Anika Begay
This technology comes at the cost of slower response times and poorer viewing angles, which is why it is less common than IPS. They are also usually a bit more expensive than IPS panels, so if contrast is important to you, you might want to pay more.
Mini-LED: Local dimming on a smaller scale
The backlights on most LCD displays are usually on across the entire screen, but TVs have found a way to get better contrast by introducing local dimming. The only problem is that creating a series of backlights that can be controlled independently has been difficult to fit on smaller screens.
Enter Mini-LED. Mini-LEDs are smaller than typical LED backlights (around 200 microns), which means display manufacturers can cram a lot more of them into a smaller space. That adds up to thousands of local dimming zones in laptop and tablet displays. Strictly speaking, Mini-LED is a backlight technology, and can be combined with many 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 currently limited to super-large (and incredibly expensive) displays.
OLED: The Holy Grail of Black Levels
One of the few alternatives to liquid crystals is organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). These panels use pixels that emit their own light, eliminating the need for a backlight. Since each pixel can emit its own light, there is no additional light leakage into the dark parts of the image. Black levels on OLED panels are effectively infinite, as any pixel that is not turned on is functionally the same as when the display is turned off.
Because there is no backlight involved, OLED panels are incredibly good at producing high-contrast images and accurately reproducing colors. However, unlike LCD displays, they are more prone to burn-in. Also, there are not many companies that produce these panels. In fact, most OLED panels are made by one manufacturer: LG.
This has made OLED panels more expensive than typical LCD displays, although they have come down to more reasonable prices in recent years. However, if you want the best possible picture, you’re likely to run into OLED panels, and they’ll likely be more expensive than comparable LCD screens.
QD OLED and WOLED: Brighter OLED
Quantum dot OLEDs (or QD-OLEDs) are a relatively new entry in 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, increasing the brightness of each pixel.
Similar to other quantum dot displays, QD-OLED uses blue OLEDs as the light source, which then shines on quantum dots to generate the red and green light needed to produce a color image. This approach combines the advantages of OLED (no need for a separate backlight, high-contrast images) with the advantages of quantum dots (less light lost when passing through filters, more direct control over color accuracy).
Recent displays that use QD-OLED are among the best-looking panels we’ve ever tested here at WIRED. For example, the Samsung S95C (8/10, WIRED recommends) blew WIRED editor-in-chief Parker Hall away with its perfect black levels, vivid colors, and wide viewing angles.
WOLED is a similar technology that also aims to make things brighter, but it also features a white OLED layer. It’s used in LG’s high-end models like the new C4 (9/10, WIRED recommends) to reach peak brightness well over 1000 nits.
Because QD-OLED and WOLED panels are relatively new, displays that use them are likely to be more expensive for now, but you’re unlikely to find better image quality on monitors that don’t use them.
