screen is very dim on led backlit lcd panel pricelist

Traditional LCDs use CCFLs, or cold-cathode florescent lamps, as their backlight. While cheap, they"re not as energy efficient as LEDs. More importantly, all contain mercury, and aren"t able to do some of the fancy area-lighting of which some LED backlit models are capable. Because of these issues and the falling prices of LEDs, CCFL backlit LCD TVs will disappear entirely very soon. In 2013

Most LED LCDs on the market today are edge-lit, which means the LEDs are in the sides of the TV, facing in toward the screen. In the image at the top, the LED strips are above and to the side of this exploded-view of an LCD panel. There"s a close-up view here (full article with more images

There are a few models that are have their LEDs arrayed on the back of the TV, facing you. These are less common, though are making a comeback in the form of cheaper, but thicker, mostly low-end LED LCDs. There are a handful of high-end TVs that use full-array LED backlighting in a slightly different way, which we"ll discuss later.

Because the light is brightest nearest the LEDs, it"s common for edge-lit LED LCDs to have poor uniformity. This is especially noticeable on dark scenes, where areas of the screen will appear brighter than others. Corners or edges can have what looks like tiny flashlights shining on the screen. Check out

Each manufacturer has a preferred method for edge-lighting, but some models may feature one type, while other models feature another type. Generally speaking, the fewer LEDs the cheaper the TV is to produce. Fewer LEDs also mean better energy efficiency, but LED LCDs are already so efficient that this is a tiny improvement. Unfortunately, specific details about where a TV"s LEDs are located (beyond "direct" or "edge"), the number of LEDs, and other useful information about the backlighting, are rarely listed on a TV"s spec sheet.

The biggest difference between all the LED back/edge-lighting methods is how effective their "local dimming" is, which as you"ll see, has become a pretty broad term.

This design has all the LEDs along the bottom of the TV. Though manufacturers don"t like to reveal how many LEDs they use, this is likely the type with the least number of LEDs.

Though TVs of this style claim to have "local dimming" you can see how this is a pretty broad definition of "local." Even if each LED is dimmable independently (highly unlikely), you"re still only able to dim columns that stretch from top to bottom. Something like this:

As you can guess, this design has LEDs on the top and bottom edges of the screen. The local dimming here is a little better, where the zones can be slightly smaller areas of the screen, like this:

This is a less common method now, as it requires more LEDs than any of the other edge-lighting methods. The local dimming can get a little more accurate, but is still limited to large-ish zones. If we used our moon example image, the result with an all-sides edge-lit would look just like top and bottom. But with regular video (that has more light sources than just the moon), it will have a more zones to work with, sort of like this:

All Sides used to be the most common edge-lighting method. But as the light guides improved, and costs had to come down (to make cheaper LED LCDs), this method became fairly rare.

Nearly all "backlit" LED LCDs use this method. The LEDs are arrayed on the back of the TV, facing you, but there is no processing to dim them individually. They work instead as a uniform backlight, like most CCFL LCDs. The least expensive LED LCDs use this method, as do most of Sharp"s

This is the ultimate LED LCD, offering performance that rivals the better plasmas. Like the "direct-lit" TVs, these have their LEDs behind the screen (the image above for direct-lit works as a visual aid for this type as well). The full local-dimming aspect means the TV is able to dim zones behind the dark areas of the screen in fairly specific areas to make the image really pop, drastically increasing the apparent contrast ratio.

However, they basically don"t exist. The LG LM9600 wasn"t great last year, and LG has yet to announce any full-array local-dimming TVs for 2013. The only other local-dimming LED LCD was the Sony HX950, which was excellent, and is still current. In his review David Katzmaier called

The two biggest-selling TV makers in the U.S. are Samsung and Vizio, and neither has sold a full-array local-dimming LED TV for the last couple years. At CES 2013, Samsung"s only such TV announced was the insanely-expensive E420i-A1, saying "Sure, black levels get darker, but the trade-off in shadow detail is one I"m not willing to make," and concluded that its "local dimming does nothing to improve picture quality."

As I mentioned at the top, there"s no easy way to tell, just by looking at a spec sheet, what kind of backlight a TV has. By extension, there"s no way to tell how good its local dimming will be. Bad local dimming can, at worst, just be marketing hyperbole. At best, it does little to improve the picture. Good local dimming, however, can make a punchy image, with lots of apparent depth and realism. Or to put it differently, the best LCDs on the market have the best local dimming, allowing them to rival plasmas on the picture quality front. The better TV reviews, like ahem those here on CNET, will talk about all this, so you"re not duped into paying for a "feature" that"s little more than a check mark on a spec sheet.

Got a question for Geoff? First, check out all the other articles he"s written on topics like Send him an e-mail! He won"t tell you what TV to buy, but he might use your letter in a future article. You can also send him a message on Twitter: @TechWriterGeoff.

One of the top buzzterms in LED LCD marketing is "local dimming." Ostensibly, local dimming can dim the area of the screen that needs it, while keeping the bright parts of the screen bright. This technology can really increase the contrast ratio to make a better image. It"s also vital to get the intense highlights possible with High Dynamic Range (HDR) content.

LED LCDs don"t have the OLED (or plasma, may it RIP). As such, their images don"t have quite the depth and three-dimensionality that"s possible with other technologies.

This is the full monty. The name refers to an array of individual LEDs behind the LCD panel, all pointing out through the screen toward your eyeballs. A mock-up example is shown at right, if the front LCD layer was removed and the LED backlight exposed.

While individual control of all these LEDs would be ideal (though rarely implemented), the most common method is a set number of "zones." Depending on the TV, these could number in the dozens or more. Unfortunately, most LED TV makers don"t disclose the number.

Each zone is responsible for a certain area of the screen. Objects smaller than the zone (stars in the night sky, for example), don"t benefit from the local dimming, and can look muted as a result. Also, if a zone is lit, and an adjacent zone isn"t lit, you could see a halo/bloom as that part of the screen becomes brighter than its neighboring zone. This artifact is commonly known as "blooming."

At its best, full-array backlit local dimming produces the best images you can get with LCD. It"s also always more expensive than TVs from the same company with one of the other backlighting methods discussed below.

The downside is size and cost. The LEDs have to be set back from the screen a little (the farther away, the fewer you need to cover the same area), so there"s additional depth compared to the edge-lit models.

Local dimming, in this case, becomes a bit looser of a term. Yes, the TV can still dim areas of the screen, but those areas are much larger than they are with full array, as you can see in the image above.

Worst-case, the "local dimming" could be nearly invisible, or dim huge swaths of the screen at a time, neither offering any benefit. In some cases, it could result in a worse picture.

Best-case, there"s a noticeable improvement in the picture quality, though not as much as there would be with full array. The pin-point highlights of HDR aren"t possible here, though some models might still offer Wide Color Gamut (which is related to HDR, but separate).

Depending where the LEDs are (along all four sides of the screen, just the right and left, just the top and bottom, or just the bottom or the top), edge-lit local dimming can have widely different performance.

One last trick isn"t really "local" dimming as much as it"s just "dimming," or maybe "global dimming." The entire image will get darker with dark scenes, and stay bright with bright scenes. As in, the entire backlight functions as one single light. This is common among the least expensive LCD TVs.

It"s common on these models, for example, that when given a full black image (like the fade-out at the end of a movie, but before the credits start) the LEDs will shut off completely, making the TV seem like it has a really good black level.

This is fake, of course. If anything should appear, the LEDs kick back on, and the black level jumps up, revealing the TV"s true (and far more muted) contrast ratio. There are some tiny energy-saving benefits to turning off the LEDs, but visually this is can be distracting.

Another variation of this theme senses the average brightness of the scene and, during darker scenes, ratchets down the whole backlight. Again black levels improve because the whole screen is darker, but this is at the the expense of bright highlights. Sometimes this causes visible fluctuations in overall brightness.

It all comes down to "don"t believe the marketing hype," at least not at face value. Local dimming can be a way to get near-OLED levels of picture quality. Or, it can offer some improvement compared with basic TVs, creating a pleasing, if not class-leading, image. Or, it could be a marketing label for something that"s not really much benefit at all. As usual, the best way to know is to check the reviews, where TVs with good local dimming do really well.

Got a question for Geoff? First, check out all the other articles he"s written on topics like why all HDMI cables are the same, TV resolutions explained, LED LCD vs. OLED, and more. Still have a question? Tweet at him @TechWriterGeoff then check out his travel photography on Instagram. He also thinks you should check out his bestselling sci-fi novel and its sequel.

LCDs don’t emit light on their own and must instead have a backlight that shines through the LCD material to display an image. Today’s LCD-based displays use a number of LEDs for the backlighting. To achieve a greater contrast ratio than a standard dynamic range display, the LEDs in the backlight change their brightness level, allowing the display to dim the backlight for darker blacks and brighten it for brighter whites, which creates a wider contrast ratio. There are several different dimming designs that can be used in the backlight to accomplish this.

Global Dimming: The backlight, which consists of a string of LEDs on one edge of the LCD panel, is treated as a single “zone” and is dimmed for dark scenes and brightened for bright scenes. This is the least expensive type of dimming and can be accomplished with a standard LCD panel. This approach works well for scenes with a limited dynamic range. This type of dimming is typically found on notebooks as it has the lowest power consumption of any dimming technique and generates the least amount of heat. The disadvantage of this design is that the simultaneous contrast ratio is never greater than the contrast ratio of the LCD panel, usually around 1000:1.

Local Dimming: This represents a wide variety of different sub-designs, each detailed below. What differentiates all of the local-dimming designs from global-dimming is that global dimming has a single backlight zone, the entire screen’s backlight is adjusted as one control, in local dimming the screen’s backlight is split into segments which can be independently adjusted.

1D Local Dimming: This design also uses an “edge-lit” string of LEDs, but in this case groups of LEDs on the string can be independently controlled. For most displays, the string of LEDs is located at the bottom of the panel, resulting in a number of vertical zones, equally spaced across the horizontal edge of the display. An edge-lit LED string typically contains between eight and sixteen LED groups, resulting in eight to sixteen dimming zones. This design allows for simultaneous contrast ratios of 6,000:1 to 100,000:1. 1D local dimming is currently the most common design found in HDR televisions and displays.

1.5D Local Dimming: Similar to the 1D local dimming, using edge lighting. However in this design an LED lighting string exists on two sides of the panel, typically top and bottom although left and right designs also exists. The advantage of this design is that it typically has 2×16 zones, so twice as many zones as 1D, but more importantly the top and the bottom of the screen are independently controlled, versus the 1D design where each zone is typically the full vertical height of the screen.

2D or Full array local dimming (FALD): In this design the backlight LEDs are moved from the edge of the panel to the rear of the panel and are arranged in a two-dimensional matrix of LEDs. Each LED is independently controlled and adjusts the brightness of just one “square of a checkerboard” on the display, although typically they are rectangles rather than perfect squares. Today’s HDR displays and televisions typically have between 384 and 1152 zones. These designs are the most expensive, due to the complexity of the circuitry and the processing demands required. The design can also generate a large amount of heat, and often requires cooling fans and/or heat sinks to be placed behind the LCD panel to draw heat away from the display electronics. Full array local dimming produces the best image quality of all of these designs and can achieve simultaneous contrast ratios of 20,000:1 to 500,000:1. Due to the high cost of this design, these displays command the highest prices and typically cost thousands of dollars.

Active-dimming: is the term VESA adopted for one of the new tests in our Certification Test Spec v1.1 (CTS v1.1) where we added a new kind of validation procedure to ensure that displays were actually dimming the backlight based on real-time analysis of the video content, rather than merely only dimming when metadata changes occurred in the video stream. It would be typical that during a movie or game that the metadata for HDR10 would not change, however each frame may have a different peak luminance than the prior frame, and thus could adjust the backlight accordingly. This yields better power saving, and better HDR blacks. The new tests in CTS v1.1 ensure that we test, without changing the metadata of the signal, a dramatic reduction in peak luminance from a full-white checkerboard, to a checkerboard where the white boxes are only 5 cd/m2, this provides ample opportunity for the dimming algorithm to reduce the backlight power. When reducing the backlight power the black level of the black segments of the checkerboard will also reduce, and this is what is measured and used in our calculation of active-dimming stops, (for the more technical, “stops” originally used in photography are a power-of-2 logarithmic function).

I may have found the source of at least some of the failures I"ve been having. I had another one come in today that was behaving the same way, dim screen, etc. However, this time there was one position the screen could be in that would turn on the back light.

Suspecting a loose cable I popped it open and verified the ends were connected, but it turned out that there was a problem with the cable. If it bent wrong it would short out. I replaced the part with one salvaged from another chromebook that had been used for parts, and the back light came on and there was much joy.

This joy was short lived. Short being the key word. After assembling the chromebook again, there was no back light. While moving it around a little, I noticed that the corner, near the hinge where the cable for the LCD passes through was quite hot. I quickly pulled the bezel back off, and it started smoking!

I"m thinking that I saw two versions of the cause of the issue. One where the cable was not completely shorting, but still having issues with broken wires, and a second where the broken wire lead to it making contact with the metal shielding.

My first instinct was to look for any pinches in the routing, I can make mistakes with the best of them... Like the crab from the honda commercial says, no pinch...

So, ultimately, I think it is this cable that is causing these issues. Shorts in this cable could account for both the screen and the motherboard going belly up. Anyone else running into this issue? I know we are a little more exposed to the issue because we have several hundred of these devices deployed, but I"d like to know if this is a bit more common than one would expect.

In a possibly related note, looks like prices on that cable are going up, often to ~$40. I wonder if they"ve been going out and the supply on them is getting much smaller.

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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. Because of this, OLED TVs don’t need a separate backlight. Each pixel you see is a self-contained source of color and light.

Some of the inherent benefits of OLED screens are that they can be extremely thin, flexible, and even rollable. But the biggest benefit when we compare them to LED TVs is that each individual pixel receives its own luminance and power (as opposed to LED TVs, which have persistent pixels that require an external source of light to see). When it’s on, you can see it. When it’s off, it emits no light at all — it’s completely black. We’ll discuss how this affects black levels in a moment.

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

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

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

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

Though they don really similar acronyms, an OLED TV is not the same as a QLED TV. The latter is actually based on LED tech, but it uses a technique that overlays self-emissive quantum dots over the pixels that help produce better brightness, vividness, and color accuracy. QLED is more of an iterative step than a generational leap, and though we’d certainly recommend buying one if OLED is out of reach, expect its eventual deprecation as technologies like quantum dot OLED (QD-OLED) and microLED take hold.

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

For the average consumer, microLED isn’t anything to consider yet. It remains difficult to scale down to less-than-gigantic TVs, and it’s unlikely to hit homes for another couple of years when it will still be exceedingly expensive. Of course, that was once true of OLED, which is why this tech is worth keeping an eye on for a future TV replacement.

Now it’s time to pit these two technologies against each other and see how they stack up when it comes to traits such as contrast, viewing angle, brightness, and other performance considerations.

Editor’s note: Since OLED TVs are still a premium display, we have compared OLED only to equally-premium LED TVs armed with similar performance potential (except, of course, in the price section).

A display’s ability to produce deep, dark blacks is arguably the most important factor in achieving excellent picture quality. Deeper blacks allow for higher contrast and richer colors (among other things) and thus a more realistic and dazzling image. When it comes to black levels, OLED reigns as the undisputed champion.

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

OLED TVs suffer from none of the black-level problems of traditional LED TVs. If an OLED pixel isn’t getting electricity, it doesn’t produce any light and is, therefore, totally black. Sounds like an obvious choice to us.

When it comes to brightness, LED TVs have a considerable advantage. Their backlights can be made from large and powerful LEDs. With the addition of quantum dots, that brightness can be preserved even as the size of the individual LEDs get smaller. OLED TVs can get pretty bright, too, and with such dark black levels, the contrast between the brightest and darkest spots on screen is all the more exaggerated. But cranking OLED pixels to their maximum brightness for extended periods reduces their lifespan, and the pixel takes slightly longer to return to total black.

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

It should also be noted that there have been big gains recently in OLED brightness, making them perfectly suitable for nearly any situation, save direct sunlight beaming onto the screen. Still, when compared directly, LED TVs have the edge.

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

Response time refers to the time it takes for each individual pixel to change states. A pixel’s state is not only its color but also its brightness. With a faster response time, you get less motion blur and fewer artifacts (source material notwithstanding).

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

Refresh rate is how often the entire image on-screen changes. The faster the rate, the smoother things look, and the easier it is to pick out details in fast-moving content like sports. Most new TVs are capable of refresh rates of 120Hz, which means the entire image is updated 120 times every second. Some go as high as 240Hz.

If refresh rate were simply a matter of Hz, we’d call OLED TV the winner, simply because it can achieve rates of up to 1,000 times higher than LED TVs. But absolute speed isn’t the only consideration. Unlike movies and TV shows, which use a single refresh rate, video games often employ something called variable refresh rates, which simply means that the rate changes during different parts of a game. If a TV can’t match these rate changes, you end up with image tearing — a visible jerkiness that comes from the disparity between the rate the game is using and the rate the TV wants to use.

That’s why gamers, in particular, want TVs that can handle VRR or Variable Refresh Rate. It’s a rare feature on both OLED and LED TVs, but you can expect to see it show up on more models in both types of TVs. Right now, you can find VRR in certain Samsung, LG, and TCL TVs. But neither OLED nor LED TVs have a real advantage when it comes to VRR; some models have the feature, and some don’t. Your gaming system also has to support VRR, though that shouldn’t be much of an issue if you own a new Xbox Series X, PS5, or even a PS4/One X.

Finally, input lag is the gap in time between when you press a button on a game controller and the corresponding action shows up on-screen. Input lag can be a problem when TVs introduce a lot of picture processing that causes a slow-down in the signal they receive. But most modern TVs have a game mode, which eliminates the processing and reduces input lag to barely discernible levels. In the future, all TVs will be able to sense the presence of a video game and switch to this mode automatically, returning to the processed mode when gaming stops.

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

That said, OLED TVs can be viewed with no luminance degradation at drastic viewing angles — up to 84 degrees. Compared to most LED TVs, which have been tested to allow for a max viewing angle of 54 degrees at best, OLED has a clear advantage.

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

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

LG says you’d have to watch its OLED TVs five hours a day for 54 years before they’d fall to 50% brightness. Whether that’s true remains to be seen, as OLED TVs have only been out in the wild since 2013. For that reason and that reason only, we’ll award this category to LED TVs. It pays to have a proven track record.

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

Will it make a difference to your overall health? We think the jury is still out, but if blue light is a concern, you should take a serious look at OLED TVs.

The effect we’ve come to know as burn-in stems from the days of the boxy CRT TV when the prolonged display of a static image would cause an image to appear to “burn” into the screen. What was actually happening was the phosphors that coated the back of the TV screen would glow for extended periods of time without any rest, causing them to wear out and create the appearance of a burned-in image. We think this should be called “burn out,” but we’ll set that one aside.

The same issue is at play with plasma and OLED TVs because the compounds that light up can degrade over time. If you burn a pixel long and hard enough, it will dim prematurely ahead of the rest of the pixels, creating a dark impression. In reality, this is not very likely to cause a problem for most people — you’d have to abuse the TV intentionally to get it to happen. Even the “bug” (logographic) that certain channels use disappears often enough or is made clear to avoid causing burn-in issues. You’d have to watch ESPN all day, every day for a long, long time at the brightest possible setting to cause a problem, and even then, it still isn’t very likely.

That said, the potential is there, and it should be noted. (This is also a contributing factor in the dearth of OLED computer monitors on the market, as computer screens are far more likely to display a static image for hours on end.) Since LED TVs aren’t susceptible to burn-in, they win this fight by a technicality.

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

OLED TVs are premium TVs and almost always likely to be more expensive than an LED version of the same size. However, we have seen prices starting to drop down to manageable levels recently, especially if there are any discounts running. MSRPs can go as low as $1,300 to $1,500, but you probably won’t find many lower than that.

Conversely, LED TVs can range in price from a few hundred dollars — even for a quality big-screen model — to several thousand dollars, making them overall more accessible than OLEDs. While prices of the highest-quality LED TVs hover at nearly the same range as the price of OLEDs, when judged by price and price alone, LED TVs can still be acquired for a pittance in comparison.

In terms of picture quality, OLED TVs still beat LED TVs, even though the latter technology has seen many improvements of late. OLED is also lighter and thinner, uses less energy, offers the best viewing angle by far, and, though still a little more expensive, has come down in price considerably. OLED is the superior TV technology today. If this article were about value alone, LED TV would still win, but OLED has come a long way in a short time and deserves the crown for its achievements. Regardless of which technology you ultimately decide on, that’s not the only factor that you need to consider, so be sure to check our TV buying guide to make sure you’re buying the right TV to meet your needs.

After a long, hard day, you finally sit down to catch up on your favorite show. But when you hit the power button on your remote control, your TV screen stays black! You try pressing the remote’s power button again and again from every angle, but still, your TV has no picture. If this sounds familiar, you’ve likely fallen victim to one or more TV screen issues.

What causes a TV screen to go black? Software issues, loose connections, or backlight problems are usually behind black TV screens. Learn about each of these causes and get tips for troubleshooting them so you can get back to relaxing with your favorite TV shows, movies, and video games.

If your TV screen is black and there’s no sound, you’ll want to check for an LED light or a small indicator light that tells you the TV has power. If there is no power to the TV while it is plugged in, there may be an issue with the outlet or fuse box in your home. However, if the TV is on but the screen is black, the problem could lie with your TV’s software.

Unplug the TV from the wall, and, if possible, remove the power cord from the back of the TV to perform a soft reset. Wait 30 seconds, and plug the TV back into a working outlet to test it again. If you’re still having screen issues, you might want to bring in an expert — they’ll know how to fix your TV’s black screen.

If your TV screen goes black but the sound still works, the first thing to check is the input source to ensure it is turned on and operating correctly. This includes external devices like cable boxes, video game consoles, laptops, and streaming devices. Once you’re sure the input source is working properly and you have the right input settings, check the cable connections. In many instances where the TV screen is black but the audio works, poor cable connections could be the issue.

Whether you’re working with an HDMI cable, RCA (usually yellow, white, and red cables) set up, or another type of connection, you need to ensure the cables are seated properly and firmly into their connection ports. With a good connection, the cable shouldn’t feel loose or easily disconnect when pulled on or moved around. If all your cables have a snug fit but the problem persists, try connecting the device to another TV. If your TV screen is still blacked out, you may need new cables.

Some TV displays, such as LCD screens, use a backlight to illuminate the picture. If the backlight burns out or stops working, it will result in a blank TV screen.

To check your TV’s backlight, make sure your TV is on. Then, turn off the lights in the room and shine a flashlight on the screen. If you can see a picture with the flashlight, then your TV’s backlight is likely burnt out.

While you might be eager to learn how to fix a black-screen TV, a broken backlight does not come with an easy solution. The backlight will need to be replaced, and it’s best to get help from a professional with this task.

If repair costs are outside your budget or not worth it considering the age and condition of your TV, you may want to consider upgrading to a new smart TV. When you purchase a new TV from your local Rent-A-Center, you’ll enjoy free product service and repairs for the life of your agreement as part of our Worry-Free Guarantee.

You’ve run all the tests, checked all the ports, and ensured your TV has power, but your TV screen is still black! There could be a more complicated (and expensive) issue, so it might be time to ditch your old TV for an upgrade.

Rent-A-Center makes it easy to own a new TV, like an LG 65″ 4K UHD Smart TV. From OLED to QLED, we’ve got ultra high-definition TVs with picture quality so crisp, you’ll wonder why you didn’t upgrade sooner. Avoid the headache of your old TV, and shop your favorite TV brands online today. You can even get same-day delivery on qualifying purchases in select areas!

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.

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

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.

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).

OLED displays have higher contrast ratios (1 million : 1 static compared with 1,000 : 1 for LCD screens), deeper blacks and lower power consumption compared with LCD displays. They also have greater color accuracy. However, they are more expensive, and blue OLEDs have a shorter lifetime.

OLED displays offer a much better viewing angle. In contrast, viewing angle is limited with LCD displays. And even inside the supported viewing angle, the quality of the picture on an LCD screen is not consistent; it varies in brightness, contrast, saturation and hue by variations in posture of the viewer.

There are no geographical constraints with OLED screens. LCD screens, on the other hand, lose contrast in high temperature environments, and lose brightness and speed in low temperature environments.

Blue OLEDs degrade more rapidly than the materials that produce other colors. Because of this, the manufacturers of these displays often compensate by calibrating the colors in a way that oversaturates the them and adds a bluish tint to the screen.

With current technology, OLED displays use more energy than backlit LCDs when displaying light colors. While OLED displays have deeper blacks compared with backlit LCD displays, they have dimmer whites.

LCDs use liquid crystals that twist and untwist in response to an electric charge and are lit by a backlight. When a current runs through them, they untwist to let through a specific amount of light. They are then paired with color filters to create the display.

AMOLED (Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode) is a different form of OLED used in some mobile phones, media players and digital cameras. It offers higher refresh rates with OLEDs and consume a lot less power, making them good for portable electronics. However, they are difficult to view in direct sunlight. Products with AMOLED screens include Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S II, HTC Legend and PlayStation Vita.

Both OLED and LED TVs use thin panels with millions of pixels to deliver crystal-clear picture quality, and there are excellent sets in both categories. The major difference lies in how they light the image.

Looking strictly at picture quality, it’s hard to beat an OLED TV. But there are loads of reasons you might opt for an LED TV instead. One undeniable factor is price. LED TVs start under $500, while even a small OLED will set you back $1,200. LEDs also come in a wider variety of sizes and models, though the options for OLEDs are growing.

LED TVs (left) shine a backlight through layers of filters, diffusors, and polarizers to create a picture. An OLED TV (right) doesn"t need a backlight because its pixels are self-lighting, so the panel design is more simple.

LED TVs are a type of LCD TV. They require many layers to create the picture you see. One of the most important is the backlight, which is made up of small, bright LEDs or light-emitting diodes. This LED backlight shines through a liquid crystal layer, and each liquid crystal pixel acts like a shutter, either blocking the light or allowing it to pass through.

The type and sophistication of the backlight contributes to overall picture quality, especially how well the TV can display dark areas of the picture.

Direct-lit backlights use a grid with a small number of LEDs across the entire back of the screen. These LEDs can"t be independently dimmed, so contrast isn’t as good as more advanced backlights.

Edge-lit TVs use strings of LEDs along either the sides of the screen, the top and bottom, or just the bottom. "Light guides" redirect and scatter the light evenly to produce a more uniform picture. They are thinner than direct-lit TVs. Some use frame dimming to adjust picture brightness frame by frame, while others use local dimming to darken zones as needed.

Higher-end sets use a more advanced type of backlight called full-array with local dimming — FALD for short. Like direct-lit TVs, the backlight covers the whole back of the screen, but FALD sets use a lot more LEDs. They also offer many dimmable zones for wider contrast and more realistic shadow detail than direct- or edge-lit sets.

An exciting development for 2021 is the implementation of mini LEDs. These TVs take the FALD technology a big step further by using LEDs that are significantly smaller than those used in traditional backlighting. That means they can pack a lot more of them in, allowing much more precise light control than the already-excellent standard FALD sets. You"ll find this cool feature on LG"s QNED and Samsung"s Neo QLED TVs.

If you"re confused by where QLED TVs fit in, you"re not alone. These Samsung sets are actually a type of LED TV that uses a special quantum dot layer to deliver vibrant color. The new "Neo QLEDs" mentioned above, pair this special quantum dot layer with the dense array of mini LEDs for rich color and excellent contrast.

OLED stands for “organic light-emitting diode.” Unlike the transmissive liquid crystal pixels in an LED TV, an OLED’s pixels are emissive. That means they don’t need a separate light source, like the backlight in an LED TV. It also means that when an OLED pixel is not activated, it emits no light at all. This is what gives 4K OLED TVs the incredible black levels they are known for.

The answer depends on a few factors. Can you control the light level in your room? How is the viewing area set up? Do you love bright, saturated colors, or do you prefer more realistic tones? What kind of content are you watching?

Black levels and brightness are key factors in picture quality, and they are especially important when displaying the expanded contrast range of HDR content. OLED and LED TVs can both do a great job with this, but they have different strengths.

Brightness is one area where high-quality LED TVs have outperformed OLEDs. This year’s OLEDs are brighter than ever before, but they still can’t match the brightness that an LED backlight can deliver.

But if you are mostly interested in nighttime viewing, you’ll be stunned by the absolute black of an OLED display. And with the ability to turn off each pixel individually, you get no “blooming” — or those pesky halos you sometimes see around bright objects on dark backgrounds.

OLED and premium LED TVs with FALD backlights offer more precise light control for incredible contrast. Edge-lit sets with local dimming or frame dimming struggle in this area.

Verdict: Both OLED and LED TVs can look amazing. OLED cannot be beat for contrast, and the picture will knock your socks off in a darkened room. But if you’re going to be watching TV during the day, it’s worth considering an LED set.

Viewing angle is another area where OLED has a big advantage over LED TVs. When you sit directly in front of an LED set, the picture looks bright and colorful, but once you move to the sides the picture can become distorted or washed out. This is caused by the backlight and the shutter effect of the screen"s pixels.

OLED"s self-lighting pixels completely eliminate this issue, so picture quality is perfect from every angle. That"s a major advantage if your couch is often full of family or friends.

Verdict: When it comes to viewing angles, OLEDs can’t be beat. Some LED TVs use IPS panels that offer wider viewing angles, but the trade-off is that contrast suffers.

LED TVs have been around for many years and have proven to be extremely reliable, typically providing many years of trouble-free service. OLED TVs haven"t been around as long, but their expected lifespan is around 100,000 hours (similar to LED TVs).

One potentialissue you might hear about with OLED TVs is the risk of burn-in. This can happen if you spend hours every day watching programming that displays a very bright static image, for example a news channel with an always-on logo. It is essentially the premature aging of those pixels (not to be confused with "image retention" which is a temporary issue that both kinds of TVs can suffer from).

Both Sony and LG OLED TVs have built-in ways to reduce the risk of this, including moving the image slightly and refreshing the whole panel periodically.

Verdict: If your TV stays on the news 24/7, then you may want to opt for an LED set. If you watch a variety of content, OLED burn-in is unlikely to be an issue for you.

Both OLED and higher-end LED TVs are likely to have near-perfect color accuracy and the ability to display the wide color gamut needed for HDR content. OLEDs excel in showing the the darker end of the spectrum, while LED models that use color-enhancing technologies like nanocrystals or "quantum dots" wow with bright, vibrant colors.

When attempting to display the wider color range of HDR-enhanced content, some TVs struggle to reproduce colors accurately when the picture gets bright. But Samsung"s QLED TVs maintain full color accuracy and saturation at any brightness level.

Verdict: Samsung’s QLED TVs pop — with well-saturated colors even at high brightness levels. They are a great choice for a rich, colorful picture, especially in sunny rooms.

If you need a little more help finding your next TV, check out our TV Buying Guide or list of Top TVs. Have specific questions about which screen technology makes the most sense for your room and viewing preferences? Our expert Advisors know the gear inside and out. Contact us today.