One of the biggest advancements in TV design made during CES 2021 is mini-LED, the extra-small light-emitting diodes used in the backlighting of some of the latest and greatest smart TVs. 2021 will be the year of the mini LED TV as Samsung and LG join TCL and use mini LED backlighting technology to make TVs better than ever.
Here’s our quick rundown of which TVs will have mini LED in 2021, why mini LED is such an improvement over traditional LCD sets, and why this everyday-sounding technology is one of the most exciting developments for TV buyers in years is.
Basics of Mini-LED
Mini LED may seem like a relatively minor change, but the technology offers real improvements for LCD TVs. Lighting and brightness are key factors in creating a great TV picture. In addition to color and contrast, brightness makes a huge difference in how well a TV can display an image. You can get a more detailed explanation of mini LED technology from our guide Micro LED vs Mini LED: What’s the Difference?, but these are the broad lines.
As TVs have evolved over the decades, the technology used to place moving images in our homes has changed dramatically. While older cathode ray tube and plasma technologies and current OLED TVs do not suppress themselves (produce their own light), most TVs on the market since moving to LCD panels require a separate backlight as part of the TV screen. That once meant fluorescent lighting, but modern TVs use smaller, more efficient LED backlights.
Behind the LCD panel is one of several backlight options, which produce the light that makes the TV screen glow. On standard TVs, this backlight can take the form of edge lighting, which toggles the screen with LEDs, or full array backlight, which uses a matrix of LED lights to provide a consistent backlight across the screen, and more premium. TVs have a full range with local dimming. , which splits that lighting matrix into separate addressable zones. These zones can be independently lit or dimmed, with brightness assigned to the bright or shadowy areas of the screen for a more dynamic picture.
This local dimming is one of the driving factors behind the introduction of HDR formats, where the LED brightness can reach levels higher than previous fluorescent panels, with more controlled backlighting. The result is a combination of lighting technology and media formatting that provides deeper shadows, brighter highlights and more vibrant colors.
Mini LED promises a significant improvement over this development, allowing for a much greater number of discrete dimming zones. Measuring about one-fifth the size of a standard LED bulb, mini LEDs are very small. Mini-range LEDs are only 0.008 inches (200 microns) wide. The smaller LEDs illuminate a smaller area of the screen and can be placed closer together, allowing for zones limited to just a handful of pixels rather than parts of the screen that can measure a few inches square.
But that’s not all that mini LED offers. The smaller physical dimensions of these individual LEDs also make LCD TVs thinner than ever before.
So with mini LEDs promising thinner TVs that look better and brighter than ever before, you’d expect a big price hike and only see this new technology in the most expensive models, right? Well, that’s where mini LED offers its best feature: affordability.
You’ll pay a little more for mini LED TVs in the coming months, but probably not much. TCL’s impressive 6-Series Roku TVs offer mini LED backlighting for an extremely reasonable price – under $ 1,000 for all but the largest 75-inch model – and the picture quality improvements are evident. We can only hope that the same price-conscious philosophy is applied to the latest models from Samsung and LG, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Manufacturers are investing heavily in mini LED TVs
TCL introduced its first mini LED TV in 2019, but the 2020 TCL 6 Series of the Year TV (R635) refined the technology and brought it to an affordably priced TV. The result was one of the best TV values we’ve ever seen, and Samsung and LG are clearly paying attention as they both have new mini LED TVs this year.
And now that major manufacturers have turned their attention to mini LEDs, new innovations are already emerging built on top of these small diodes.
Samsung plans to bring the new technology with the Samsung to its premium 4K and 8K TVs this year Neo QLED line. Samsung’s mini LED technology includes tiny diffusers built into each mini LED, eliminating the need for a separate diffuser panel between the backlight and the LCD screen.
Samsung pairs these mini LEDs with its QLED quantum dot-enhanced LCD panels, calling the new models Neo QLED, and is central to all of Samsung’s premium 4K and 8K TVs. We’ve loved Samsung QLED TVs in the past, so we’re excited to see how the new models have improved with the new technology.
LG is also jumping on the mini LED bandwagon, adding the tiny backlight to several of its mid-range LCD TVs, which it calls LG QNED.
LG is taking a different path by adding mini LED backlights to its mid-range Nanocell TVs and updating those panels with a hybrid technology that combines Nanocell filtering and quantum dot color enhancement. Those trio of improvements could make LG’s new QNED TV line perhaps the best LCD TV on the market, but we’ll have to get it to test just in case.
Finally, TCL is the only company offering mini LED TVs that already has mini LED sets in the market. After introducing mini LED on its 8 Series TVs in 2019 and on the award-winning 6 Series Roku TV in 2020, TCL introduces TCL OD-zero, a new implementation of mini LED that eliminates the gaps between the mini LED backlight and the LCD panel. The result should not only be slimmer TV designs, but also an even better implementation of mini LED.
TCL’s existing mini LED designs will continue to sell throughout the new year, with the 2020 6 Series 4K sets remaining the main 4K offering in the new year. The TCL 6 series model line is expanded with new ones 8K models in 2021, but mini LED remains one of the defining features of the value-oriented smart TVs.
Do you have to wait for a mini LED TV?
With new mini LED TVs on the horizon, but still at least a few months away, the reasonable question for TV buyers is to ask if mini LED is worth the wait. Do you have to wait for a mini LED TV?
The answer is yes, but you don’t have to. Our TCL 6 Series Roku TV (R635) Review named the affordable smart TV an Editor’s Choice, in part because its mini LED backlight provided superior dim and brightness control, and it still tops our list of best TVs as the best value TV on the market.
If you want to wait for a similar mini LED set from Samsung or LG, you’ll have to wait for those TVs to come out this spring. We expect to receive more details on models and pricing in February and estimate that the new TVs will be available in March or April.
In the future, we will certainly recommend that customers choose mini LED when it is available unless you are on a very tight budget. The improvement in picture quality is significant and the rise in the price of a TV is negligible making it a must-have for TV buyers in the coming year.