This technology is less common than IPS panels because it suffers from poor response times and narrow viewing angles. It’s also usually a bit more expensive than IPS panels, so be prepared to spend more if contrast is important to you.
Mini LED: Small-scale local dimming
The backlight of most LCD displays is typically lit across the entire screen, but TVs have found a way to improve contrast by introducing local dimming. The only problem is that creating an array of individually controllable backlights makes it difficult to scale down to smaller screens.
Enter mini LED. Mini LED is a standard LED backlight (approximately 200 micron) have enabled display manufacturers to fit more into less space, enabling thousands of local dimming zones in laptop and tablet displays. Strictly speaking, mini-LED is a backlighting technology that can be paired with many different types of LCD panels, but it improves contrast and black levels no matter what panel it’s used in. There’s also a technology called “micro-LED” where pixels act as their own backlight, but for now it’s limited to very large (and very expensive) displays.
OLED: The Holy Grail of Black Levels
One of the few alternatives to LCD is Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED). These panels use pixels that emit their own light, so no backlighting is required. Because each pixel can emit its own light, there is no extra light bleeding into dark areas of the image. OLED panels have virtually infinite black levels, because deactivated pixels are functionally the same as when the display is turned off.
OLED panels are very good at producing high-contrast images and accurate color reproduction because they don’t have a backlight. However, unlike LCD displays, they are prone to burn-in. Also, there aren’t many companies that manufacture these panels. In fact, the vast majority of OLED panels are One manufacturer: LG.
This makes OLED panels more expensive than typical LCD displays, though they have become more affordable in recent years. Still, if you want the best possible image, you’re likely going to come across an OLED panel, which can be more expensive than a comparable LCD screen.
QD OLED and WOLED: Brighter OLEDs
Quantum dot OLED (QD-OLED) is Samsung’s relatively new entry into the display world. OLED emits its own light, but must use filters to produce the red, green, and blue wavelengths. A typical OLED uses a white subpixel to generate its light, boosting the brightness of each pixel.
Like other quantum dot displays, QD-OLED uses a blue OLED as a light source, which hits the quantum dots to produce the red and green light needed to produce a full-color image. This approach combines the benefits of OLED (no need for a separate backlight, high-contrast images) with those of quantum dots (less light lost through filters, more direct control over color accuracy).
Recent displays using QD-OLED are some of the best-looking panels WIRED has ever tested. The Samsung S95C (8/10, WIRED Recommended), for example, wowed WIRED Senior Editor Parker Hall with its perfect black levels, vibrant colors, and wide viewing angles.
WOLED is a similar technology that aims to boost brightness but also features a white OLED layer. It’s used in LG’s higher-end models like the new C4 (9/10, WIRED Recommended) and delivers peak brightness well over 1000 nits.
QD-OLED and WOLED panels are relatively new, so displays that use them are likely to be pricey for now, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find better image quality on a monitor that doesn’t use them.
