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QLED or OLED? This is where the two technologies differ
QLED or OLED? You should know these differences
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QLED and OLED are two display technologies that offer different advantages and disadvantages. Read here why an OLED TV should deliver the more intense colors and why a QLED device scores in terms of brightness.
The terms QLED and OLED describe two screen technologies that could hardly be more different. Both technologies are closely linked to one manufacturer each. For a long time, only LG produced OLED screens for televisions, but other manufacturers now also offer OLED televisions, such as Sony, Loewe or Philips. You can find QLED screens at Samsung, Hisense or Tcl. You can read about the technical differences between QLED and OLED and the advantages and disadvantages of the technologies here.
What is the difference between QLED and OLED?
The difference between QLED and OLED is purely technological. Simple explanation: At OLED the iodes glow by themselves. At QLED-TVs let the pixels shine with LED backlighting. QLED is therefore an improvement on the already known LCD technology, while OLED is a separate technology. In comparison, OLED TVs are thinner and have higher contrast.
With QLED televisions, there are several layers on top of each other. These layers include a polarizing filter, an RGB filter, a background filter and of course the backlight. That makes the TVs thicker than OLED sets, which don’t need those layers. A disadvantage of many QLED TVs compared to OLED is that they are a bit lower in contrast. The reason for this is the backlighting of the QLED televisions, which also illuminates dark screen areas and “greys out” the black. Top models like that Samsung Q95T therefore offer dimming zones, i.e. areas in the display that the television illuminates brighter or darker and thus gets the problem under control.
By the way: With Samsung, you can recognize the inch size by the identifier after the “GQ”. So the 65 stands for 65 inches on the Samsung GQ-65Q950T. It is one of the manufacturer’s current top models and has a resolution of 8K. It’s still oversized and you’ll be safe with a 4K TV for years to come.
An OLED screen does not need dimming zones. With him, each light-emitting diode can decide for itself whether and how intensely it lights up. And so get OLED TVs better contrasts and a deeper black as a QLED TV. If an iode does not light up, it is simply black – but the one next to it has no problem shining bright white. In addition, OLED displays have better viewing angles than QLED TVs. If you look at the screen from the side, you can see the colors better with OLED. But the televisions have one weakness: they usually display bright images, such as snow-white mountain peaks, too dark.
What is QLED?
Let’s take a closer look at QLED technology. It is said to be the best that LED screens have to offer, because they are considered to be LCD televisions with particularly high color and contrast. It is a further development of LCD screens with so-called “quantum dots”, which give the name the Q. LCD stands for “Liquid Crystal Display”: Electrical impulses change the orientation of the crystals and the amount of light they let through can be varied.
This is how different colors are created. However, since the crystals do not light up themselves, the so-called backlight (background light) is required. The light is generated by LEDs, which give the LCD television the name LED TV. The further development to QLED televisions mainly affects the backlight, because with QLED televisions another layer, the quantum dots, is placed over the existing LED filters. They ensure that the television can display brighter and more colorful images.
- Brightness: Thanks to the Quantum Dots, the image of QLEDs can become even brighter than that of LED screens.
- Contrast: This also increases the contrast because the diodes do not lose any of their color even with more brightness.
- Power consumption: Since the backlight is permanently on, the energy consumption of QLED screens can be higher than that of OLEDs.
QLED TV: Samsung Q60R
Although there are now several manufacturers of QLED TVs, Samsung is particularly well-known and popular. The manufacturer advertises that the QLED devices from Samsung can upscale the image to an impressive 8K with impressive computing power and artificial intelligence. However, the 8K-capable televisions are expensive to buy. If you are looking for a good QLED entry-level television, you should get this Samsung Q60R look at. The TV has QLED technology and should also convince gamers with a very short latency time. Ambient mode is designed to adapt the TV to the environment in a pleasant way. The Quantum Processor 4K is said to continuously optimize picture and sound with the help of artificial intelligence. The smart TV can also be controlled via voice command and is compatible with Alexa and the Google Assistant.
What is OLED?
The most important difference between a QLED and an OLED television is that OLED does not need a backlight, because it is the pixels themselves that light up. They consist of millions of tiny light-emitting diodes made of organic material – this explains the “O” in the name, it stands for the English word “organic”. An organic light-emitting diode is a luminous thin-film device made from organic semiconducting materials. The technology is used in TV screens because organic light-emitting diodes can be cheaply manufactured using thin-film technology. Unlike QLED screens, the black should be particularly intense because it is not brightened by the backlight. Colors should also appear more intense against the deep black background.
- Contrast: OLED screens are supposed to provide a high-contrast image, which is due to the rich black tones. This is due to the self-illuminating OLEDs and the missing backlight.
- Reaction time: OLED TVs are said to have a faster response time than QLED TVs. This means the diodes take less time to turn on or off. Therefore, a fast response time ensures that the image appears sharper.
- viewing angle: The image should be easy to see from almost every corner of the room, as the light is emitted directly from the diodes instead of being blocked by a backlight like with QLED or LED.
- Power consumption: Because there is no backlight that needs to be on all the time, OLED TVs consume less energy than QLED screens.
OLED TV: LG OLED55CX9LA
LG has various OLED TVs that differ in terms of features and price. The model OLED55CX9LA is equipped with the powerful α9 Gen3 processor, which is said to automatically optimize picture, sound and brightness. In addition, the device has Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos as well as HDR technology, so that contrast and colors are to be dynamically adjusted. A 4K resolution should enable a sharp picture and the TV is equipped with Google Assistant and Alexa. Interesting for gamers: The OLED TV from LG has a response time of one millisecond. Both AMD Freesync and Nvidia’s G-Sync are on board the TV. Both technologies reduce distorted images when gaming.
Note: The article was first published in June 2020.
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