Mini LED TV: This is how the panel technology beats OLED, LED and MicroLED

1. What are Mini LED TVs?

2. A comparison of mini LEDs and LCD televisions

3. Mini LEDs: Sony, Philips, Samsung and LG are on board

4. Advantages of Mini LED Screens

5. Is mini LED better than OLED?

6. Breakthrough and outlook for the future

7. Moderate prices

Terms such as LED, NanoCell or OLED now adorn the various televisions from different manufacturers. For many buyers, these designations only cause perplexity. If there are special forms of these terms, such as mini-LED, the confusion is even greater. But we explain to you in simple words what is behind it.

What are Mini LED TVs?

Mini LED TVs belong to the LED televisions or rather to the LCD televisions with LED lighting. The name of LED televisions comes from the fact that small light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are built into the screens of the TV sets, which illuminate individual pixels and in turn produce an image on the television.

However, they are not, as the name might suggest, particularly small LED televisions. Rather, the Mini refers to the size of the LEDs. With mini LED TVs, they are often smaller than with normal LED-illuminated screens. The size is around 0.1 millimeters. But that’s not the only difference.

A comparison of mini LEDs and LCD televisions

With normal LED televisions, the screen is usually illuminated by LEDs attached to the sides, which is why it is often referred to as edge LEDs. Later models took this principle to the next level with full array technology, in which different colored LEDs are distributed over the entire area behind the LCD screen and illuminate it accordingly over the entire area.

Mini LED TVs are the logical continuation of this principle. Not only do mini LED TVs, like full array devices, have local dimming and thus better contrast adjustment, the light-emitting diodes behind the panel are also distributed over the entire screen.

In contrast to full array LCD screens, however, the picture on mini LED TVs is divided into even more zones and, thanks to the smaller LEDs, is illuminated in an even more targeted manner. Where full array diodes still illuminate several overlapping pixels, mini-LED technology has each pixel equipped with its own LED, which results in more precise lighting.

Mini LEDs: Sony, Philips, Samsung and LG are on board

Despite everything, mini LED TVs are still a form of LCD TVs with LED backlighting, albeit in a more technically mature form. Sony, Philips and other TV manufacturers already offer various mini LED TVs in their portfolio. Samsung and LG also do this, but this is where it gets a bit complicated.

Differences in Samsung and LG mini LEDs

Because Samsung and LG use different names for their televisions with mini LED panels. Samsung speaks of Neo QLED or Quantum Matrix, LG of QNED televisions. Both manufacturers combine mini-LED with Quantum Dot technology (optimized backlighting, wider color spectrum) in their devices.

Advantages of Mini LED Screens

As already mentioned, one of the advantages of the mini-LEDs is the significantly better contrast compared to normal LED screens. This is primarily due to the larger number of dimming zones and the significantly smaller LEDs. Depending on the size, a mini LED TV can even contain several tens of thousands of LEDs.

The more precise lighting and the higher contrast prevent greater scattering of the white light on the screen. Heavily exposed and thus blurred zones are prevented. Colours, contours and thus also the image content stand out more clearly.

Is mini LED better than OLED?

OLEDs are equipped with organic light-emitting diodes. The electrical current and luminance is lower as a result, but so is their service life. However, since the light-emitting diodes in OLED televisions are self-illuminating, they often offer even better contrast than mini-LEDs, which are based on inorganic materials. Also, with OLEDs, the image remains attractive at a larger angle.

At least in terms of contrast, mini LED TVs are catching up with OLEDs every year, which is why the differences are not as serious today as they were a few years ago. After all, not everything is perfect with OLED televisions either. The technical components show strong signs of wear over time, which results in a decreasing brightness over time and a shorter service life.

Both Mini-LED and OLED are clearly at a disadvantage compared to MicroLED panel technology, which is still in its infancy. As the name suggests, even smaller LEDs are used here. However, since MicroLED televisions will only be available as XXL devices with prices above the 100,000 euro mark until the beginning of 2023, they do not yet represent an alternative for the majority of TV buyers.

Breakthrough and outlook for the future

Mini-LED technology experienced a real breakthrough in 2021, when many TV manufacturers presented models with panel technology. Just like with MicroLED, Micro-LED technology has so far tended to be used in larger television screens. However, while we are still talking about screens of around 90 to 150 inches with MicroLED, mini-LED sizes are between around 65 and 85 inches.

Thus, the advantages of a mini LED television are reserved for buyers of large TV sets for the time being, but a significantly larger clientele is addressed here. And it shouldn’t stay with such large devices anyway. Many manufacturers are planning to launch mini LED models in smaller sizes in the near future. LG, for example, already has the first 55-inch mini LED models on offer.

Mini LED TV Prices: Affordable or Overpriced?

The price of mini LED TVs should also attract significantly more potential customers than MicroLEDs. Depending on the size, you have to reckon with prices of between almost 1,000 and 3,000 euros for the mini LED televisions.

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