Which TV Display Type Is Better?

I’ve been reviewing home theater products for more than a decade, and I test all the latest TVs every year. Though there are a few types of displays to choose from, two options consistently rank among the best TVs you can buy: QLED and OLED. 

When comparing QLED versus OLED, both options have pros and cons. Top QLED TVs, like the TCL QM8K, often have an advantage in brightness and affordability, while OLED TVs, like the Samsung S90F, have an edge in black-level quality and viewing angles. There are also a few subsets of each display type with their own benefits. 

To help explain all the technical jargon and make it easier to decide whether a QLED or OLED is right for you, I’ve compared them head-to-head in a few categories. Here’s how the battle between QLED and OLED is shaping up. 

What is a QLED TV?

QLEDs are a type of LCD (liquid crystal display) TV that incorporates a color technology called quantum dots into their screens. Like other LCD TVs, these displays use LED (light-emitting diode) backlights to illuminate their picture since each pixel can’t emit light on its own. 

To get to the “QLED” branding, manufacturers simply married the “Q” from quantum dots with “LED.” But the “QLED” acronym is more of a marketing term than a truly distinct TV technology. In other words, when you buy a QLED TV, you’re really buying an LED-backlit LCD that has quantum dots. That said, quantum dots are a cool feature, and they make a difference when it comes to picture quality.

Quantum dots are nanocrystals that emit different colors when exposed to light. QLED TVs include a layer or filter of quantum dots, which enables a wider and brighter range of colors than you’d get on a display without this feature. QLED TVs are available from every major brand, including Samsung, Sony, TCL, Vizio, Hisense, Roku, and Amazon. LG also sells TVs that incorporate quantum dots, but it brands them as “QNED.”

QLED TVs may or may not include an additional feature called full-array local dimming. This feature enables a QLED to brighten or darken specific zones across its backlight to enhance its contrast and produce brighter highlights and deeper black levels. Some QLEDs even use Mini LEDs in their backlights rather than regular-sized LEDs, which allows them to have more dimming zones for more precise contrast control. QLED TVs with Mini LEDs are sometimes branded as “QD-Mini LED,” “Neo QLED,” or just “Mini LED.”

Entry-level QLEDs with local dimming start at around 16 to 32 zones, while midrange models often have a couple of hundred, and high-end options with Mini LED backlights can have over 1,000. But even with thousands of zones, local dimming on a QLED can’t produce pixel-level contrast control since there are over 8 million pixels in a 4K resolution display.

What is an OLED TV?

OLED TVs use “organic light-emitting diode” panels. Unlike QLED TVs, which are a type of LCD, OLED TVs rely on an entirely different technology. 

Whereas a QLED TV requires a backlight to illuminate its pixels, OLED TVs don’t need a backlight at all. Instead, each subpixel in an OLED panel can emit light. This enables perfect precision over contrast and black levels with the ability for each pixel to completely dim or brighten independently, something that QLEDs can’t achieve.

OLED TVs are available in the US from brands like LG, Sony, Samsung, and Panasonic. Although there are a few variations of OLED TV technology, they all provide the same general contrast and black-level capabilities. However, certain types of OLED panels can offer different color and brightness performance. 

The standard type of OLED is called WRGB OLED (also known as WOLED), and this is the type of panel you’ll find in most entry-level and midrange OLED TVs from LG and Sony. Compared to other OLED types, these panels tend to be the dimmest and can’t reach the same color volume as more advanced OLEDs.

To help improve brightness, LG and Panasonic sell some WRGB OLEDs with an additional feature called MLA (Micro Lens Array) technology. MLA allows a WRGB OLED to get much brighter, and it’s used in LG’s high-end G3 and G4 OLED TVs as well as the Panasonic Z95A.

This year, LG and Panasonic launched another OLED variation, which Panasonic calls Primary RGB Tandem OLED and LG calls four-stack OLED. This type of panel also enables a brighter image than a standard WRGB OLED, and it has the added benefit of providing a wider range of colors. The new LG G5 and Panasonic Z95B are the first OLEDs to use this tech.

Finally, there are also QD-OLED TVs to consider. The “QD” before OLED stands for quantum dots. Yep, that’s right, this type of OLED incorporates quantum dots just like QLED TVs do. By using quantum dots in their panels, QD-OLEDs can achieve a brighter image with a wider range of colors than a WRGB OLED. Samsung sells various QD-OLED models like the S90D 4K TV, S90F 4K TV, and S95F 4K TV, while Sony also uses the tech in its premium A95L 4K TV and Bravia 8 II.  

QLED vs. OLED: Contrast and black levels

Though some high-end QLEDs get close, OLED TVs are still the kings of contrast and black levels, no matter which model you buy.  

Thanks to their self-illuminating pixels, OLEDs can achieve an infinite contrast ratio while producing perfect black levels since their pixels can completely turn off. QLEDs, on the other hand, rely on a backlight, which can cause black levels to look elevated while veering more toward a gray or slightly blue appearance. This can give images an overall washed-out, milky, and flat look, especially when watching TV with the lights off. 

However, QLED models with local dimming can greatly reduce this issue, and several high-end options, like the Sony Bravia 9 and Hisense U9N, get remarkably close to producing OLED-like black levels. But even the best local dimming implementations still introduce side effects that OLED TVs don’t suffer from. 

Most notably, local dimming can cause an issue called “blooming.” This results in a halo-like effect around bright objects against dark backgrounds, like burning candles, since even top QLEDs simply don’t have enough zones to dim every pixel surrounding these objects precisely. 

Blooming is usually hard to see when watching TV with the lights on, but it can be distracting when watching certain scenes in a dark room. Likewise, blooming becomes more noticeable when you sit off to the side of a QLED. 

Though manufacturers continue to improve local dimming, for now, OLEDs still have a clear edge in contrast and black levels, and these picture quality attributes have the most dramatic impact on overall image performance. 

QLED vs. OLED: Brightness

For a long time, top QLED TVs were the undisputed champs of brightness, but the gap between a high-end QLED and a high-end OLED has narrowed in the last few years. The most expensive QLEDs are still brighter than even the most advanced OLEDs, but high-end OLED TVs are no longer as dim as they once were.

When evaluating brightness on a TV, the industry uses a unit of measurement called a “nit.” The more nits a TV can output, the brighter its image appears. Entry-level QLED TVs can hit about 250 to 400 nits of brightness, while midrange models offer around 600 to 1,800 nits, and high-end QLEDs can achieve 2,000 to over 4,000 nits. 

On the other hand, entry-level OLED models can produce 500 to 700 nits, midrange models can produce 800 to 1,400 nits, and the very best OLED TVs available right now can produce around 1,500 to 2,400 nits. While 2,400 nits is impressive, it’s still dimmer than the brightest QLED.

High brightness is most useful when watching TV in a room that lets in a lot of light, since pumping up the brightness can help overcome glare and reflections. Likewise, high brightness allows a TV to reproduce high-dynamic-range movies and TV shows accurately with the full intensity that filmmakers intended, enabling highlights to really shine.

Most HDR content is graded for a max of 1,000 nits, so ideally, you want a TV that can get as close to that peak as possible. Some movies are graded for an even brighter peak of 4,000 nits or higher, which is where top QLEDs have an advantage over OLEDs. For more info about high dynamic range formats and display technology, check out our HDR TV guide. 

Ultimately, most OLED TVs can still get bright enough for an average room, and their pixel-level contrast helps them deliver exceptional HDR performance even if some especially bright elements (like an explosion) look a little dimmer than they would on a QLED. But if you want the absolute brightest image you can get, a high-end QLED TV still yields the best results. 

QLED vs. OLED: Color performance

Regarding color, OLED and QLED TVs offer very similar performance. That said, some high-end QLEDs have a slight edge over a typical OLED.

Thanks to quantum dot technology, the best QLED TVs can provide a wide spectrum of colors, along with high color volume, which enables those colors to look very bright when called for. Meanwhile, all OLED TVs, even those without quantum dots, can also achieve a wide spectrum of colors, but color volume isn’t as high on a WOLED as it is on a top QLED. 

Ultimately, this means that some extremely bright colors may look dimmer and less saturated than they’re supposed to on an OLED, while they’ll get closer to their intended vibrancy on a top QLED TV.

That said, QD-OLED TVs, which also use quantum dots, can offer higher color volume than a regular OLED, and in some cases, they can match or even exceed the color volume offered by premium QLED TVs.

QLED vs. OLED: Viewing angles

All OLED TVs offer better viewing angles than even the best QLED models. This means you can sit off to the side of an OLED display without seeing any major loss in color, contrast, or overall picture quality. Some OLEDs are susceptible to small shifts in color tint from an angle, but the effect is nowhere near as distracting as it is on a typical QLED.

Though some QLEDs are better than others, the majority suffer from poor viewing angles. This is especially true on entry-level and midrange models from budget-friendly brands like TCL and Hisense. While image quality looks great on these TVs when sitting in a centered position, colors fade, and black levels distort if you move off to the side. 

Some LG and Samsung QLED TVs, like the QN90D, are much better at handling off-axis viewing than cheaper options. But even those models are inferior to the wider viewing angles of an OLED TV. If you want the same picture quality no matter where you or your guests sit in your room, an OLED TV is the display type to go with.  

QLED vs. OLED: Burn-in

Burn-in is an issue that can occur on some displays when a static image is left on the screen for an extended period of time. When burn-in happens, a faint outline of the static image gets stuck on the display. 

Though QLED TVs are not 100% protected from this problem, cases of burn-in on a QLED are so uncommon that they’re not considered to be at risk. The same can’t be said about an OLED TV. Burn-in can occur on an OLED in extreme cases if you don’t take the proper precautions.

For instance, if you frequently watch the same cable network with a big static logo at the bottom of the screen without ever changing the channel, you could eventually encounter burn-in. But while viewers should be mindful of this, all OLED TVs have built-in features designed to reduce the risk of burn-in, including pixel refreshers, pixel shift modes, and logo dimmers. 

I’ve had an LG CX OLED TV in my own home theater setup for more than three years. I use it to watch cable TV, sports, and movies, as well as play video games (with lots of static elements), and the screen shows no signs of burn-in.

QLED TVs technically have the advantage here since burn-in isn’t something owners ever need to worry about. But I don’t think people with regular viewing habits should consider burn-in to be a dealbreaker when deciding whether to buy an OLED.

QLED vs OLED: Price

Compared to OLED TVs, QLEDs are available across a wider range of budgets, with more affordable entry-level and midrange options. For that reason, most of my best budget TV picks are QLED displays.

You can find budget-friendly 65-inch QLED TVs, like the TCL QM6K, for under $600 and midrange models for around $650 to $1,000. Meanwhile, the cheapest 65-inch OLED TVs start at around $1,100, and midrange options start at around $1,300 when on sale. Once you jump up to larger screen sizes, the price difference between QLED and OLED models gets even more dramatic.  

However, it’s important to note that image quality varies much more across different QLED models depending on which budget class you buy, while the difference between an entry-level OLED and a premium OLED’s picture performance is far less substantial. 

The bottom line

QLED and OLED TVs each have pros and cons, with OLEDs having an edge in contrast and viewing angles, and top QLEDs having an edge in brightness. Ultimately, which is right for your needs really comes down to what you prioritize, how much you want to spend, and what kind of room you plan to put your TV in.

If you want the best 4K TV for high-end picture quality, OLED models are my top recommendation. An OLED’s superior black-level performance and infinite contrast ratio offer a more noticeable benefit than any of a QLED’s unique strengths, especially if you like to watch movies with the lights off. However, top QLED TVs can be better suited for bright rooms, and you can find a larger assortment of affordable midrange models.  

Consider an OLED TV if …

You want the best movie-watching experience in a dark roomYou want an infinite contrast ratio with perfect black levelsYou want wide viewing angles so you get great picture quality, no matter where you sitYou’re willing to spend top dollar, especially at larger screen sizes

Consider a QLED TV if …

You want an extra-bright display to combat glare in a well-lit roomYou want the brightest colors and most intense HDR highlightsYou want lots of budget-friendly options, albeit with downgraded performanceYou don’t want to ever think twice about burn-in