LED & LCD TV Technology

The benefits of back-lit over Edge Lit are, the LED’s or nodes turn off on black scenes, making for better contrasts in dark scenes.

I’ve always known Full Array and Direct Lit to be the same; Back-Lit. However the difference is that full array has more LED's over back-lit. OLED on the other hand is one LED per pixel.

What to watch out for:

Most TV’s sold today are Edge Lit and they try hide that fact on shop floors. Often, I’ve been in Curry’s or PC World and they don’t display this in the description.
Edge Lit also makes the TV cheaper for obvious reasons.

They also try confusing consumers with “Local-Dimming”. This is the feature where the lights turn off for to create darker/black scenes. If you see an Edge-Lit TV that does Local Dimming, it's crap, it will create the following unpleasant effect on the TV. Local Dimming is only best used for Back-lit or OLED/QLED

Backlit vs full array

OLED/QLED TV
This technology allows for the actual Pixel to change colour itself (rather than a LED or node above). Pixel being even smaller and creates for better colours and shades.

Whereas all the TV’s above, are only White/Black, On/Off. So, the above are shading techniques. Whereas OLED/QLED change the colours of the Pixel and make for a huge difference and better TV’s, hence the bigger price.

Pro’s and Cons of each
(based on my experience and research)

Edge-Lit
Pro:
Cheaper
More frequent in TV’s
Been around 10 years (Plasma before these)

Con:
White wash in Dark scenes
Heavy White Ghosting in Dark scenes (Example picture above)
Because they’re more frequent, they don’t always tell you they’re Edge-lit. and usually cheaper for this reason.

Back-Lit / Full-array
Pro:
Better for dark scenes.
Mid-range prices

Con:
Some minor white ghosting. Like the above picture, the moon would have a halo around it (white glow)
Becoming Less frequent and harder to find – In my experience!
When you find one, the seller might have them unnecessarily expensive.

OLED/QLED
Pro:
Simply put, The best screen out there now for, bright colours, sharp images, and darkest black scenes.
Thinnest screen build.
Higher HZ than the others.

Con:
The most expensive TV’s (£1500 - £2500+)
I’ve heard, they can be fragile, because they are so thin.
Because they’re relatively new technology, it's said they’re unsure what their shelf-life are, and rumoured to be less years than the above TV’s because of the complex technology build.

Additional Explanation
Hertz – hz:
-The higher the hz, the sharper objects are whilst in motion.
-For example, higher hz would sharpen and smooth out the back tire of this bike, like the front tire.
-I’ve mentioned this because. High HZ can increase the price of any of the above TV’s.
-One TV with 400hz could cost, £800. The same TV but with 800hz could cost £1200.

Hope this information helped someone buying a TV :smile: