On the one hand, choosing a TV is a simple matter: get the most expensive you can afford from a brand you like. On the other hand, there are so many types of screen technologies and associated labels and acronyms that it would have forgiven you for feeling completely overwhelmed by it all. Here’s your (relatively) simple guide to the TV technology you’ll encounter in 2021.
As has been the case for a long time, reading reviews and even checking personal TVs is the best way to choose a new model for you – better than trying to compare one specification with another on a list of products, anyway. That being said, it can definitely help you get to know some of the technology and jargon that the manufacturers will push you.
The basics
The key specifications of a TV remain the same as ever: there is the screen size, which is how massive the TV will be when you get it home, and there is the resolution, what is the number of pixels that are wrapped on the screen and how sharp it will be. 4K is now the norm, with more 8K TVs this year (although TVs remain prohibitive in general).
Then you have the two fundamentally different ways to put an image on a TV screen, which you will see mentioned with the smartphone screens as well. There are superior but more expensive OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) in which each pixel of light is independently illuminated, compared to the cheaper and still very good LCD (liquid crystal display), which uses a layer of illumination. from behind.
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LCD has improved in recent years by using LEDs (light emitting diodes) in various configurations, allowing them to approach the strong contrast and deep colors of OLED. LCD TVs are now often called LED LCD TVs, or even just LED TVs, which does not make purchasing decisions very easy for consumers. These two main categories are now also divided into different subgroups, as manufacturers refine their technology and the differences between the types of technology become more blurred.
Don’t forget HDR or High Dynamic Range, ability to screen to balance the colors so that the darkest and lightest spots are still full of detail. There are different types of thinking here – HDR10, HDR10 +, Dolby Vision and others – but you can make your shopping life easier by finding out which standards you prefer content providers and set-top boxes offer and choose a tailor-made TV.
Mini-LED and MIcro-LED
As mentioned above, TV technology is divided into more and more subcategories and variations on a theme, with manufacturers often following their own routes – which makes it more difficult to brand (as I said, comparing sets in a store remains one of the best ways to choose one). Concidering, we have the appearance of Mini-LED and Micro-LED, variations of the LED (itself an evolution of the LCD).
The problem with LCDs that use LED backlights is that they don’t offer much pixel-by-pixel lighting control. This means that you are more likely to see halos of light around bright spots on dark backgrounds. To address this, manufacturers have begun to divide the taillights into smaller, individually controlled areas so that parts of the screen can be a deeper black (or brighter white) without affecting the rest of the display.
Mini-LED and even smaller Micro-LEDs are further enhancements to this idea, making the size of individual LEDs smaller and smaller, thus allowing greater control over the image. You’ll see both in use on TVs in 2021, depending on the manufacturer, although for now Micro-LED remains much less common and much more expensive (the future 110-inch Samsung model) it will cost just over $ 150,000, if you want to invest).
In theory, Micro-LED offers the advantages of LCD and OLED in a new package, and manufacturers should be able to get the technology more accessible and practical over time; for now we will all buy sets built on cheaper alternatives. This being the business with TVs, Micro-LED is developed differently by different companies under different names: Sony it’s called Crystal LED.
Add a few quantum dots
If you’ve seen a lot of CES 2021, you would have seen manufacturers presenting their own improvements to Mini-LEDs – LG QNED and Samsung QLED, for example, with Q representing “quantum dot”. Finally, these are variations of the same LED LCD pattern we’ve seen before, but there’s an extra layer of these quantum dots that can refine and process the colors displayed on the screen and the overall contrast of the image.
It’s the same pattern we’ve seen in TV technology over the years – a clever change to an existing technology to address some of its limitations, with a new name. One of the great advantages of QLED and QNED sets is the improved brightness, which is even able to surpass OLED in some cases (brightness and longevity are the potential disadvantages of OLED, although manufacturers are making improvements in this area as well).
Samsung has been developing QLED for a while, the latest incarnation being Neo QLED. As with many rebrandings of this kind, Neo means only new and improved: it refers to LEDs (quantum dots) that are smaller, more accurate, less leaked in terms of light and more receptive. . The technology can also be better managed by the TV’s integrated software. In the end, it’s about getting better and better.
Meanwhile, the LG QNED is relatively new to the scene, although it incorporates a well-known LG technology called NanoCell. N actually refers to the nano: LG’s QNED sets are crammed into up to 30,000 LEDs to act as a backlight, so you can see how far we’ve come from original LCD TVs that used a single light background for the whole set. If you compare TVs with these types of enhanced Mini-LED technology, look for the number of LEDs mentioned, as well as the number of local dimming areas, if these details are listed.
However, more TV technology
If you’re confused by any TV spec you come across, a quick search of the manufacturer’s official page should give you an idea of what it is, in the midst of all the hyperbole. As I mentioned at the beginning, you don’t look at the specs as well as you see a TV for you or reading a detailed review, but at least you can get an idea of what the manufacturers are trying to do and why one set might cost more than another.
Televisions have processorsf you didn’t notice. Faster, more advanced and more expensive processors help TVs better manage all those millions of pixels – changing colors faster, interpreting brightness and contrast in a more realistic way and upscaling all your old content to 4K and 8K in a way that doesn’t look terrible (with a little AI help).
Sony, for example, just revealed what he calls “cognitive processing” for his 2021 TVs: he uses special algorithms to find out where your eyes are likely to look (actors’ faces are usually a good bet) and then enhances those parts of the image. These are the kind of small changes and improvements that manufacturers like to add from year to year, although you may not necessarily miss them on the missing sets.
These are the main considerations covered, although there are many more to weigh as extras – players will want to know about refresh rate and latency, while built-in software and audio format support can be important. It’s a good idea to consider the type of content you want to send to your TV while choosing one and make sure that the necessary features (from ATSC 3.0 to HDMI 2.1) will be supported.