Micro LED TVs that are not LED TVs

When Samsung rebranded its LCD televisions with LEDs in the backlight as LED TVs a few years ago, the Korean manufacturer misled many users. The supposed difference to LCD TVs did not exist; both variants used liquid crystals as the imaging layer, which was and is illuminated by an (LED) backlight.

At CES, Samsung has now circulated another designation that is likely to confuse users unnecessarily: The company is calling LCD televisions with dimmable micro LEDs in the backlight “RGB micro LED TV”. Until now, “micro LED TV” has been reserved for “real” LED televisions, which have neither a backlight nor an LCD or OLED layer. Instead, each pixel consists of tiny inorganic light-emitting diodes, i.e., micro LEDs. The term “micro” is usually used when the diodes are smaller than 100 nm in diameter.

Very strong colors

However, the picture quality of the supposed micro LED TV is impressive. Because instead of a “white” or blue backlight (for quantum dots), red, green, and blue LEDs shine through the liquid crystal layer from behind, the display produces very rich colors with enormous luminosity. Although there are still RGB color filters on the LC layer, these can filter out the red, green, and blue light components for the RGB sub-pixels in a more targeted and therefore less lossy way. The color saturation and impressive brightness of the new televisions are well worth seeing.

In addition, the RGB diodes of the Direct LED backlight are dimmed separately locally for each color channel, which in turn reduces the black level and increases the in-image contrast. How well this works also depends on the number of dimming zones. Samsung did not want to comment on this, as the device on display, a 98-inch screen with 8K resolution, was a prototype.

Tiny LEDs on large diagonals

It has yet to be decided what size, resolution, and number of zones the final product will have. This is due to go on sale at the end of the year, Samsung explained. The electronics specialist has also not yet commented on the price. However, the price will be higher than for conventional LCD TVs because although eight million LEDs are not required here, the transfer of the tiny micro-LEDs from the wafer to the backlight substrate will be expensive.

Chinese manufacturers Hisense and TCL will also be showing LCD TVs in Las Vegas with RGB backlights that can be dimmed locally per color channel, just like Samsung's RGB micro-LED TVs. At Hisense, the devices are called Trichroma LED TVs, at TCL mini LED TVs – although both use LCD technology.

At the stand, TCL will be demonstrating the considerable development that dimmable backlighting has undergone recently. From what used to be a rather coarse division to a differentiation in the backlight that allows object contours to be easily recognized. The demo still lacks the implementation with micro-LEDs, which should be even finer.

Heise Medien is the official media partner of CES 2025.

Note: Samsung paid for the author's travel expenses to CES 2025. There are no agreements regarding the nature and scope of our reporting. (uk)