which is better oled or lcd screen for sale

For all the new technologies that have come our way in recent times, it’s worth taking a minute to consider an old battle going on between two display types. Two display types that can be found across monitors, TVs, mobile phones, cameras and pretty much any other device that has a screen.

In one corner is LED (light-emitting diode). It’s the most common type of display on the market, however, it might be unfamiliar because there’s slight labelling confusion with LCD (liquid crystal display).

For display purposes the two are the same, and if you see a TV or smartphone that states it has an ‘LED’ screen, it’s an LCD. The LED part just refers to the lighting source, not the display itself.

In a nutshell, LED LCD screens use a backlight to illuminate their pixels, while OLED’s pixels produce their own light. You might hear OLED’s pixels called ‘self-emissive’, while LCD tech is ‘transmissive’.

The light of an OLED display can be controlled on a pixel-by-pixel basis. This sort of dexterity isn’t possible with an LED LCD – but there are drawbacks to this approach, which we’ll come to later.

In cheaper TVs and LCD-screen phones, LED LCD displays tend to use ‘edge lighting’, where LEDs sit to the side of the display, not behind it. The light from these LEDs is fired through a matrix that feeds it through the red, green and blue pixels and into our eyes.

LED LCD screens can go brighter than OLED. That’s a big deal in the TV world, but even more so for smartphones, which are often used outdoors and in bright sunlight.

Brightness is generally measured as ‘nits’ – roughly the light of a candle per square metre. Brightness is important when viewing content in ambient light or sunlight, but also for high dynamic range video. This applies more to TVs, but phones boast credible video performance, and so it matters in that market too. The higher the level of brightness, the greater the visual impact.

Take an LCD screen into a darkened room and you may notice that parts of a purely black image aren’t black, because you can still see the backlighting (or edge lighting) showing through.

Being able to see unwanted backlighting affects a display’s contrast, which is the difference between its brightest highlights and its darkest shadows.

You’ll often see a contrast ratio quoted in a product’s specification, particularly when it comes to TVs and monitors. This tells you how much brighter a display’s whites are compared to its blacks. A decent LCD screen might have a contrast ratio of 1,000:1, which means the whites are a thousand times brighter than the blacks.

Contrast on an OLED display is far higher. When an OLED screen goes black, its pixels produce no light whatsoever. That means an infinite contrast ratio, although how great it looks will depend on how bright the screen can go. In general, OLED screens are best suited for use in darker rooms, and this is certainly the case where TVs are concerned.

OLED panels enjoy excellent viewing angles, primarily because the technology is so thin, and the pixels are so close to the surface. You can walk around an OLED TV or spread out in different spots in your living room, and you won’t lose out on contrast. For phones, viewing angles are extra important because you don’t tend to hold your hand perfectly parallel to your face.

Viewing angles are generally worse in LCDs, but this varies hugely depending on the display technology used. And there are lots of different kinds of LCD panel.

Perhaps the most basic is twisted nematic (TN). This is the type used in budget computer monitors, cheaper laptops, and very low-cost phones, and it offers poor angled viewing. If you’ve ever noticed that your computer screen looks all shadowy from a certain angle, it’s more than likely it uses a twisted nematic panel.

Thankfully, a lot of LCD devices use IPS panels these days. This stands for ‘in-plane switching’ and it generally provides better colour performance and dramatically improved viewing angles.

IPS is used in most smartphones and tablets, plenty of computer monitors and lots of TVs. It’s important to note that IPS and LED LCD aren’t mutually exclusive; it’s just another bit of jargon to tack on. Beware of the marketing blurb and head straight to the spec sheet.

The latest LCD screens can produce fantastic natural-looking colours. However, as is the case with viewing angles, it depends on the specific technology used.

OLED’s colours have fewer issues with pop and vibrancy, but early OLED TVs and phones had problems reining in colours and keeping them realistic. These days, the situation is better, Panasonic’s flagship OLEDs are used in the grading of Hollywood films.

Where OLED struggles is in colour volume. That is, bright scenes may challenge an OLED panel’s ability to maintain levels of colour saturation. It’s a weakness that LCD-favouring manufacturers enjoy pointing out.

Both have been the subject of further advancements in recent years. For LCD there’s Quantum Dot and Mini LED. The former uses a quantum-dot screen with blue LEDs rather than white LEDs and ‘nanocrystals’ of various sizes to convert light into different colours by altering its wavelength. Several TV manufacturers have jumped onboard Quantum Dot technology, but the most popular has been Samsung’s QLED branded TVs.

Mini LED is another derivation of LED LCD panels, employing smaller-sized LEDs that can emit more light than standard versions, increasing brightness output of the TV. And as they are smaller, more can be fitted into a screen, leading to greater control over brightness and contrast. This type of TV is becoming more popular, though in the UK and Europe it’s still relatively expensive. You can read more about Mini LED and its advantages in our explainer.

OLED, meanwhile, hasn’t stood still either. LG is the biggest manufacturer of large-sized OLED panels and has produced panels branded as evo OLED that are brighter than older versions. It uses a different material for its blue OLED material layer within the panel (deuterium), which can last for longer and can have more electrical current passed through it, increasing the brightness of the screen, and elevating the colour volume (range of colours it can display).

Another development is the eagerly anticipated QD-OLED. This display technology merges Quantum Dot backlights with an OLED panel, increasing the brightness, colour accuracy and volume, while retaining OLED’s perfect blacks, infinite contrast and potentially even wider viewing angles, so viewers can spread out anywhere in a room and see pretty much the same image. Samsung and Sonyare the two companies launching QD-OLED TVs in 2022.

And for smartphones there’s been a move towards AMOLED (Active-Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode) screens for Android screens, while Apple has moved towards OLED for its smartphones and tried Mini LED with its iPad Pro. Technologies are consistently evolving with Superand Dynamic AMOLED versions available, more performance is being eked out.

While LED LCD has been around for much longer and is cheaper to make, manufacturers are beginning to move away from it, at least in the sense of the ‘standard’ LCD LED displays, opting to explore the likes of Mini LED and Quantum Dot variations.

OLED has gained momentum and become cheaper, with prices dipping well below the £1000 price point. OLED is much better than LED LCD at handling darkness and lighting precision, and offers much wider viewing angles, which is great for when large groups of people are watching TV. Refresh rates and motion processing are also better with OLED though there is the spectre of image retention.

If you’re dealing with a limited budget, whether you’re buying a phone, a monitor, a laptop or a TV, you’ll almost certainly end up with an LCD-based screen. OLED, meanwhile, incurs more of a premium but is getting cheaper, appearing in handheld gaming devices, laptops, some of the best smartphones as well as TVs

Which is better? Even if you eliminate money from the equation, it really comes down to personal taste. Neither OLED nor LCD LED is perfect. Some extol OLED’s skill in handling darkness, and its lighting precision. Others prefer LCD’s ability to go brighter and maintain colours at bright levels.

How do you decide? Stop reading this and go to a shop to check it out for yourself. While a shop floor isn’t the best environment in which to evaluate ultimate picture quality, it will at least provide an opportunity for you to realise your priorities. Whether you choose to side with LCD or OLED, you can take comfort in the fact that both technologies have matured considerably, making this is a safe time to invest.

There are plenty of new and confusing terms facing TV shoppers today, but when it comes down to the screen technology itself, there are only two: Nearly every TV sold today is either LCD or OLED.

The biggest between the two is in how they work. With OLED, each pixel provides its own illumination so there"s no separate backlight. With an LCD TV, all of the pixels are illuminated by an LED backlight. That difference leads to all kinds of picture quality effects, some of which favor LCD, but most of which benefit OLED.

LCDs are made by a number of companies across Asia. All current OLED TVs are built by LG Display, though companies like Sony and Vizio buy OLED panels from LG and then use their own electronics and aesthetic design.

So which one is better? Read on for their strengths and weaknesses. In general we"ll be comparing OLED to the best (read: most expensive) LCD has to offer, mainly because there"s no such thing as a cheap OLED TV (yet).

Take this category with a grain of salt. Both TV types are very bright and can look good in even a sunny room, let alone more moderate indoor lighting situations or the dark rooms that make TV images look their best. When it comes down to it, no modern TV could ever be considered "dim."

At the other side of light output is black level, or how dark the TV can get. OLED wins here because of its ability to turn off individual pixels completely. It can produce truly perfect black.

The better LCDs have local dimming, where parts of the screen can dim independently of others. This isn"t quite as good as per-pixel control because the black areas still aren"t absolutely black, but it"s better than nothing. The best LCDs have full-array local dimming, which provides even finer control over the contrast of what"s onscreen -- but even they can suffer from "blooming," where a bright area spoils the black of an adjacent dark area.

Here"s where it comes together. Contrast ratio is the difference between the brightest and the darkest a TV can be. OLED is the winner here because it can get extremely bright, plus it can produce absolute black with no blooming. It has the best contrast ratio of any modern display.

Contrast ratio is the most important aspect of picture quality. A high contrast-ratio display will look more realistic than one with a lower contrast ratio.

One of the main downsides of LCD TVs is a change in picture quality if you sit away from dead center (as in, off to the sides). How much this matters to you certainly depends on your seating arrangement, but also on how much you love your loved ones.

A few LCDs use in-plane switching (IPS) panels, which have better off-axis picture quality than other kinds of LCDs, but don"t look as good as other LCDs straight on (primarily due to a lower contrast ratio).

OLED doesn"t have the off-axis issue LCDs have; its image looks basically the same, even from extreme angles. So if you have a wide seating area, OLED is the better option.

Nearly all current TVs are HDR compatible, but that"s not the entire story. Just because a TV claims HDR compatibility doesn"t mean it can accurately display HDR content. All OLED TVs have the dynamic range to take advantage of HDR, but lower-priced LCDs, especially those without local-dimming backlights, do not. So if you want to see HDR content it all its dynamic, vibrant beauty, go for OLED or an LCD with local dimming.

In our tests comparing the best new OLED and LCD TVs with HDR games and movies, OLED usually looks better. Its superior contrast and lack of blooming win the day despite LCD"s brightness advantage. In other words LCD TVs can get brighter, especially in full-screen bright scenes and HDR highlights, but none of them can control that illumination as precisely as an OLED TV.

OLED"s energy consumption is directly related to screen brightness. The brighter the screen, the more power it draws. It even varies with content. A dark movie will require less power than a hockey game or ski competition.

The energy consumption of LCD varies depending on the backlight setting. The lower the backlight, the lower the power consumption. A basic LED LCD with its backlight set low will draw less power than OLED.

LG has said their OLED TVs have a lifespan of 100,000 hours to half brightness, a figure that"s similar to LED LCDs. Generally speaking, all modern TVs are quite reliable.

Does that mean your new LCD or OLED will last for several decades like your parent"s last CRT (like the one pictured). Probably not, but then, why would you want it to? A 42-inch flat panel cost $14,000 in the late 90"s, and now a 65-inch TV with more than 16x the resolution and a million times better contrast ratio costs $1,400. Which is to say, by the time you"ll want/need to replace it, there will be something even better than what"s available now, for less money.

OLED TVs are available in sizes from 48 to 88 inches, but LCD TVs come in smaller and larger sizes than that -- with many more choices in between -- so LCD wins. At the high end of the size scale, however, the biggest "TVs" don"t use either technology.

If you want something even brighter, and don"t mind spending a literal fortune to get it, Samsung, Sony, and LG all sell direct-view LED displays. In most cases these are

You can get 4K resolution, 50-inch LCDs for around $400 -- or half that on sale. It"s going to be a long time before OLEDs are that price, but they have come down considerably.

LCD dominates the market because it"s cheap to manufacture and delivers good enough picture quality for just about everybody. But according to reviews at CNET and elsewhere, OLED wins for overall picture quality, largely due to the incredible contrast ratio. The price difference isn"t as severe as it used to be, and in the mid- to high-end of the market, there are lots of options.

For the convenience of understanding, we reduce some layers, after removing the vertical and horizontal polarizer and the positive and negative circuit, only left to luminous plate, liquid crystal layer and color filter. and then we can see the lcd display module’s layer work as a shutter.

The backlight emits light, and the shade adjusts the Angle to determine how much light passes through the color filter. Different percent of the RGB tri-color light mix to produce different colors of light. Does that sound good? If you want the pixels at this location to display pure red, then ideally the shade under the blue and green blocks should be completely closed. At this point, only the red color can be displayed accurately. But it is only ideal status, the reality is different to we would think. Complete closure is only theoretical, and in fact, there are more or less incomplete closures. Something like this, more or less a little white light is leaking out. It lead to the problem that colors mixed and colors inaccuracy.

arrays, which have become one of the distinguishing features of OLED screens. The main cause for OLED screen life time is the blue pixel. Since the luminous efficiency of blue pixels is much lower

to reduce the blue pixel current to improve the oled life time. This is also the diamond arrangement and so on. The original pixel arrangement scheme was Samsung"s RGB

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.

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.

There are many other terms we could use to distinguish between sets – like 4K HDR Processor X1, Dynamic Range PRO and Triluminos Display (Sony), NanoCell and IPS 4K Quantum Display (LG) and 4K SUHD and Ultra HD Premium HDR 1500/2000 (Samsung). These technologies certainly make a difference, but they"re hardly the be-all and end-all.

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.

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 higher brightness than OLED TVs. Cue eye-popping color, but slower response times than an OLED TV. However, the contrast and blacks aren’t as good as OLED TVs.

Although QLEDs have only had moderate success so far, this new kind of panel tech is being pushed by Samsung in a big way. These days, it"s not only Samsung that uses QLED either, you"ll find this TV tech in some Hisense, TCL and Vizio screens, too.

Most TV brands sell whatever TV technology is popular. However, there is a schism in the market; as noone really sells both OLED and QLED (excluding Hisense).

OLED panels are manufactured only by LG, and QLED panels only by Samsung. Other brands use them on license and try and add their own secret sauce to give their particular models the edge.

What you decide to buy largely comes down to price. Future innovations could turn that advice on its head. Cut for now, if you have money to burn and want the best, go for an OLED – no question.

Want a brighter panel? Go for a QLED. If price is more of a concern and you don"t need the blackest blacks around, then an LED-backlit LCD TV could well be the one you want – they might not have quite the same level of contrast, but depending on the manufacturer"s technology they could come very close.

It may all seem confusing at first, but when armed with a little knowledge about the differences between OLED, QLED, LED and LCD, buying a TV isn"t quite as tricky as you might think.

OLED vs. IPS LCD is a topic that comes up whenever consumers upgrade to a newer TV or a smartphone. Should you buy a TV that uses an IPS LCD display or should you pick up a TV with an OLED screen? Well, the answer isn’t so straightforward because they both have their advantages and disadvantages. In this article, we will explain how these screen technologies work and which one you should opt for while buying a TV.

IPS LCD (In-Plane Switching Liquid Crystal Display) and OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) are the two most commonly used screen technologies. Older technologies, such as TN (Twisted Nematic) and PLS (Plane-to-Line Switching) displays, have almost disappeared (except in the world of PC monitors and budget laptops) because IPS LCD and OLED are clearly better in almost all aspects. Other technologies such as Mini-LED, MicroLED, and QNED technologies are extremely new and they won’t become mainstream for a few years.

So, when you are finally deciding which TV to buy, the real battle is between OLED and IPS LCD. So where do these stand? Which is better for you? Which one should you pick for your new home theatre? Read on for more information on the OLED vs IPS LCD battle.

IPS LCD displays are perhaps the most common display type days, especially in TVs and laptops. Laptops, entry-level and mid-range smartphones, and most TVs use LCD displays. So, how do IPS displays work? IPS displays use an array of LCD pixels that shift colour as required. However, they don’t emit light on their own. That’s the reason they need a backlight made up of LEDs (Light-Emitting Diodes). The backlight can be arranged in various layouts: towards the edges, spread across the whole display, or separated into different sections.

IPS screens display the black colour by changing the alignment of LCDs so that pixels block the transmission of light, but some light still gets through. That’s the reason IPS LCD displays can’t display true deep black colour. Instead, they display dark grey and there is some ‘backlight bleed’.

To reduce the backlight bleed, a feature called Local Dimming is used. The feature requires the backlight to be compartmentalized into different matrices, and only those sections are turned on which need to display non-black colours. Other sections of the backlight are turned off, offering true blacks. However, active zones still display some backlight bleed.

OLED displays have traditionally been restricted to high-end devices. Even today, only high-end TVs and laptops feature OLED displays. In the world of smartphones, though, OLED technology has been democratised and even mid-range smartphones these days use OLED displays with high brightness and high refresh rates.

In a nutshell, OLED displays don’t use separate backlight sources. Instead, every pixel can reproduce its own light (also known as self-emissive displays). So, there’s no need for an additional backlight and each pixel can be turned on or off as needed. Since there is no need for a separate backlight plane, OLED displays are much thinner than LCD displays. They also offer a much better contrast ratio and viewing angles. However, the organic material used in OLED pixels tends to “burn” over the years that results in ghosting. Moreover, they can’t be as bright as LCD, Mini-LED, or Micro-LED displays.

We have given you a brief overview of IPS and OLED technologies. But which one is better? And which of these will be right for you? Here’s a list of pros and cons to help you in your purchase decision, where it is for smartphones or TVs.

OLEDs have a quicker response time: OLEDs individually-lit pixels can switch on/off or change colour faster. This makes for lower ghosting during fast-and-frenetic action scenes or while playing games. Ghosting refers to when the image on the screen seems to be following itself around or is blurry at the edges.

OLED TVs are slimmer and flexible: As we mentioned earlier, OLED displays don’t need a bulky backlight plane, so OLED TVs are really slim. The next wave of display technologies – foldable and rollable displays – will also be powered by OLED.

IPS LCD TVs offer higher brightness: IPS LCD TVs use a powerful backlight which also lets them get much brighter than their OLED counterparts. This can make for better HDR and even offer a better viewing experience if your TV room gets a lot of sunlight.

IPS TVs suffer from backlight bleed and blooming: This is less of an issue with high-end IPS TVs, but some cheaper models may suffer from glow (bright, greyish areas near the corners of the screen) or backlight bleed (patches or leaks of light, usually around the edges).

OLED TVs can suffer burn-in: OLED displays are at risk of burn-in, a condition in which a static image left on for too long can get permanently ‘burned’ onto the display and may appear like a ghostly dark patch.

OLEDs may get dimmer with age: OLEDs use organic substances which tend to decay over time. So, OLED displays lose brightness with age. It is quite slow and modern OLED TVs are not as affected by this as older OLED TVs, and this really shouldn’t be an issue, but you need to be aware of this.

IPS TVs are much cheaper: OLED is a relatively newer technology and is more expensive to manufacture. Currently, very few companies make OLED display panels. LG Display makes most of the OLED panels found on OLED TVs, while Samsung Display, CSOT, LG Display, and BOE make OLED screens for smartphones and smaller products. Most manufacturers also tend to restrict OLED tech to their largest, most feature-packed range, fueling the perception of OLED being expensive.

If you’re designing a display application or deciding what type of TV to get, you’ll probably have to choose between an OLED or LCD as your display type.

Not sure which one will be best for you? Don’t worry! We’re here to help you figure out the right display for your project or application. In this post we’ll break down the pros and cons of these display types so you can decide which one is right for you.

LCDs utilize liquid crystals that produce an image when light is passed through the display. OLED displays generate images by applying electricity to organic materials inside the display.OLED and LCD Main Difference:

These different technological approaches to display technology have big impact in some features including contrast, brightness, viewing angles, lifespan, black levels, image burn-in, and price.

Everything from the environment your display will be used in, your budget, to the lighting conditions and the required durability will play a part in this decision.

Contrast refers to the difference between the lightest and darkest parts of an image. High contrast will produce sharper images and more easily readable text. It’s a crucial quality for high fidelity graphics and images or to make sure that a message on a display is very visible.

graphics and images visible. This is the reason you’re still able to see light coming through on images that are meant to be dark on an LCD monitor, display, or television.

OLEDs by comparison, deliver a drastically higher contrast by dynamically managing their individual pixels. When an image on an OLED display uses the color black, the pixel shuts off completely and renders a much higher contrast than that of LCDs.OLED vs LCD - Who is better at contrast?

Having a high brightness level is important if your display is going to be used in direct sunlight or somewhere with high ambient brightness. The display"s brightness level isn"t as important if it’s going to be used indoors or in a low light setting.OLED vs LCD - Who is better at Brightness?

Have you ever looked at a screen from an angle and noticed that the images became washed out or shadowy? The further away you get from the “front and center” view, the worse the image appears to be. This is an example of viewing angles in action – the wider the viewing angle, the better the images on screen will appear as you view them from different vantage points.

This means the display is much thinner than LCD displays and their pixels are much closer to the surface of the display, giving them an inherently wider viewing angle.

You’ll often notice images becoming distorted or losing their colors when tilting an LCD or when you view it from different angles. However, many LCDs now include technology to compensate for this – specifically In-Plane Switching (IPS).

LCDs with IPS are significantly brighter than standard LCDs and offer viewing angles that are on-par with OLEDs.OLED vs LCD - Who is better at Viewing Angles?

LCDs have been on the market much longer than OLEDs, so there is more data to support their longevity. On average LCDs have proven to perform for around 60,000 hours (2,500) days of operation.

With most LCDs you can expect about 7 years of consistent performance. Some dimming of the backlight has been observed but it is not significant to the quality of the display.

OLEDs are a newer technology in the display market, which makes them harder to fully review. Not only does OLED technology continue to improve at a rapid pace, but there also hasn’t been enough time to thoroughly observe their performance.

You must also consider OLED’s vulnerability to image burn-in. The organic material in these displays can leave a permanent afterimage on the display if a static image is displayed for too long.

So depending on how your OLED is used, this can greatly affect its lifespan. An OLED being used to show static images for long periods of time will not have the same longevity as one displaying dynamic, constantly moving images.OLED vs LCD - Which one last longer?

There is not yet a clear winner when it comes to lifespans between LCD and OLED displays. Each have their advantages depending on their use-cases. It’s a tie!

For a display application requiring the best colors, contrast, and viewing angles – especially for small and lightweight wearable devices – we would suggest an OLED display.

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.

For 10 years, OLED TVs have been regarded by videophiles (and by us) as blue-ribbon investments that are worth their steep prices if you value the highest-quality movie or gaming experience. Yet we’d suspect that many casual TV shoppers might not know about OLED TVs or why they’re so highly regarded. The conditions are ripe for that to finally change in 2022. With more OLED TVs coming from more manufacturers in more screen sizes, this could be the year OLEDs begin to move away from videophile territory and become a viable option for more people.

The history of flat-panel TVs has been written by two fundamentally different technological approaches to creating a TV image: transmissive displays versus emissive displays.

Transmissive displays operate by shining a backlight array through a liquid crystal element. You might know them by their more common names: LCD TVs or LED TVs. Crucially, the light- and color-producing parts of LCD/LED TVs are functionally and physically separate layers. I like to think of the liquid crystal and backlight as the meat and cheese on a sandwich, respectively.

In emissive displays, those functions aren’t separated. Each pixel (or picture element) produces its own light and color, so there’s no need for a backlight array. As you might have guessed, OLED TVs are emissive displays. For those who remember the brief reign of plasma as the must-have TV tech, plasma TVs were also emissive displays.

This independent pixel operation (independent from a backlight array and independent from every other pixel) allows emissive displays to greatly maximize contrast and produce richer colors. For example, when an OLED TV needs to display true black in a scene, it just turns those pixels off, whereas an LCD TV needs to find a way to block or turn off the backlight in that area of the screen. This is, in a nutshell, why OLED TVs are special. The ability to produce a true black on such a fine level increases the TV’s contrast (or the difference between the darkest and brightest parts of the image). The high level of contrast in an OLED TV can help your favorite movies and shows look downright jaw-dropping, which makes it an especially good choice to pair with high dynamic range (HDR) content.

As a bonus, because there’s no backlight array, OLED TVs tend to have excellent viewing angles, especially compared to LCD/LED TVs. This means you can watch them pretty comfortably from way off to either side.

Price has been the biggest barrier keeping most folks from having an OLED TV in their living rooms. OLED TVs have consistently carried higher price tags than high-performance LCD TVs—especially at screen sizes larger than 65 inches, where you could expect to pay at least 20% more. And “budget OLED” has never even been a category.

It wasn’t too long ago that manufacturing difficulties and relative scarcity painted a picture of exclusivity for OLED TVs, which kept the price high. While Sony and Samsung were the first to introduce OLED TVs, they quickly exited the market, leaving LG as the only brand selling OLEDs in the US for a time—and in a rather limited array of sizes and configurations. The earliest models had a range of issues, including an odd behavior colloquially called “vignetting” (where the edges of the screen look much darker than the middle), a tendency for darker gray elements to look yellowish-green, and concerns about uneven lifespan expectations among different colors. Those kinks were hammered out years ago, and manufacturers like Sony and Vizio have since joined LG in the US market, though LG Display has been the only company manufacturing the actual OLED TV panels. Yet the prices are still high compared with that of most LCD TVs.

Price isn’t the only consideration, either. OLED TVs are comparably much dimmer than similarly priced LCD/LED TVs. This boils down to operational mechanics: Individually operating pixels, the root of an OLED TV’s strength, can also be a weakness. In emissive displays, turning all the pixels to maximum brightness at the same time can damage the TV. So like plasma TVs before them, OLED TVs use a process called auto-brightness limiting, or ABL. Essentially, as more of the screen becomes bright, the total brightness is automatically limited to ensure safe operation.

In other words, a 2021 OLED TV could only get roughly half as bright as a similarly priced 2021 LCD/LED TV, especially those that use mini-LED backlights. However, it’s important to understand that those brightness numbers are discussed in terms of what’s called “reference brightness,” which describes the general/average light output that you’d notice when watching an OLED TV and an LCD TV side by side. For instance, very bright content that lights up the whole screen, such as a daytime sporting event, will look brighter on a high-performance LCD TV than an OLED TV.

But when considering overall screen contrast—the measure of a TV’s average or peak brightness against its black level, or minimum luminance level—OLED TVs tend to have the best contrast around. Because ABL usually kicks in only when large portions of the screen are bright, an OLED TV’s perceptual contrast (how bright the TV will seem given its black level) is usually much better than that of LCD TVs, especially with HDR content where small, specular areas of the screen are very bright.

However, all that functionality is why it’s important to have control over your room’s ambient lighting if you plan to buy an OLED TV. For example, as much as I love OLED TVs, I don’t have one in my living room—I have a Samsung Neo QLED LCD, which is bright enough to combat the San Diego sunshine that often bathes my home. There’s no point having a beautiful TV if you can’t see it! If you can sufficiently darken your viewing room when you need to, however, there aren’t many TVs that will look better than an OLED.

One other concern that some people have with OLED TVs is the potential for “burn-in” damage, ghostly after-image of content that has been on the screen for an extended period of time. Usually this image retention is temporary, but sometimes it’s permanent. The party line for OLED burn-in is that it shouldn’t occur during “normal” use, and we agree, especially because most modern OLED TVs have pixel-shifting and cell-repair processes built in to ensure that damage doesn’t occur. You can also mitigate burn-in further by lowering your OLED TV’s brightness when it’s convenient. However, if you do watch content with a stationary image (like a news ticker or the heads-up display in a video game) for many hours every single day, you may want to consider getting an LCD TV instead. Ultimately, we think burn-in is only a notable concern for a minor subset of OLED owners.

This year, we’re seeing a few key developments in the OLED market that could help it become a better option for more people. For one, LG and Sony have continued to refine their panels to improve overall brightness, and both are adding more screen sizes to their lineups, including smaller 42- and 48-inch models—which is great for not only gamers but also anyone who just wants a more affordable OLED TV that fits in a modest-sized room. Also, companies like Vizio and Skyworth are selling more affordably priced OLED TVs in the US. (You can read more specifics about the 2022 OLED lines in our guide to the best OLED TV.)

But the OLED news generating the most buzz is that Samsung is returning to the OLED game after almost a decade on hiatus. (Samsung introduced one of the very first OLED TVs back in 2012 but abandoned them shortly thereafter.) The company has a single OLED TV line this year, the S95B Series, but there’s an important caveat: Samsung manufactures its own OLED panels, and S95B TVs have QD-OLED displays, a new variant of OLED. QD-OLED displays combine OLED panels with quantum dots—microscopic nanocrystals more commonly used to pump up the color saturation in the best LCD/LED TVs. Sony also announced a QD-OLED model this year.

Because QD-OLED is brand new, we don’t yet know what benefits or improvements it may offer over LG’s WRGB OLED panels (video) beyond what can be assumed based on the underlying technologies: It should look really good. (We plan to test these new TVs to find out, of course.) The other good news? Samsung has announced pricing for its QD-OLED TVs, and while they’re not the most affordable ones you can buy this year, they also won’t break the bank compared with some of the premium OLED TVs being sold.

As the old saying goes, it’s never a good time to buy a new TV. There’s always newer technology or a better deal coming. Based on trends over the last decade, OLED isn’t going anywhere. In fact, the tech seems to be further cementing itself at the top of best TV lists everywhere. This year, there are more OLED TVs—in more screen sizes and from more manufacturers—than ever before, which makes it a generally good time to buy one. While the prices are still nothing to sneeze at, you have many more options than you used to.

On the other hand, it’s too soon to predict how Samsung’s return to the market will affect prices going forward. The relatively approachable price of Samsung’s new QD-OLED model could mean that buying an OLED TV in 2022 is a bit risky. If QD-OLED has better production yields than LG’s WRGB OLED, we could see an entire range of even more competitively priced models in 2023.

Unfortunately, the uncertainty of whether it’s the right time to buy a new TV is difficult to avoid, no matter how much you spend. But we are certain of one thing: Even if some radical shift in TV technology means your 2022 OLED isn’t the absolute best screen on the market a couple years from now, it will still look better than any TV you owned before it.

When it comes to modern TV screens, two display technologies reign supreme — QLED and OLED. Companies like Sa