Micro-LED vs. OLED TV: Which TV tech will win?

Micro-LED vs. OLED Television receiver: Which TV tech will win?

(Image credit: Samsung)

2021 promises to be an exciting year in Television set technology, as the first hotly anticipated Samsung MicroLED TVs reach the market in the coming months. As the first consumer product to use Samsung'due south new micro-LED displays, the upcoming TVs present the beginning existent claiming to OLED as the premier Tv set display technology. That's a change that promises to milkshake upwards the TV world, offering more competition in the well-nigh premium segments of the TV market.

But how do the two technologies compare, and which do nosotros think volition exist better?

Nosotros've been closely watching both technologies for some time, as we review new TVs and participate in technical briefings and prototype demonstrations. We've looked at manufacture reports and joined technical briefings to acquire more about how micro-LED will stack up against OLED in the coming battle for Television display supremacy.

So allow'southward review both technologies individually, and then compare point-by-point how each volition fence for the throne of top Television receiver technology.

What is OLED?

The electric current tiptop-of-the-line brandish engineering science is OLED, which stands for organic light-emitting diode. The first OLED TVs merely arrived in the United States in 2013, making the technology relatively new. From the outset, OLED has been a premium engineering, offering superior picture quality, but at a essentially higher price than cheaper display options, such every bit LCD.

OLED is distinguished by both the apartment form factor which allows it to be applied directly to glass, as well as its calorie-free emitting properties, which eliminate the demand for a separate backlight, allowing for slimmer Goggle box designs and better power efficiency than LCD displays.

The current leader in OLED technology is LG Display, the simply major manufacturer of Television set-sized OLED panels. LG OLED panels appear non only in LG Smart TVs, like the one seen in our LG CX OLED Goggle box review, but also premium smart TVs from Sony and Vizio, such as those seen in our Sony Principal Serial A9G OLED TV review and Vizio OLED TV review.

That market supremacy LG OLED enjoys is one articulate driver for Samsung's pursuit of micro-LED displays, since it offers many of the same benefits of OLED, but with Samsung holding the reins to proprietary technology and manufacturing.

What is micro-LED?

Micro-LED is an even newer advancement than OLED, with the offset Samsung MicroLED TVs announced this twelvemonth. Since 2018 Samsung has been demonstrating micro-LED applied science at merchandise shows such every bit CES and IFA, but these demonstrations have primarily been commercial-grade displays measuring 120 inches or more.

Micro-LED (not to be confused with mini-LED) is a newly developed technology which uses microscopic LEDs every bit individual pixels in the display. Recall of it like a Jumbotron screen, but with much effectively pixels and higher resolution. In fact, the resolution has gotten high enough to back up 4K ultra Hard disk in the first Samsung MicroLED TVs.

Each pixel in a micro-LED brandish is actually fabricated up of three microscopic LEDs: Red, blue and dark-green. These combine to provide any color of visible light necessary for an individual pixel, and then combine with several million other pixels to provide the same detailed 3840 x 2160 resolution you'll see on current 4K TVs.

The first hurdle to making micro-LED engineering science viable for in-home use was the size of LEDs. A standard LED is much too large, only LED sizes and manufacturing practices have shrunk these tiny lights down to 1/100 the size of a conventional LED. Measuring 0.002-inch across, these micro-LEDs are most invisible to the naked heart, and can be packed alongside one some other to class seamless displays at very high resolution.

In improver to having a small enough LED to use, the manufacturing processes of combining these millions of pixels onto a usable surface has been an ongoing claiming for Samsung, as new manufacturing processes have been developed and entirely new technologies created for micro-LED displays.

In the by we've seen micro-LED displays combine several pixel packed wafers into a single tiled surface. Samsung has touted this as an option that would permit modular screen designs, just information technology sounds like the showtime MicroLED TVs volition be prefabricated single units that apply normal aspect ratios.

Micro-LED vs. OLED: Sharpness and resolution

When it comes to picture show quality, our perception of what makes a great picture comes downwardly to a few elements. Chief among these sharpness. Sharpness speaks to the fine item visible in a given picture. On a 4K ultra HD screen, much of this perceived sharpness comes down to resolution. And with both OLED and micro-LED TVs offering the same 4K resolution, the level of detail should be the same.

Sharpness settings are a little different, with video processing making on-screen objects more singled-out by actually adding a subtle black line around an object to brand information technology pop more on the screen. Since this isn't a function of the display technology, it won't make a difference in the comparing between OLED and micro-LED.

Winner: Necktie

Micro-LED vs. OLED: Black levels

1 of the big differentiators between OLED TVs and LCD sets is the quality of the black levels. Considering LCD sets are backlit, even when displaying blackness, the glow from the backlight looks more than like grey, a phenomenon known every bit "elevated blacks".

OLED TVs, on the other hand, create true blacks, thanks to the power to turn individual pixels off and limit illumination to the pixels where it'south needed. It'southward a adequacy that non-OLED TVs haven't been able to match.

Micro-LED TVs, however, will friction match this per-pixel adequacy, and offering the same black levels that OLED currently has a monopoly on.

Winner: Tie

Micro-LED vs. OLED: Brightness and contrast

Ane of the only weak points of OLED technology is brightness. While improvements accept been made to the brightness offered on OLED TVs in recent years, LCD sets have e'er been able to offering better brightness considering they are backed with super bright LEDs. Even the brightest OLED TVs usually top out at two,000 nits of possible brightness. LG is trying to ameliorate OLED brightness with its new OLED evo technology, simply it's express (for at present) to a unmarried model in the LG OLED lineup.

Micro-LED, on the other hand, promises up to v,000 nits of brightness, bravado by the brightest OLED, and even offering ameliorate straight luminance than LCD sets mostly offer. With no filtering layers between the micro-LED pixels and the viewer, the boosted brightness of micro-LED will exist completely undimmed.

Contrast is a related measurement that measures the difference between the darkest black and brightest white the screen can produce, and micro-LED looks to take a lead hither, too. While both micro-LED and OLED promise truthful blacks, the college brightness available on micro-LED TVs volition give it a higher contrast rating. In practice, all the same, both technologies offer superb dissimilarity, and contrast numbers rarely reflect the actual viewing experience.

Winner: Micro-LED

Micro-LED vs. OLED: Color quality

When speaking of color quality on a Television display, y'all're generally referring to color gamut, or the number of shades the Idiot box can produce. This is measured within sure standardized colour space specifications, such as Adobe sRGB, P3, and others. The vast bulk of TVs selling now offer betwixt 95 and 100% of the sRGB color spectrum, with gamut of 99.9% being representative of many premium TVs. The latest OLED models, however, routinely exceed the sRGB standard, with college-than-100% scores in our color gamut benchmark tests.

With the tuned color and boosted brightness of micro-LED, we also expect Samsung MicroLED TVs to exceed 100%. Nosotros won't actually know this until nosotros take an opportunity to test ane of the new TVs and measure the colour output of micro-LED for ourselves, but early reports suggest that micro-LED TVs volition take a clear advantage when it comes to colour reproduction.

Winner: Micro-LED

Micro-LED vs. OLED: Viewing angles

Viewing bending refers to the ability of a Tv set screen to maintain proper colour and item when viewed at an angle away from center. Because TVs are usually enjoyed in groups, where only one person can sit down directly in front of the Boob tube, broad viewing angles are greatly preferred because they let you savor a film or the big game whether you lot're sitting in the centre of the couch or off in a recliner to the side.

LCD TVs take frequently demonstrated narrow viewing angles, with noticeable color shifting and loss of detail when viewed from 45 degrees or wider. OLED TVs, on the other hand, accept offered significant improvements with clear and accurate visibility out to nigh 90 degrees. This is due, in part, to the fact that OLED TVs put the entire display appliance against the glass of the display, and there are no issues with parallax errors or colour filtering that requires viewing from a specific bending such as you would run across with an LCD set up.

Micro-LED promises to deliver the same sort of all-angles visibility, with each colour-producing pixel visible right on the surface of the screen. In fact, with no glass layer between the viewer and the pixels, micro-LED might actually offering better viewing angles than OLED already does.

This is, of form, largely speculative, and we'll have to wait for our first review to really know for certain. But in the demonstrations we have seen, and according to manufacture reports, the extremely wide viewing angles of OLED are easily matched by micro-LED.

Winner: Tie

Micro-LED vs. OLED: Burn-in

The other big trouble with OLED TVs is the potential for screen burn-in. When a static image is displayed on-screen for long periods of fourth dimension, there is a tendency for the agile pixels to dethrone at dissimilar rates, creating a ghostly afterimage that can be seen even when you lot change the channel or the picture changes. This could mean annihilation from faint rectangular outlines where news channel chyrons and stock tickers appear, to noticeable bars along the top and bottom from watching also many letterbox films.

Fire-in is a trouble that OLED TVs tin can experience, and is a valid reason not to buy a used floor model from a retailer, because the flooring models will often cycle through the aforementioned picture or video clips again and again over days or weeks, creating a real take a chance of fire-in on the display.

But for the average consumer, the burn-in problem has largely been solved for OLED TVs. LG uses pixel shifting technology, which actually detects static imagery on screen and alternates which pixels brandish it, in order to convalesce some of this uneven article of clothing and tear. And OLED durability in general has improved, with color staying truer for longer, and run a risk burn-in being greatly reduced.

That said, information technology sounds similar micro-LED won't suffer from this same problem. Individual LEDs are far less decumbent to color degradation in general, and long term color drift is less of a concern, so burn down-in from displaying a static paradigm shouldn't even exist a worry.

Once more, as with many aspects of picture show quality and performance, we don't actually know this withal. Long-term testing and reports from owners may uncover burn down-in issues with micro-LED TVs in one case they striking the market, but we take yet to come across anything to contradict claims that fire-in is a non-outcome for micro-LED displays.

Winner: Micro-LED

Micro-LED vs. OLED: Size

For those keeping score, micro-LED seems to be coming out alee of OLED in our point-past-bespeak comparison. However, i of the about important factors for any Telly shopper may wind up beingness micro-LED's Achilles heel.

Because micro-LED is nevertheless a relatively new technology, and is pushing up against the very limits of how tightly packed pixels tin be when using individual LEDs, at that place are existent questions effectually what sizes micro-LED can exist offered in.

Samsung MicroLED TV — (Image credit: Samsung)

Even Samsung's MicroLED Boob tube announcements exit some question marks unresolved, with some early reports claiming that MicroLED TVs will exist available in sizes as modest as 88-inches, but last announcements mentioning only 110- and 99-inch models, with the hope of smaller sizes past the end of the year.

Meanwhile, OLED is a far more mature technology, and OLED manufacturers accept continued to evolve to meet the demands of 8K resolution, quadrupling the number of pixels to fit into a single panel. As a result, smaller displays with higher resolution have just recently reached the marketplace, with the outset LG 48-inch 4K OLED TV arriving tardily concluding year.

In a world where resolution and pixel density is rex, smaller displays with college resolutions are harder to make. And manufacturing processes that allow 4K resolution at 48-inch sizes offer pixel density that micro-LED cannot yet friction match.

But where this actually becomes important is in the 55- and 65-inch range that makes upwards the nigh popular sizes for nearly households. Until micro-LED can fit into these constraints, Samsung MicroLED TVs may be a fringe technology at best, highly-seasoned only to dwelling house theaters where extra large screens dominate.

The flipside of this argument, however, is that micro-LED sets will offer some monster sized screens, with wall-sized options that dwarf the 75- and 85-inch TVs that stand for that largest OLED and LCD models.

Winner: Tie. OLED will have more options for most homes, but Micro-LED will come up in really big screen sizes.

Micro-LED vs. OLED: Price

Along those same lines is the question of price. OLED TVs accept come up down dramatically in price since their introduction simply 8 years ago. Where a 55-inch OLED TV initially price nearly $x,000, the editor'due south choice LG CX OLED tin can be bought today for less than $1,500, with prices dropping more than 85% in less than a decade.

Entry level models are even more affordable, with the LG BX OLED and Vizio OLED Television receiver bringing the price down closer to the $1,000 mark. When sales pricing is factored in, it's entirely possible to score a decent sized OLED TV for less than a grand, provided you're willing to wait for the correct opportunity.

Samsung has non yet announced pricing for its micro-LED TVs in Northward America, merely we do know what they're selling for in Due south Korea, and it's more than just premium. With a pre-order price of 170 meg won — $152,000 U.S. dollars — information technology's pricey even for the nigh premium TVs. This is a brand new applied science, fabricated on new manufacturing lines, with none of the efficiencies or economies of scale that LG has developed over the years. Just even taking that into account, nosotros're worried that Samsung'southward MicroLED TV might be priced besides high to make a divergence in the consumer market place.

Meanwhile, LG has announced prices for information technology'due south 2021 OLED TVs, and they range from pretty affordable to reasonably expensive. The cheapest volition be the 48-inch A1 OLED, part of LG's new entry-level OLED line, and scales up to $iv,499 for the 77-inch G1 OLED with OLED evo applied science, and $v,999 for the upcoming 83-inch C1 OLED, the largest 4K OLED LG is offering this year. That'south a world of difference from the $100k+ price we await for fifty-fifty the lowest toll MicroLED TV.

Winner: OLED

Should yous wait to buy a Samsung MicroLED TV?

If you're weighing whether to purchase an OLED TV now or wait for Samsung MicroLED TVs to start selling, there'southward no need to stress well-nigh information technology. While micro-LED displays hope to exist a game changer for the TV industry long-term, in that location'south just non a good reason to buy i now.

The advantages offered by micro-LED are largely already available in today's OLED TVs, and the benefits of micro-LED are still largely hypothetical. Until we get to see the new TVs in the real world, nosotros tin't even definitively say that micro-LED'southward expected benefits will make a difference to the viewing experience on Samsung upcoming MicroLED TVs.

And what we practice know is that Samsung'southward micro-LED sets will exist actress big, extra expensive, and won't even offer ameliorate resolution than the 4K displays we've seen for years. If you have your heart ready on splurging for a actually large screen, we'd at least recommend spending the coin on an 8K ready, so that you lot have something more than substantial to show off to friends and family.

And for most people, our communication remains the aforementioned: A 4K Boob tube is the all-time use of your coin, and OLED is the best version of 4K you lot can get today.

Brian Westover is an Editor at Tom'due south Guide, roofing everything from TVs to the latest PCs. Prior to joining Tom'due south Guide, he wrote for TopTenReviews and PCMag.