OLED vs QLED vs LED vs LCD: there are now many technologies that characterize modern televisions. An anarchy that makes the choice much more complex than 20 years ago, when we only had to decide whether to bet on the old cathode ray tube or on the most modern plasma. So how do you decide? Don't panic. Let's try to find out what distinguishes the various technologies.
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OLED vs QLED vs LED vs LCD: today's technologies
We premise that, despite some differences, all these technologies, in a manner consistent with the price range of the product we are going to choose, are able to offer a more than satisfactory multimedia experience. Understanding the technological differences, however, can help us make a conscious and measured choice with respect to ours need, needs e wallet.
LCD
Technology LCD (Liquid Crystal Display; 'Liquid Crystal Scheme') is one of the oldest and most mature technologies around. It bases its functioning, as the name suggests, on gods crystals liquid, able to be polarized through the application of an electric field, and on one light sourceCalled backlight.
The polarization of the pixels, inside which the liquid crystals and electrical contacts are placed, allows more or less of the light from the backlight to pass. This, combined with the presence of colored filters (which divide the pixels into the so-called sub-pixel) allows you to illuminate the pixel of the color we want at the intensity we want. By repeating this process for all the pixels on the screen, the desired image can be formed.
Over the years there have been several variations of this technology, with differences in the way the crystals are polarized and the way the panel is backlit. The first type is theLCD TN (Twisted Nematic), a very technology economic and with response times very low. Features that make it great for budget gaming monitors, but less so for a TV, given the mediocre color rendering he reduced viewing angles.
Going up in quality, we find technology IPS LCD (In-Plane Switching), invented in 1995 da Hitachi and capable of offering excellent color rendering and excellent viewing angles. What makes this improvement possible is the way the crystals change orientation, in parallel to the plane instead of perpendicular to it.
Although IPS screens are currently among the most popular, they also have downsides: on the one hand, they do not offer the same responsiveness of TN, however, an aspect that is often negligible in a television and has now been resolved by some manufacturers of PC screens. On the other hand, they do not solve one of the most important problems of LCD technology, namely the contrast. The constant presence of the backlight, in fact, makes blacks shallow depending on the implementation.
Technology focuses more on this latter aspect LCD VA (Vertical Alignment). Here, as the name suggests, the crystals line up vertically, allowing you to block out the light much more effectively when you want to create a deep black. This unfortunately happens to the detriment of the viewing angles, compared to an IPS, for example, but with better response times than the latter.
LED
When buying a television, we will often see the words 'LED TV'. But what does it mean? It is always an LCD TV, but the type of backlight is specified.
In fact, once a source of light was almost invariably used fluorescent, today almost all panels are oriented towards the use of LEDs, which in addition to being more efficient also make the screen thinner. The LEDs can be placed only on the sides of the screen, in an economical way but with a low yield in terms of uniformity of the backlight and contrast, or in an actual matrix behind the panel. In this last implementation it is possible, by turning the various LEDs on and off, to greatly improve the contrast of the image, improving the rendering of blacks more than polarized LCDs can do alone.
QLED
Another type of evolution of LCD technology is the QLED. The name refers to the chromatic filters of these screens, based precisely on the Quantum dot, particles able, when illuminated, to absorb light and re-emit it perfectly white. This allows you to get one chromatic fidelity of the highest level that is maintained even at high levels of brightness. The possibility of controlling the re-emission of quantum dots also allows to obtain a remarkable contrast, with very deep blacks.
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OLED
Unlike LCD panels, where the backlight and pixels are separate, in technology OLED, based on notes on LED Oorganic, these two elements are one. In fact, the LEDs themselves, which make up the pixels, light up, creating the necessary colors thanks to filters.
This, in addition to allowing thinner screens (in some cases even flexible), also allows you to turn off the various pixels at will, creating very deep blacks e contrasts of the highest level. As if that weren't enough, the color rendering and response times are also excellent.
Perfect, right? Unfortunately, OLEDs also have drawbacks. Compared to LCDs, in fact, much older and more mature, they are in fact more expensive to produce. Brightness, depending on individual pixels rather than a separate source, can not be uniform and it depends on how much of the panel is used at a given moment.
There is also the age-old problem of burn-in: if a screen is used to show the same image for a long time, it is possible that the LEDs that make up the pixels somehow retain a memory of that image, altering the visual rendering. This problem has now been strongly mitigated by electronic components and software included in TVs, but it remains a real problem for these panels, especially in the long term.
Buying Guide
So, how to orient yourself in choosing the panel for our new TV? First of all, we don't recommend going for a TN LCD panel, which is more suitable for a gaming monitor. We also don't recommend heading towards a VA LCD panel, despite the good contrasts.
As for an IPS LED LCD panel, this turns out to be the best (and sometimes the only) option for low-end TVs. The maturity of the technology and the excellent technical characteristics, except perhaps the contrast, make it one of the best options.
The last comparison remains, that is QLED vs OLED: these are two technologies that, although different, still have somehow comparable image yields and regardless of very high quality. Of the two, however, the OLED one is certainly more performing, albeit more expensive, for now, a must if you have the money to afford this type of product and want the highest quality.
A new challenger on the horizon
If LCD and OLED are the current two dominant technologies, there is another type of screen coming for the TVs of the future, namely the MicroLED. It is a technology, developed by Samsung and presented in some truly spectacular forms, such as The Wall, able to take the benefits of OLED and further improve them.
In MicroLED, instead of organic LEDs we have LEDs inorganic, made for the first time small enough to be used to form single pixels. This allows you to have all the advantages in terms of contrast and color rendering seen for the OLED without, however, the disadvantages of non-optimal brightness and degradation over the years.
The disadvantages, for now, are obviously the high cost of this technology, so we would still have to wait years before seeing it also available to the masses, and the low pixel density, which makes it difficult to reach high definitions without using extremely large panels.
Most likely, however, these types of problems will sooner or later be solved, or at least mitigated, allowing us to enjoy a new level of video rendering. Sure, we will have the QLED vs OLED vs MicroLED challenge, instead of just the first two, but we'll get over it.
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TagsLCD MicroLED OLED QLED QLED TV Samsung TV OLED vs QLED vs LED vs LCD: what changes and which one to choose
