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This technology comes at the cost of lower response times and narrower viewing angles, so it’s less common than IPS. They also tend to be a bit more expensive than IPS panels, so if contrast is important to you, you may need to pay more for them.
Mini-LED: local dimming on a smaller scale
Most LCD displays typically have the backlight on across the entire screen, but TVs found a way to achieve better contrast by introducing local dimming. The only problem was that creating a series of backlights that could be controlled independently was difficult to adapt to smaller screens.
Enter mini-LEDs. Mini-LEDs are smaller than typical LED backlights (around 200 nm). microns), which means display makers can fit a lot more into a smaller space – for example, thousands of local dimming zones on laptop and tablet displays. Strictly speaking, Mini-LED is a backlight technology, and can be paired with a number of different types of LCD panels, but it will improve contrast and black levels on any panel it’s used in. There’s also a technology called “Micro LED,” where the pixels act as their own backlight, but that’s limited to super-large (and incredibly expensive) displays at the moment.
OLED: The Holy Grail of Black Levels
One of the few alternatives to liquid crystals is organic light-emitting diodes (OLED). These panels use pixels that emit their own light, avoiding the need for a backlight. Since each pixel can emit its own light, there is no additional light leakage into dark parts of the image. Black levels on OLED panels are virtually infinite, as any pixel that is not activated functions the same as when the screen is off.
Since there is no backlight, OLED panels are incredibly good at producing high contrast images and reproducing colors accurately. However, unlike LCD displays, they are more prone to burn-in. There are also not many companies that make these panels. In fact, most OLED panels are produced from a manufacturer: LG.
This has made OLED panels more expensive than typical LCD displays, although they have come down in price to more reasonable levels in recent years. Still, if you want the best possible picture, you’re likely to come across OLED panels, and they’re likely to be priced higher than comparable LCD displays.
QD OLED and WOLED: Brighter OLEDs
Quantum dot OLEDs (or QD-OLEDs) are a relatively new addition to Samsung’s display landscape. While OLEDs emit their own light, they still need to use filters to produce red, green, and blue wavelengths. Typical OLEDs use a white subpixel to produce that light, which increases the brightness of each pixel.
Like other quantum dot displays, QD-OLED uses blue OLEDs as a light source that are then shined onto quantum dots to generate the red and green light needed to produce a full-color image. This approach combines the benefits of OLED (no need for a separate backlight, high-contrast images) with the advantages of quantum dots (less light lost through filters, more direct control over color accuracy).
Recent displays using QD-OLED are among the nicest panels we’ve tested at WIRED. For example, the Samsung S95C (8/10, WIRED Recommends) wowed WIRED senior editor Parker Hall with its perfect black levels, vibrant colors, and wide viewing angles.
WOLED is a similar technology that also aims to make things brighter, but it also comes with a white OLED layer. This is used in high-end LG models like the new C4 (9/10, WIRED recommends) to achieve peak brightness well above 1,000 nits.
Since QD-OLED and WOLED panels are relatively new, displays that use them are likely to be more expensive for now, but it will likely be difficult to find better picture quality on monitors without them.
