Nearly every TV sold today is either LCD or OLED. LCD TVs, also called LED TVs, have been around since the early 2000s. The best ones feature technologies like quantum dots or local dimming to create a vibrant, 4K HDR image. Because they’ve been on sale for so long, LCD-based TV are often marketed with fancier-sounding names like QLED or mini-LED, but the core technology is LCD — which stands for Liquid Crystal Display.
The other TV tech, organic light-emitting diode, is newer to the mainstream market, although they’ve still been available for more than a decade. OLED panels are made by LG and Samsung, and are also called QD-OLED and WOLED depending on the specific version of the technology used.
How they work (the oversimplified edition)
The biggest difference between the two technologies is in how they work. Every TV’s picture is composed of millions of tiny “pixels,” or picture elements, that combine to create the image.
With OLED, each pixel provides its own illumination so there’s no separate backlight. With an LCD TV, all of the pixels are illuminated by a separate LED backlight. This can have a handful of LEDs in the case of smaller, inexpensive TVs, or hundreds and thousands of LEDs for larger, more expensive TVs. This difference in how they create light directly impacts their overall picture quality, some of which favor LCD, but most of which benefit OLED.
Read more: QLED vs. OLED: What’s the difference between these types of TV?
LCD panels themselves are made by a number of companies across Asia. All current OLED panels are built by either LG Display or Samsung Display, the display panel manufacturing divisions of those companies. Other companies will buy panels from those manufacturers, sometimes even between each other, but if you’re buying an OLED TV the image-producing panel is made by one of those companies.
OLED is consistently, year over year and test after test, the picture quality king, but LCD TVs usually cost less and can still provide excellent picture quality. A variety of new technologies, which we’ll discuss, help keep LCD from getting too far behind its newer tech competition.
So which one is better? Read on for their strengths and weaknesses. In general we’ll be comparing OLED to the best (read: most expensive) LCD has to offer, mainly because there’s no such thing as a cheap OLED TV (yet).
Light output (brightness)
Winner: LCD
Loser: OLED
Take this category with a grain of salt. Both TV types are very bright and can look good in even a sunny room, let alone more moderate indoor lighting situations or the dark rooms that make TV images look their best. When it comes down to it, no modern TV could ever be considered “dim.”
LCD gets the nod here specifically because the whole screen can be brighter, which is a function of its backlight. Generally, it’s mini-LED that offers the highest brightness. Both QD-OLED and LG’s new 4-stack OLED still offer impressive brightness though, so the difference here isn’t as big as it once was.
Black level
Winner: OLED
Loser: LCD
At the other side of light output is black level, or how dark the TV can get. OLED wins here because of its ability to turn off individual pixels completely. It can produce truly perfect black.
The better LCDs have local dimming, where parts of the screen can dim independently of others. This isn’t quite as good as per-pixel control because the black areas still aren’t absolutely black but it’s better than nothing. The best LCDs have full-array local dimming, which provides even finer control over the contrast of what’s onscreen — but even they can suffer from “blooming,” where a bright area spoils the black of an adjacent dark area. Most notably, mini-LED has significantly more LEDs than traditional LED LCDs, so they can look almost as good as OLED in some situations.
Check out this LED LCD backlights explainer and LED local dimming explained for more info.
Contrast ratio
Winner: OLED
Loser: LCD
Here’s where it comes together. Contrast ratio is the difference between the brightest and the darkest a TV can be. OLED is the winner here because it can get extremely bright, plus it can produce absolute black with no blooming. It has the best contrast ratio of any modern display.
Contrast ratio is the most important aspect of picture quality. A high contrast-ratio display will look more realistic than one with a lower contrast ratio. There’s a far greater difference between the best LCD and the worst, with mini-LED once again offering the best performance overall for that tech. The “worst” OLED will still look better than almost all LCDs, however.
For more info, check out the basics of contrast ratio and why it’s important to understand contrast ratio.
Resolution
Winner: Tie
This one’s easy. Both OLED and LCD are widely available in UltraHD, aka 4K, form, and there are 8K versions of both if you’re particularly well-heeled.
There are also small, inexpensive 1080p and even 720p resolution LCDs. There are no 1080p or lower resolution OLEDs currently on the market.
Refresh rate and motion blur
Winner: Tie
Refresh rate is important in reducing motion blur, or the blurring of anything on screen that moves (including the whole image if the camera pans). Sadly, the current version of OLED has motion blur, just like LCD. OLEDs, and mid- and high-end LCDs, have a 120Hz refresh rate. Cheaper LCDs are 60Hz. Keep in mind, most companies use numbers that are higher than their “true” refresh rate.
OLEDs and many LCD use black-frame insertion, which is a way to improve motion resolution without resorting to the (usually) dreaded Soap Opera Effect.
Don’t stand this close when checking out a TV.
Viewing angle
Winner: OLED
Loser: LCD
One of the main downsides of LCD TVs is a change in picture quality if you sit away from dead center (as in, off to the sides). How much this matters to you certainly depends on your seating arrangement but also on how much you love your loved ones.
A few LCDs use in-plane switching panels, which have better off-axis picture quality than other kinds of LCDs but don’t look as good as other LCDs straight on (primarily because of a lower contrast ratio).
OLED doesn’t have the off-axis issue LCDs have; its image looks basically the same, even from extreme angles. So if you have a wide seating area, OLED is the better option.
High Dynamic Range (HDR)
Winner: OLED (with caveats)
Watching High Dynamic Range content lets your TV really expand its potential. Sort of like driving on the highway vs a two-lane dirt road. It lets your TV produce more colorful bright highlights and typically a wider color gamut.
Nearly all current TVs are HDR compatible, but that’s not the entire story. Just because a TV claims HDR compatibility doesn’t mean it can accurately display HDR content. All OLED TVs have the dynamic range to take advantage of HDR, but lower-priced LCDs, especially those without local-dimming backlights, do not. So if you want to see HDR content in all its dynamic, vibrant beauty, go for OLED or an LCD with local dimming, for example mini-LED.
In our tests comparing the best new OLED and LCD TVs with HDR games and movies, OLED usually looks better. Its superior contrast and lack of blooming win the day despite LCD’s brightness advantage. In other words, LCD TVs can get brighter, especially in full-screen bright scenes and HDR highlights, but none of them can control that illumination as precisely as an OLED TV.
It’s also worth learning about the differences between HDR for photography and HDR for TVs.
The smallest triangle (circles at corners) is what your current HDTV can do. The next largest (squares) is P3 color. The largest (triangle edges) is Rec 2020.
Expanded Color Gamut
Winner: Tie
Wide Color Gamut, or WCG, is related to HDR, although you can technically have one without the other. It’s an expansion of the colors possible on “standard” TVs. Think richer, deeper and more vibrant colors.
Most mid- and high-end LCDs and all new OLED models are capable of WCG. In some models of both that capability is caused by the use of quantum dots.
Read more about how TVs make color, how they will make color and how Wide Color Gamut works.
Uniformity
Winner: OLED
Loser: LCD
Uniformity refers to the consistency of brightness across the screen. Many inexpensive LCDs are pretty terrible with this, “leaking” light from their edges. This can be distracting, especially during darker movies. On mid- and higher-end models this is usually less of an issue.
Energy consumption
Winner: Basically a tie
OLED’s energy consumption is directly related to screen brightness. The brighter the screen, the more power it draws. It even varies with content. A dark movie will require less power than a hockey game or ski competition.
The energy consumption of LCD varies depending on the backlight setting. The lower the backlight, the lower the power consumption. A basic LED LCD with its backlight set low will draw less power than OLED.
Overall, though, all new TVs are fairly energy efficient, and even the least energy efficient modern TV would only cost you a few dollars more per year to use. That said, larger, brighter TVs will use a lot more energy than smaller, dimmer ones.
Lifespan
Winner: Tie (sort of)
LG has said their OLED TVs have a lifespan of 100,000 hours to half brightness, a figure that’s similar to LED LCDs. Generally speaking, all modern TVs are quite reliable and should last many years.
Does that mean your new LCD or OLED will last for several decades like your parent’s last CRT (like the one pictured). Probably not, but then, why would you want it to? A 42-inch flat panel cost $14,000 in the late 90’s, and now a 55-inch TV with more than 16x the resolution and a million times better contrast ratio costs $250. Which is to say, by the time you’ll want/need to replace it, there will be something even better than what’s available now, for less money.
Because they are quite reliable on the whole, you won’t have to replace them anytime soon.
Burn-in
Winner: LCD
Loser: OLED
All TVs can “burn in” or develop what’s called “image persistence,” where the ghost of an image remains onscreen. It’s really hard to do this with most LCDs. It’s easier with OLED, so LCD wins this category.
Even with OLED TVs, however, most people don’t have to worry about burn-in. Some edge-lit LED LCD, typically cheaper models, can have their own version of burn in where the LEDs age poorly and the plastic layers that help create the image warp and discolor. Which is to say, both technologies have issues but how those issues manifest is different.
If you want a REALLY big TV, neither OLED nor LCD will do.
Screen size
Winner: LCD
Loser: OLED
OLED TVs are available in sizes from 48 to 97 inches but LCD TVs come in smaller and even larger sizes than that — with many more choices in between — so LCD wins. At the high end of the size scale, however, the biggest “TVs” don’t use either technology.
The easiest, and cheapest, way to get a truly massive image in your home is with a projector. For about $1,000 you can get an excellent 100-inch-plus image.
If you want something even brighter, and don’t mind spending a literal fortune to get it, Samsung, Sony, LG and some other companies sell direct-view LED displays. In most cases these are microLED.
Price
Winner: LCD
Loser: OLED
You can get 4K resolution, 50-inch LCDs for less than $200. It’s going to be a long time before OLEDs are that price, but they have come down considerably.
So if your goal is to get the cheapest TV possible, that’s LCD. If you want something with great picture quality, the prices are fairly comparable. The most expensive OLED TVs are more expensive than the best similarly sized LCD TVs, but that difference shrinks every year.
And the picture-quality winner is … OLED
LCD dominates the market because it’s cheap to manufacture and delivers good enough picture quality for just about everybody. But according to reviews at CNET and elsewhere, OLED wins for overall picture quality, largely because of the incredible contrast ratio. The price difference isn’t as severe as it used to be, and in the mid- to high-end of the market, there are a lot of options.
LCDs continue to improve, though, and many models offer excellent picture quality for far less money than OLED, especially in larger sizes.
Which is to say, there are a lot of great TVs out there.
In addition to covering cameras and display tech, Geoff does photo essays about cool museums and other stuff, including nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers and 10,000-mile road trips.
Also, check out Budget Travel for Dummies, his travel book and his bestselling sci-fi novel about city-size submarines. You can follow him on Instagram and YouTube.
