LG’s new ‘QNED’ TVs will have almost 30,000 tiny LEDs behind the screen

LG may be the company most synonymous with OLED TVs, but tonight is announcing what to expect from its LCD-based devices in 2021. As other manufacturers, including TCL, have already done (and Samsung is due to join soon), LG is adopting Mini LED technology for its premium 8K and 4K LCD TVs next year.

LG says the Mini LED allows “a giant leap in image quality from the LCD TV”. Today’s best LCD TVs have what is called “local full-matrix dimming”, where LEDs – in some cases hundreds of them – serve as background lighting behind the screen. They can be controlled in zones and each zone can be dimmed as appropriate for dark scenes, which helps to improve black and contrast levels.

Mini LED slightly changes the strategy using much smaller LEDs (but much more of them) for greater contrast than TVs that can reach a few hundred dim zones.

In the case of LG, the company says its new backlight “comprises up to almost 30,000 small LEDs that produce incredible peak brightness and a contrast ratio of 1,000,000: 1 when combined with up to 2,500 dim zones and dim zones. advanced locations. ” The end result is better contrast, more dynamic HDR and greater color accuracy compared to the company’s previous LCD devices. Like all LG 2020 flagships, refresh rates up to 120 Hz are supported.

LG labeled these state-of-the-art LCD TVs as “QNED”, with the Q referring to the color of the quantum dot and the N supposedly representing LG’s “NanoCell” brand. It sounds a little strange – especially since TV buyers will have to deal with a mix of OLED, QLED and QNED TVs when they are at their local Best Buy.

The closest comparison for LG’s QNED TVs would be something like the TCL Series 8, which contains 25,000 LEDs in about 1,000 control zones. (LG says the QNED will come in sizes up to 86 inches, which is what I’m assuming the previous numbers come from.) TCL’s Series 6 also uses Mini LED, although the total number is much less than the expensive one Series 8.

Image: TCL

But as a leading brand of OLED TV, LG is taking care to underline that OLED is still where the best image can be obtained – even with all these advances on the LCD side. 2020 saw Vizio enter the field of OLED TV and try to reduce the price of LG, but LG is not about to give up its position at the top easily. (Sony also manufactures state-of-the-art OLEDs; all three companies use LG Display panels.)

Finally, don’t make the mistake of mixing Mini LED with MicroLED. Think of Mini LED as another evolution of LCD TVs, while MicroLED is a more radical update that completely removes the backlight from the equation (just like OLED) and combines millions of emissive LEDs that only light up when needed. MicroLED TVs are still outrageously expensive, and while we don’t know the price of LG’s QNED TVs for a few more months, it must be much less surprising.