens, more power is needed for IPS LCD display.

Even though some say the picture quality of an LED TV is better, there is no straight answer for which has better picture quality since both TVs use the same kind of screen. For instance, a higher-end LCD TV can have a better quality than a low-end LED TV, but if you look at high-end models of either TV, the picture quality will be comparable.

RGB Dynamic LEDs show truer blacks and whites and thus get higher dynamic contrast ratio (which is desirable in a TV), at the cost of less detail in small bright objects on a dark background (such as star fields)

LED TVs use energy-efficient light emitting diodes (LED) for backlighting. These consume less power than cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL) used in traditional LCD televisions. Power savings are typically 20-30%.

Edge-LEDs (the most common) are positioned around the rim of the screen and use a special diffusion panel to spread the light evenly behind the screen.

Flat Screen LCDs, about an inch or two thick are more expensive, but also more popular because of their sleek look and the flexible options of standing on a surface or mounting on a wall.

Front projection LCDs or projectors, which project an image onto the front of the screen. The TV itself is just a box installed anywhere in a room, which projects the image onto a flat screen hung on the wall as large as 300 inches.

Rear projection LCDs, where the image is sent from the rear of the TV to the screen in front. Rear projection LCDs are wide, heavy and only available in large sizes (60" and up).

Shopping for a new TV is like wading through a never-ending pool of tech jargon, display terminology, and head-spinning acronyms. It was one thing when 4K resolution landed in the homes of consumers, with TV brands touting the new UHD viewing spec as a major marketing grab. But over the last several years, the plot has only continued to thicken when it comes to three- and four-letter acronyms with the introduction of state-of-the-art lighting and screen technology. But between OLEDs, QLEDs, mini-LEDs, and now QD-OLEDs, there’s one battle of words that rests at the core of TV vocabulary: LED versus LCD.

Despite having a different acronym, LED TV is just a specific type of LCD TV, which uses a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel to control where light is displayed on your screen. These panels are typically composed of two sheets of polarizing material with a liquid crystal solution between them. When an electric current passes through the liquid, it causes the crystals to align, so that light can (or can’t) pass through. Think of it as a shutter, either allowing light to pass through or blocking it out.

Since both LED and LCD TVs are based around LCD technology, the question remains: what is the difference? Actually, it’s about what the difference was. Older LCD TVs used cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) to provide lighting, whereas LED LCD TVs used an array of smaller, more efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to illuminate the screen.

Since the technology is better, all LCD TVs now use LED lights and are colloquially considered LED TVs. For those interested, we’ll go deeper into backlighting below, or you can move onto the Local Dimming section.

Three basic illumination forms have been used in LCD TVs: CCFL backlighting, full-array LED backlighting, and LED edge lighting. Each of these illumination technologies is different from one another in important ways. Let’s dig into each.

CCFL backlighting is an older, now-abandoned form of display technology in which a series of cold cathode lamps sit across the inside of the TV behind the LCD. The lights illuminate the crystals fairly evenly, which means all regions of the picture will have similar brightness levels. This affects some aspects of picture quality, which we discuss in more detail below. Since CCFLs are larger than LED arrays, CCFL-based LCD TVs are thicker than LED-backlit LCD TVs.

Full-array backlighting swaps the outdated CCFLs for an array of LEDs spanning the back of the screen, comprising zones of LEDs that can be lit or dimmed in a process called local dimming. TVs using full-array LED backlighting to make up a healthy chunk of the high-end LED TV market, and with good reason — with more precise and even illumination, they can create better picture quality than CCFL LCD TVs were ever able to achieve, with better energy efficiency to boot.

Another form of LCD screen illumination is LED edge lighting. As the name implies, edge-lit TVs have LEDs along the edges of a screen. There are a few different configurations, including LEDs along just the bottom, LEDs on the top and bottom, LEDs left and right, and LEDs along all four edges. These different configurations result in picture quality differences, but the overall brightness capabilities still exceed what CCFL LCD TVs could achieve. While there are some drawbacks to edge lighting compared to full-array or direct backlight displays, the upshot is edge lighting that allows manufacturers to make thinner TVs that cost less to manufacture.

To better close the local-dimming quality gap between edge-lit TVs and full-array back-lit TVs, manufacturers like Sony and Samsung developed their own advanced edge lighting forms. Sony’s technology is known as “Slim Backlight Master Drive,” while Samsung has “Infinite Array” employed in its line of QLED TVs. These keep the slim form factor achievable through edge-lit design and local dimming quality more on par with full-array backlighting.

Local dimming is a feature of LED LCD TVs wherein the LED light source behind the LCD is dimmed and illuminated to match what the picture demands. LCDs can’t completely prevent light from passing through, even during dark scenes, so dimming the light source itself aids in creating deeper blacks and more impressive contrast in the picture. This is accomplished by selectively dimming the LEDs when that particular part of the picture — or region — is intended to be dark.

Local dimming helps LED/LCD TVs more closely match the quality of modern OLED displays, which feature better contrast levels by their nature — something CCFL LCD TVs couldn’t do. The quality of local dimming varies depending on which type of backlighting your LCD uses, how many individual zones of backlighting are employed, and the quality of the processing. Here’s an overview of how effective local dimming is on each type of LCD TV.

TVs with full-array backlighting have the most accurate local dimming and therefore tend to offer the best contrast. Since an array of LEDs spans the entire back of the LCD screen, regions can generally be dimmed with more finesse than on edge-lit TVs, and brightness tends to be uniform across the entire screen. Hisense’s impressive U7G TVs are great examples of relatively affordable models that use multiple-zone, full-array backlighting with local dimming.

“Direct local dimming” is essentially the same thing as full-array dimming, just with fewer LEDs spread further apart in the array. However, it’s worth noting that many manufacturers do not differentiate “direct local dimming” from full-array dimming as two separate forms of local dimming. We still feel it’s important to note the difference, as fewer, further-spaced LEDs will not have the same accuracy and consistency as full-array displays.

Because edge lighting employs LEDs positioned on the edge or edges of the screen to project light across the back of the LCD screen, as opposed to coming from directly behind it, it can result in very subtle blocks or bands of lighter pixels within or around areas that should be dark. The local dimming of edge-lit TVs can sometimes result in some murkiness in dark areas compared with full-array LED TVs. It should also be noted that not all LED edge-lit TVs offer local dimming, which is why it is not uncommon to see glowing strips of light at the edges of a TV and less brightness toward the center of the screen.

Since CCFL backlit TVs do not use LEDs, models with this lighting style do not have dimming abilities. Instead, the LCD panel of CCFL LCDs is constantly and evenly illuminated, making a noticeable difference in picture quality compared to LED LCDs. This is especially noticeable in scenes with high contrast, as the dark portions of the picture may appear too bright or washed out. When watching in a well-lit room, it’s easier to ignore or miss the difference, but in a dark room, it will be, well, glaring.

As if it wasn’t already confusing enough, once you begin exploring the world of modern display technology, new acronyms crop up. The two you’ll most commonly find are OLED and QLED.

An OLED display uses a panel of pixel-sized organic compounds that respond to electricity. Since each tiny pixel (millions of which are present in modern displays) can be turned on or off individually, OLED displays are called “emissive” displays (meaning they require no backlight). They offer incredibly deep contrast ratios and better per-pixel accuracy than any other display type on the market.

Because they don’t require a separate light source, OLED displays are also amazingly thin — often just a few millimeters. OLED panels are often found on high-end TVs in place of LED/LCD technology, but that doesn’t mean that LED/LCDs aren’t without their own premium technology.

QLED is a premium tier of LED/LCD TVs from Samsung. Unlike OLED displays, QLED is not a so-called emissive display technology (lights still illuminate QLED pixels from behind). However, QLED TVs feature an updated illumination technology over regular LED LCDs in the form of Quantum Dot material (hence the “Q” in QLED), which raises overall efficiency and brightness. This translates to better, brighter grayscale and color and enhances HDR (High Dynamic Range) abilities.

And now to make things extra confusing, part of Samsung’s 2022 TV lineup is being billed as traditional OLEDs, although a deeper dive will reveal this is actually the company’s first foray into a new panel technology altogether called QD-OLED.

For a further description of QLED and its features, read our list of the best TVs you can buy. The article further compares the qualities of both QLED and OLED TV; however, we also recommend checking outfor a side-by-side look at these two top-notch technologies.

There are more even displays to become familiar with, too, including microLED and Mini-LED, which are lining up to be the latest head-to-head TV technologies. Consider checking out how the two features compare to current tech leaders in

In the world of TV technology, there’s never a dull moment. However, with this detailed research, we hope you feel empowered to make an informed shopping decision and keep your Best Buy salesperson on his or her toes.

If you’ve been thinking about upgrading your old TV, you’ve got plenty of options. In fact, most TV brands on the market offer a number of impressive models with cutting-edge picture technology, incredible smart features, and myriad connections for all of your AV equipment. But when it comes time to buy, is there one brand that stands above the rest?

Let’s examine all the TV makers worth looking at, and why big brands like Samsung and LG are so good at what they do. And whether you’re looking for the absolute best TVs on the market, the best TVs under $500, or something in the Goldilocks Zone like the best TVs under $1,000, you don’t want to waste your time. We’ve put together a guide to all the best TV brands of 2022, so when the time comes to upgrade, you’ll know where to start your search.

Note: Televisions chosen for this list are representative of makes and models available in the U.S. market. Further, TVs included in this guide were chosen primarily for their picture performance, with other considerations such as operating system or audio performance as secondary considerations.

South Korea’s Samsung is the de facto market leader in the world television space, leading competitors like LG and Sony by a wide margin in terms of overall sales. That’s partly a result of the company’s size (Samsung ranks 18th on the Fortune 500), but mostly it’s because Samsung makes great TVs with a focus on accessibility.

Technically, it’s called Samsung Smart TV Powered by Tizen, but let’s just go with Tizen. Like  Samsung’s best smartwatches, the company’s TVs run on a Tizen-powered user interface called Eden 2.0. For clarity, we’ll refer to it as Tizen, the UI’s building blocks.

Perhaps most impressive is how Tizen works with the Samsung app family, including SmartThings, Smart Connect, and Smart View. You can use those to mirror content from your phone — even iPhones — to your TV or send TV playback directly to your phone (only on Samsung phones). If you’ve got compatible smart home devices, you also can use the TV as a control hub.

Also, Samsung’s newer models — QLED and otherwise — offer some cool features like importing app logins from your phone to save time, and the Samsung One Connect box, built to simplify messy cable nests behind TVs (and to enable cleaner wall-mounting).

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).

2022 also saw Samsung announce its expected QD-OLED TVs, which use an advanced blue light source that acts as a hybrid between QLED and OLED. We are starting to see these TVs show up in the wild now, including the stunning Sony A95K QD-OLED, and the Samsung S95B OLED, if you are looking for an OLED-like upgrade from your current set. Like other major brands, 2022 also saw Samsung unveil a new MicroLED TV line, a major LED upgrade using the latest technology for super-tiny LEDs that can achieve higher brightness levels and very accurate dimming.

Another South Korean company, LG may not be as massive as the tried-and-true Samsung TV, but thanks to its OLED TV display technology, it has minimal competition when it comes to top-of-the-line picture performance.

It should be noted that there’s been a change in how LG will be naming its versions of WebOS going forward, and will now correspond with the year in which they’re released. LG TVs released in 2022 now come with WebOS 22, which is mostly the same as version 6 but adds profiles, smart speaker capabilities when the TV is turned off, and other new features.

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.

In 2021, LG introduced OLED Evo, an improvement on OLED technology that helps increase brightness by more than 20%. 2022 is seeing even more OLED Evo TVs hit the market, including the new and well-reviewed LG C2 Evo OLED, making LG the best place to get your OLED upgrade.

Sony, standing as the last great Japanese TV heavyweight in the U.S. (sorry, Panasonic, Toshiba, and JVC), doesn’t market as many proprietary technologies as Samsung or LG, but it has all the tech it needs to create awe-inspiring TVs.

Google TV — versions of which run on many other devices, like the Amazon Fire TV family — isn’t quite as slick as WebOS, but it’s arguably more powerful. Unlike WebOS and Tizen, the Google TV home screen is laden with apps and suggestions, and you can scroll down for even more. Sony’s 2021 catalog was the first generation of sets to switch over to Google TV, an overhaul of the Android TV OS that features a faster, more intuitive user interface, complete with recommended and sponsored web content.

Google TV also has built-in support for Google Assistant (via a microphone in the remote or in your phone) and Chromecast, for both video and audio. Plus, as with Tizen, Google Smart Lock can automatically sync logins from your mobile device to your TV. You also have the ability to create separate profiles with Google TV for each person in your home. And, if that’s not enough, you can download the Logitech Harmony app to control your smart home devices from the couch.

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.

In 2022, Sony also announced a push into mini-LED technology, announcing its first mini-LED TVs like the Z9K series. We’ve already seen mini-LED technology crop up in other devices like some Apple iPads. It’s a more affordable version of MicroLED tech where the LEDs are a bit larger, but still provide some of the same benefits, including better-localized dimming and contrast. Sony’s processor is key to this as it is designed with backlight algorithms to take the most advantage of smaller LEDs.

Like Samsung, Sony has also developed its own QD-OLED televisions. Our own Caleb Denison flew to Sony’s headquarters to thoroughly test one and found that Sony’s QD-OLED was a significant upgrade from past displays, albeit an expensive one.

TCL was barely a blip on the radars of seasoned LED TV reviewers half a decade ago. Today, it’s the fastest-growing brand out there, offering up 4K UHD and HDR-capable models at preposterously low prices.

TCL isn’t the only company making Roku TVs — Insignia, Sharp, and Hisense do the same, among other manufacturers — but it has been the most successful so far. From the affordable Roku Express to the Roku Streambar, the Roku TV platform’s vast selection (5,000+) of channels and its snappy cross-app search function are second to none. Roku’s smart TV user interface is a little less slick than webOS or Tizen, but we think it works better, and it’s more straightforward.

Additionally, TCL expanded into Google TV territory in 2021 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.

If you’re on a tight budget, but you still want some buttery 4K goodness up in your TV (not to mention HDR), TCL is the way to go. They’re affordable and are equipped with the latest version of Roku OS, featuring a dedicated Dolby Access channel to show off HDR-laden trailers.

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.

Hisense is unique in that it doesn’t have a singular operating system tied to its line of televisions. Some of its TVs use Android TV, like Sony, some of its TVs use Roku OS, like TCL, and some use VIDAA U, a slick-looking software that you can learn more about here. The models we are most impressed with are currently using Android TV, although at CES 2022 the company announced that all of its newULED TVs and its A6H and A7H lines will use Google TV. And for those of us that rely on Alexa, there’s even a Hisense TV that uses Amazon’s Fire TV platform!

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.

Vizio was once the undisputed champion when it came to awesome picture quality at a reasonable price. And while brands like TCL and Hisense have since challenged the Mighty V’s position at the top of Budget TV Mountain, this isn’t to say that Vizio isn’t still a name to be reckoned with.

Before 2017, all of Vizio’s Smart TVs ran a system that required users to download an application on their smartphone or tablet, which would be used to cast any content to the screen. In a nutshell, they were designed for mirroring. SmartCast updated that system by automatically curating a wide selection of apps without the need to download anything. That includes major streamers from Disney+ to Netflix, plenty of individual channel apps, and a wide variety of niche apps. It’s particularly easy to use in a field where smart TV platforms aren’t always the most user-friendly.

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.

Plus, gamers will be happy with Vizio’s announcement of a free firmware update to its 2021 models, allowing for compatibility with AMD’s FreeSync technology, which enables smoother graphics when used with compatible gaming consoles and PCs. It has also an M-Series TV specifically designed for gaming, with a 240 fps frame rate and built-in Dolby Vision Auto Gaming, among other features.

With over half a century of skin in the game, it’s weird to consider Panasonic an up-and-comer. It’s seen better days, particularly when plasma TVs were the hottest thing going and Panasonic was the leader of that bunch. But, boy, have times changed. With the fall of plasma, the company has packed up its American dream and taken it back to Europe and Asia, where scores of consumers are enjoying some of the best OLED sets available. American customers, meanwhile, will have a much harder time finding any models locally.

Panasonic isn’t known for its disruptive technologies, but it does produce a number of reliable UHD OLED models. The big problem is that its TV sets just aren’t available in North America any longer, which makes the brand very hard to recommend compared to similar, affordable TVs from Hisense or TCL that are readily available. We’ll see if that changes with 2022’s LZ2000 OLED TV showcased at CES, but for now, Panasonic isn’t worth considering unless you’re on another continent.

For most of the 20th century, Toshiba was the preeminent name in Japanese television manufacturing, having produced the first Japanese transistor TV in 1959.

Hisense spent more than $110 million to buy 95% of Toshiba’s TV business in 2017. The real nail in the coffin came in 2015, though, when (after years of flagging sales and a de-prioritization of the sector) Toshiba gave up on making TVs for the U.S. market. Reportedly, the decision came after years of trying to compete with an expanding global market by lowering prices and costs without sacrificing quality.

The decision to invest in Canon’s SED technology in the mid-aughts turned out poorly as well. For a company that once reigned as one of the leaders in the CRT (cathode-ray tube) and rear-projection TV manufacturing, it’s a shame, but Toshiba is still chugging along just fine, making other appliances and electronic control systems. Its TV line is only notable as an Amazon partner, which means they offer built-in Fire TV and Alexa voice assistant compatibility.

For all the more seasoned folks reading, RCA was once the most respected bastion in American television development, having deployed the first-ever TV test pattern in 1939 (!) and pioneered the first color TV standard, NTSC (so named after the National Television System Committee) in 1953.

By the mid-1980s, RCA had been lapped by Japanese manufacturers and was no longer the powerhouse many remembered. A massive $6 billion-plus deal in 1985 saw the entire company sold to General Electric, then, in 1988, GE turned around and sold the rights to GE and RCA-branded televisions to French company Thomson. Thomson later sold the GE rights to TCL in 2004 and the RCA rights to Korea’s ON Corporation, which currently makes RCA-branded TVs.

Magnavox may never have been the most dominant name in the American TV game, but it was a prominent player for some years following the technology’s proliferation.

In 1974, Philips acquired Magnavox’s consumer electronics division, later introducing and selling televisions under the “Philips Magnavox” brand name to try and bolster sales in the U.S. Eventually, Philips sold those rights to Funai, which now makes TVs under both the Philips and Magnavox brands. Magnavox (the company) is still a subsidiary of Philips.

JVC used to be part of the Panasonic Corp. and started manufacturing TVs in 1953. For decades, JVC was one of the most well-respected TV brands on the market. Few companies sold more CRT sets over the back half of the 20th century.

Around the turn of the millennium, JVC started seeing dwindling sales in its TV division. In 2008, the company merged with Kenwood and closed many TV manufacturing plants in the next few years. It also had to phase out TV production to increase the manufacturing of other products.

In 2011, JVC Kenwood ceased television production altogether and licensed the brand name to Taiwanese manufacturer AmTRAN for the North American market. When that license expired, the next deal went to China’s Shenzhen MTC, which currently makes TVs under the JVC brand in the U.S. and elsewhere. JVC still has a stellar reputation for projectors, which it still produces and sells.

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.

TFT LCD is a mature technology. OLED is a relatively new display technology, being used in more and more applications. As for Micro LED, it is a new generation technology with very promising future. Followings are the pros and cons of each display technology.

TFT Liquid Crystal Display is widely used these days. Since LCD itself doesn"t emit light. TFT LCD relies on white LED backlight to show content. This is an explanation of how TFT LCD works.

Relatively lower contrast：Light needs to pass through LCD glasses, liquid crystal layer, polarizers and color filters. Over 90% is lost. Also, LCD can not display pure black.

Organic Light-Emitting Diode is built from an electro-luminescent layer that contains organic compounds, which emit light in response to an electric current. There are two types of OLED, Passive Matrix OLED (PMOLED) and Active Matrix OLED (AMOLED). These driving methods are similar to LCD"s. PMOLED is controlled sequentially using a matrix addressing scheme, m + n control signals are required to address a m x n display. AMOLED uses a TFT backplane that can switch individual pixels on and off.

Low power consumption and flexible: OLED doesn"t rely on backlight and consumes less power. OLED is essentially created on plastic film. It is bendable and easy to process.

High contrast and vivid color: OLED emits light itself, can produce very bright image with beautiful color. And because OLED can be turned off, it can produce true black.

Stroboscopic effect: most OLED screen uses PWM dimming technology. Some people who are easy perceive stroboscopic frequency may have sore eyes and tears.

​Micro LED, sometimes called μLED is made up of tiny LED, measure less than 100μm. Another way of looking at this is that MicroLEDs are simply traditional LEDs shrunk down and placed into an array.

Replacing organic material with inorganic GaN material eliminates the need of polarizing and encapsulation layer, found in OLED. Micro LED is smaller and thinner, consumes less power.

LED-vs-LCD? Lately, choosing a TV has become like walking into a candy store. There are so many TV technology options to choose from, and each of them seems just as good.

Then there are the technical terms to deal with, such as LED TV, LCD TV, QLED TV, UHD TV, OLED TV, and more. You might feel like you need to be a tech pro just to watch your favourite TV show in the evening or enjoy a game with your friend.

Here at Dynamo LED, we offer both LED and LCD TVs, and we appreciate the benefits of both TVs. Be sure to check out our buying an LED Display guide for more info.

First, an important thing to understand is that the LED (Light Emitting Diode) monitor is an improvised version of the LCD (Liquid Crystal Display). This is why all LED monitor is LCD in nature, but not all LCDs are LED monitors.

LCD technology revolutionized monitors by using cold cathode fluorescent lamps for backlighting to create the picture displayed on the screen. A cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) is a tiny fluorescent bulb. In the context of this article, LCDs refer to this traditional type of CCFL LCD TVs.

LED monitors took the old technology a step further by replacing the fluorescent bulbs with LED backlight technology. And OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology improves it even further by eliminating the need for backlighting.

The quality of direct-view LED screens is measured by pixel pitch. The pixel pitch is the distance between two adjacent LEDs on the display. The smaller the pixel pitch, the better the quality of the image.

Since LEDs replace fluorescent bulbs with light-emitting diodes, LED TVs are more energy-efficient than LCDs. A 32-inch LED TV screen consumes 10 watts less power than the same size LCD screen. The difference in power consumption increases as the size of the display increases.

Light-emitting diodes are considerably smaller than fluorescent lamps used in LCD monitors. Fluorescent lamps have a considerable thickness, but the thickness of diodes is next to none. Moreover, countless diodes are assembled in the same plane, so the thickness of the array isn’t increased no matter how many diodes are present.

Edge-lit LEDs have a slight drawback in viewing angle compared to LCDs, because of the position of the light source. However, direct-view LEDs offer a better angle for viewing than LCDs as the light source is evenly spread on the screen.

Since LED displays use full-array LED backlighting rather than one big backlight, LED TVs offer significantly better contrast than LCDs. LCD backlighting technology only shows white and black, but LED backlighting can emit the entire RGB spectrum, thereby providing a deeper RGB contrast.

If you wonder which display will last longer, this debate is also won by LED displays. LED televisions have a longer lifespan of 100,000 hours on average, compared to 50,000 hours provided by LCD televisions.

An LED display provides the option to dim the backlight, along with other eye comfort features. Not only that, it provides a wider viewing angle without harming image quality. Therefore, an LED display is far better for your eyes than an LCD.

In an LED display, a lot of smaller diodes are used and if a diode is damaged, it can be replaced. In an LCD, you will need to replace the entire bulb in case of damage. Therefore, an LED display is easier and cheaper to maintain than an LCD.

Since LEDs are a better and newer technology, the price of an LED display is higher than an LCD. However, this is only when we are considering the purchase cost.

The picture quality of an LED display is far better than an LCD. Due to modular light-emitting diodes, an LED screen produces better control over the contrast, rendering a clear picture. Also, LED provides RGB contrast, which can show truer blacks and truer whites.

Not to forget, they provide a shorter response time as well. Both of these factors result inLED displays having a better picture quality compared to LCD displays.

Since LED displays are considerably thinner than LCDs, they weigh considerably less. On average, an LED screen weighs about half of an LCD screen of the same size.

As you might have noticed by now, LED wins the battle with LCD without any doubt. This is because LED displays have an advantage in all the factors that matter when considering a purchase, except price.

Even when you consider the price, you will find that while LED technology is costlier, it provides better value for money in the long run. This is because of the longer lifespan and easier maintenance of LED screens.

They are more attractive too. With the increasing shortage of space in new residential complexes, what better solution than an ultra-thin LED display giving a cinematic experience in the comfort of your home.

LED screens are the first choice among the public today, across generations. All are opting to switch to LED from LCD to make their lives more enjoyable and better.

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.

Chief among the U8H’s many strengths is its impressive peak brightness. When sending it HDR test patterns, I measured an average brightness of 1,500 nits, with peaks just north of 1,800 nits (a measurement of luminance; see TV features, defined for more info). To put that into perspective, consider that the 65-inch version of our budget 4K TV pick (the TCL 5-Series) typically costs around half as much as the 65-inch U8H but achieves only around 30% to 40% of its brightness. On the other side of the coin, the 65-inch version of our upgrade pick (the Samsung QN90B) costs almost twice as much as the 65-inch U8H, but it achieves only nominally higher brightness. Adequate light output creates convincing highlights and image contrast and (when necessary) combats ambient light from lamps or windows. It is a necessity for any TV worth buying—especially if you hope to watch HDR movies or play HDR games—and the U8H simply outpaces most TVs in its price range (and some in the next price bracket up, too).

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.

That’s not to say the U8H has pixel-precise light control—it’s not an OLED TV, after all—but it does a terrific job most of the time. In fact, in our tests, the U8H bested last year’s upgrade pick, the Samsung QN90A, in certain scenarios: The intro to Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities on Netflix features the filmmaker against a pitch-black backdrop. Though last year’s QN90A failed to maintain perfect control over dimming elements during this scene (the black backdrop brightened distractingly once a sufficient amount of brighter content appeared on screen), the U8H did not. (For the record, the newer QN90B also passed this test.) The U8H’s mini-LEDs also help the screen look uniformly bright: Although the U8H is still not as good as an OLED TV in this respect, it shows very little indication of being a backlight-driven display, even during tricky scenes with large swaths of dim lighting.

The U8H’s brightness, black-level integrity, and local-dimming abilities make this an excellent TV for watching HDR content. The U8H is capable of playing HDR content in all of the major formats (HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and HLG), but when it comes to impressive HDR, what’s under the hood is much more important than format compatibility. The most crucial thing for good HDR is high brightness and deep color saturation, and the U8H’s quantum dots achieve the latter. It’s not as simple as just having quantum dots, however: While many TVs (even the budget options) have quantum dots nowadays, what is often not taken into account is that brightness directly affects color saturation. For example, both the 2022 TCL 6-Series and the Hisense U8H are equipped with quantum dots, mini-LED backlights, and local dimming. But because the U8H is notably brighter than the 6-Series, it also achieves a higher total color volume. During our color-volume testing, the U8H exhibited color ranges at more than 100% of the DCI-P3 color space (the range of color needed to properly display HDR content), and it is capable of roughly 10% more total color volume compared with the 6-Series.

What does this mean in real-world terms? It means that the Hisense U8H truly excels as a modern 4K HDR TV, whether you’re watching the latest episode of Rings of Power or playing Overwatch 2. While watching HDR content side by side on the U8H and on our upgrade pick, the Samsung QN90B, I was truly surprised by how similar they looked at times, given that our upgrade pick is much more expensive. That said, though the U8H achieves impressive results where light output and color volume are concerned, it also exhibited some occasional video processing and upscaling issues (see Flaws but not dealbreakers), which videophiles and AV enthusiasts may take umbrage with. But in general, the picture quality punches well above its weight, metaphorically speaking.

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.

The TV’s higher refresh rate also reduces motion blur in faster-moving sports and allows for smoother, more stable motion in games. Two of the four HDMI inputs support 4K gaming at 120 Hz. The U8H measured low input lag while playing in 4K resolution, and Hisense’s helpful GameZone setting in the picture menu allowed me to confirm the presence of 120 Hz playback and variable refresh rate during games.

The onboard Google TV smart platform is another feather in this TV’s cap. As usual, however, it will be much more satisfying to use if you have a Google account and already take advantage of Google’s connected services, like Photos. The experience of navigating the TV’s smart features—scanning QR codes to sign into apps, using the onscreen keyboard, and browsing your Google Photos to set a photo as a screensaver—was very satisfying in terms of responsiveness and speed. Powering on the TV and booting into an app took just seconds. The included Bluetooth remote is also equipped with a handy “Hey Google” button, allowing you to pull up Google’s assistant and use voice commands to search for content or set a reminder. If you have multiple users with their own Google accounts, you can designate separate profiles (attached to a Gmail account) so that each user can customize the experience to their liking, as well as access their own Google Drive or Photos. While some reviewers have reported instances of momentary freezing while using the U8H’s platform, I didn’t personally experience any instances of slowdown that were egregiously worse than with any other smart-TV platform.

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.

I also saw occasional instances of banding with TV shows and movies, though they were few and far between. The U8H isn’t the best at upscaling sub-4K content, so videos with a 1080p or lower resolution looked a little soft. You can get better overall video processing and upscaling by springing for our upgrade pick (this is one reason it’s more expensive, after all).

Although the UH8 TV has four HDMI inputs, only two of them are fully HDMI 2.1–compatible. And one of those is designated as the eARC input (intended as an audio connection for a soundbar or AV receiver connection). So if you’re pairing an external audio system with the U8H, you may have only one input remaining that can support HDMI 2.1 features like 4K 120 Hz playback, variable refresh rate, and auto game mode; this could be a dealbreaker if you own more than one current-gen gaming console. If you’re in that boat, you may want to splash out some extra dough for our upgrade pick. Additionally, folks using pre-HDMI source devices—like the five-cable composite connector with green, red, blue, and red/white audio inputs—should be aware that this TV requires an adapter to allow those devices to connect, and an adapter is not included in the box.

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.

For gaming, use the game picture mode (the TV should switch into this mode automatically when paired with the newer game consoles), and then go into the Gaming submenu to make sure the right settings (VRR) are enabled. We recommend leaving the HDMI setting in “auto,” unless you notice that your game console is incorrectly identified.

While the main LED and LCD difference lies in the technology the TV uses to project visuals on screen, each of the two technologies responds to projections and video in a different way.

An LED TV, owing to the technology it uses, flaunts a thinner screen with sharper edges. On the other hand, the two-layer display technology adds bulk to an LCD TV.

Backlight is an important difference between LCD and LED TVs. An LED TV backlight comes in two ways: edge lighting and full array lighting. Unlike an LCD TV that uses CCFL for backlight, most LED TVs use ‘light guides’ to project pictures on the screen. For example: the latest LED Sony TV and LG TV use the edge lit with local dimming technology to present bright visuals.

When comparing LCD vs LED on the parameter of brightness, an LED TV stands out as a winner. This is because it appoints an individual dimming and backlighting system, which in comparison to LCD, makes your projections more defined, authentic, and closer to reality.

LED TVs have superior black levels and employ dynamic contrast mechanisms as compared to LCDs. Colour precision is also more defined in case of LED TV.

LCDs project clear pictures for up to 165 degrees, but projections tend to distort beyond this point. However, LED TVs are equipped to offer you better clarity at all viewing angles.

LED TVs are more energy-efficient as these models use light emitting diodes (LED) for backlighting. These TVs consume less power as compared to cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL), which most LCD TVs use. This results in a power savings of up to 30%.

Owing to the technology on offer, the price of LED TVs is higher as compared to LCD TVs. For instance, to buy an LED TV that is HD Ready, you will have to spend a minimum of Rs. 10,000 and the price will go up with an increase in screen size and technology. Smart TVs, for instance, come with a higher price tag.

The best part about an LED TV is that it can perfectly fit your space, however limited or expansive it may be, courtesy its versatile size and thickness. You can buy LCDs ranging between 13 and 57 inches in size and LEDs of up to 90 inches, based on the available space.

The most common type of LCD TVs today is the flat screen; however, you can also get front projection LCDs that project an image onto a flat screen. When it comes to LEDs, the most common type is the Edge LED TV that spreads the light uniformly behind the screen. You can also find Dynamic RGB LEDs, which offer dimmer or brighter projections on certain areas, and Full-array LEDs that do not offer dimming or brightening of an individual area.

With this comparison, you must have realised that LED TVs are better than LCDs. However, when choosing a TV, understand your viewing requirement first, then choose what suits you the best. If playing games or watching films in high definition is your passion, then choose LED TVs over LCDs.

The distance at which you sit to view the TV and the number of people viewing the TV at once determines the ideal size of a TV. Simply divide the viewing distance by 1.6 to get the ideal TV size for your room!

In the time to come, OLED technology is going to dominate the LED TV market. While some brands like Sony have already launched exceptional OLED TVs, more is yet to come. Unfortunately, LCD TVs will slowly vanish from the market owing to their cumbersome make and limited features.

When it comes to choosing between OLED vs LED vs LCD, do you know which TV panel technology is best for you? Can you even tell them apart? We don’t blame you if you’re unsure. The TV market is packed with acronyms and confusing naming conventions. For example, did you know that, technically, QLED counts as LED? While OLED isn’t LED? Knowing your LCD from your elbow isn"t as straightforward as any of us would like.

You can take a look at our dedicated best OLED TVs and what is OLED guides. But if you"re buying a new TV and want to know the important distinctions between OLED and LCD-LED sets – each with their own trade-off between price and picture quality – this guide is for you, and it lays out what each technology is and why it matters.

Many aspects of televisions are common across different panel technologies. For example, in our best LG TVs guide you’ll find that both LED and OLEDwill use the same webOS smart TV platform. You can also find a mix of TV sizes whatever kind of TV you end up choosing. But the difference in panels and processors can have huge consequences for the picture quality which, at the end of the day, is the most important aspect of a television.

All of these screen technologies support the increasingly essential 4K resolution, as well as accompanying 4K color-boosting tech like HDR, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. Read our best 4K TV guide for our pick of the top high-res panels you can buy today.

Watching an OLED TV for the first time is genuinely a pure ‘whoah!’ moment. So smooth, fluid, colourful and contrasty are the images that it"s really hard to go back to your old LCD or plasma TV. Does that mean OLED is the flat TV tech we’ve been waiting for?

Almost as flat as wallpaper, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) is a breakthrough moment for TVs. Critically, it emits its own light, so the huge backlight used by most TVs isn’t there. As well as being slim, in an OLED display each pixel self-illuminates, so you can control images at an individual pixel level.

In an OLED panel, organic films are placed between semiconductors, then supplied with an electrical current, which effectively means that each and every pixel can be switched on and off individually. This process simultaneously uses less power to create more brightness, and makes total black possible.

So any video that features both darkness and extreme brightness, such as a star-filled night sky, looks realistic. With unlimited contrast, it means the whitest whites and the darkest blacks – and everything in between. Expect eye-popping color, and, crucially, lightning-fast response times. There are downsides to OLED too though: it’s very expensive, and no one is quite sure how long panels will last.

OLED panel manufacturing is also more environmentally friendly than traditional panels. While LCD panels require the greenhouse gas Nitrogen Trifluoride in their production, OLEDs don’t. So, if you want to save the planet and have a better picture quality, you may want an OLED set.Today"s best LG C9 OLED Series deals

If you can’t justify spending big on an OLED or QLED TV, the good news is that all major TV brands are still selling plenty of LCD-LED TVs. LCD (liquid crystal display) and LED (light-emitting diode) TVs are often thought of as competing concepts, but they actually refer to identical display technology. In an LCD TV, liquid crystals rotate polarized light, effectively acting as a light valve that illuminates all pixels simultaneously. Instead of the pixel-by-pixel lighting of OLED TVs, in a standard LCD TV all light comes from a big energy-guzzling backlight. The result is a uniform brightness, and relatively low contrast images.

LCD is an outmoded technology, so much so that you can’t easily buy basic LCD TVs of any size anymore, at least not in the original configuration. That"s where LED-backlighting comes in – instead of having a one-piece backlight that limits contrast, LED TVs are illuminated by (you guessed it) LEDs. They’re ranged in either clusters behind the panel (so-called full-array local dimming) or on the sides (called ‘edge’ or ‘edge-lit’ LED TVs). The latter is more common, largely because the resulting TV is flatter.

There are a few drawbacks, namely that both techniques still get their light from an external source that increases the components and size of the finished TV. If you watch in a completely black environment, you’ll notice blotches and uneven brightness on the panel too, and a lack of shadow detail in dark areas of the screen. That said, images are usually very bright, and very colorful, and you can buy an LED TV in virtually any size you want. They"re great value.

Brands are always trying to shout about new innovations (such as LG’s chatter about Nano Cell technology), but they"re often just tweaking old technology. LED-backlit LCD TVs provide the current sweet-spot for TV technology, and that"s not going to change anytime soon.Today"s best panasonic tx-40gx800 and TCL 4K TCL Roku TV deals

QLED panels are not self-emissive, instead they are lit by LEDs along the edge (just like an Edge LED-backlit LCD). The advantages of QLED TVs are that they use a quantum dot color filter and are capable of significantly hig