In the history of the television industry, we can see a reflection of the development of the display industry. Some may ask why it’s not about mobile phones; have you ever seen a CRT mobile phone? Moreover, mobile phones appeared only 50 years after televisions. Therefore, the entire history of the television industry is essentially the history of the evolution of display technology.
So, what technologies are currently used in display products on the market? What are the differences, advantages, and disadvantages? Today, I will explain several mainstream technologies available on the market, including LCD, QLED, OLED, and Mini/Micro LED.
LCD
LCD, or Liquid Crystal Display, is currently the most cost-effective and widely used technology product, with the highest retention and shipment volumes. A liquid crystal display consists of liquid crystals placed between two parallel glass panels, with numerous vertical and horizontal fine wires in between. By controlling the direction of the rod-like crystal molecules through electric current, light is refracted to produce images.
Advantages: It uses inorganic materials, has very mature technology, a long lifespan, and no flicker, which is beneficial for eye protection.
Disadvantages: The color performance is not outstanding, it remains in an excited state, cannot achieve complete black, and there is also a problem of light leakage from the backlight.
QLED
QLED is not a screen but a liquid crystal screen enhanced with quantum dot backlighting. QLED primarily adds a layer of quantum dot film to the screen, which enhances the image quality. Its structure involves electrons and holes gathering in the quantum dot layer to form excitons, which emit light through exciton recombination.
Advantages: It retains the long lifespan of LED backlight beads, and the added quantum film improves color accuracy, color volume, and the color gamut can easily reach over 110% (BT.709).
Disadvantages: QLED is essentially an upgraded product of LED backlight LCD TVs, with limited improvements in image quality.
OLED
OLED, or Organic Light Emitting Diode, emits light through the injection and recombination of charge carriers, possessing advantages that other display technologies cannot match. It does not require a backlight, can emit light by itself, has a wide viewing angle, fast response time, no motion blur, and no trailing. When displaying black images, OLED can achieve pure black and infinite contrast. Additionally, OLED panels can be flexible, allowing for curved, transparent, and foldable forms.
Advantages: Self-emission brings richer colors, better color quality, infinite contrast, and extreme black field environments.
Disadvantages: It generates a lot of heat, is prone to burn-in, has a shorter lifespan, and limited brightness.
Mini/Micro LED
Mini/Micro LED is not a display technology or screen, but a backlight technology. The reason for discussing Mini and Micro LED together is that the technical principles are similar, differing only in the size of the backlight beads. If we don’t delve too deep, we can simply understand it this way.
Mini LED is a new LED technology with a completely redesigned backlight. According to the “Mini LED Commercial Display General Technical Specification” group standard, Mini LED is defined as “LED devices with chip sizes between 50~200μm”; single chip short side dimensions in the range of 100μm~300μm are referred to as Mini LED.
Micro LED further reduces the chip size to below 50 μm. Due to the small size, high integration, and self-emission characteristics of micro LED chips, they have greater advantages over LCD and OLED in brightness, resolution, contrast, energy consumption, lifespan, response speed, and thermal stability.
Advantages of Mini LED: High brightness, long lifespan, high contrast, wide color gamut, and excellent light control.
Disadvantages: High costs lead to high prices, less than ideal response speed, and significant heat generation.
Advantages of Micro LED: Very high efficiency, brightness, and reliability, with high color resolution.
Disadvantages: Manufacturing costs are extremely high, and lifespan remains to be verified.
In summary, different display technologies have their own advantages and disadvantages, which are also closely related to the final price. Therefore, depending on your budget, you can purchase the appropriate television product.