Mini-LED vs. OLED: What's the Best?

Televisions have never looked better or been more affordable than they are now. From quantum dots to massive screen sizes, you can get huge TVs that look better than the best TVs from a few years ago for a fraction of the price. That doesn't mean it's any easier to find the best option, however. A confusing jumble of acronyms and abbreviations can make it hard to figure out what to buy. From OLED to mini-LED, QLED to ULED, it all starts to seem like they might just be the same just with a different prefix letter. Whether you're just watching movies, binging TV shows, or games, there's a TV technology that will work better for you than another. All TVs can show all kinds of content, of course, but some work better in certain situations. Fortunately, those technologies are available at a wide range of prices, so it's not just "buy the most expensive option." Weighing the strengths and weaknesses against that price is key. Hopefully the following guide will help. Samsung OLED and QD-OLED Best for picture quality, but pricey Like Excellent overall picture quality Excellent contrast ratio Don't like Not quite as bright as some technologies Potential for image retention Expensive For the best overall picture quality, most experts agree that OLED is the winner. The combination of perfect black levels and a bright image make images pop in a way other technologies can't quite match. The latest "flavor" of OLED, called QD-OLED, pairs the emissive technology of OLED with quantum dots. This can improve the color and brightness even more than traditional OLED. As a result, these QD-OLEDs are some of the most expensive TVs on the market, per inch, but they're quite impressive. On the down side, there's the potential of image retention. If you watch the same thing all day (cable news, the same video game), the static parts of the screen can "stick." Typically this goes away when you watch something else, but if you only watch one channel for hours at a time, OLED's not for you. Check out the best OLED and QD-OLED TVs. Read more: Putting the 'Q' in QLEDs: Where Quantum Dots Are Made Mini-LED Big, bright, with a great image, though not quite as good as OLED Like Bright images Great contrast Huge screens Don't like Not quite as good as OLED More expensive than some other tech Technically, Mini-LED is an evolution from LED LCDs. Both technologies use LEDs to create light and an LCD layer to create an image. The difference is the size and number of LEDs. Mini-LED has a lot more LEDs, and they're smaller. This might not seem like a huge difference, but it's enough to warrant its own entry on this list. The main issue with "normal" LED LCDs is their contrast ratio isn't as good as OLED. As such, the picture isn't quite as good. Mini-LEDs, like all local-dimming LED LCDs, can improve the contrast ratio by dimming certain areas of the screen so dark areas can appear darker. The problem with that is even the best local dimming zone still comprised a fairly large area of the screen. So a small bright object on a dark background -- a streetlight, say -- would raise the level of the surrounding black area, making it appear gray. While engineers have done a lot over the years to minimize this problem, it persists. It has to, it's just physics. With Mini-LED, a greater number of smaller LEDs are spread across the back of the TV. In most cases these greatly reduce the size of the local dimming zone, so to a casual viewer the contrast ratio is fantastic. Not pixel-perfect like OLED, but close enough. Mini-LED TVs can also produce some extremely bright images, which can be handy for daytime viewing in brighter rooms. There's also basically no chance of image retention, so for gamers worried about marring their OLED screens, Mini-LED is a great alternative. The downside? Mini-LEDs are more expensive than their lesser LED LCD counterparts, but are usually cheaper than OLED. Check out the best Mini-LED TVs. TCL LED, QLED, LED LCD (and everything else) Inexpensive, with lots of screen sizes Like Inexpensive Widest variety of screen sizes Don't like Picture quality is a step behind the other technologies LCD is the most common display technology, and it is very distantly followed by OLED. LCD includes Mini-LED (above) as well as LED, QLED, QNED, ULED and so on. Basically, if it doesn't have "OLED" in its name, it's a flavor of LCD. LCD TVs have been around for over 20 years, which makes them the oldest mainstream TV tech still in production. Improvements to screen size, brightness and overall picture quality have been impressive, but the technology still lags behind OLED. Whatever the LED LCD "flavor," they all use some amount of LEDs to create light, and then an LCD layer to create the image. The main benefit to LED LCDs is cost. They're extremely inexpensive to produce in a wide range of sizes. OLED can't match that flexibility. Thanks to decades of improvements, even budget LCD TVs look quite good, often far better than the better TVs from a decade ago. Many LED LCDs also use quantum dots (that's where the "Q" comes from in their naming) to boost brightness and color. The downside is you can get better picture quality, sometimes a lot better, with one of the other TV technologies. Better contrast, better and deeper color, higher brightness and more, all give the other techs more "wow." That "wow" is going to cost you, though. Learn more about LED local dimming technology, and check out the best TVs that won't break your budget.