TechTvsShould you buy an OLED TV? Here I look at the pros and consOLED TVs are the best TVs you can get, but other technologies come awfully close for less cashWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

TechTvsShould you buy an OLED TV? Here I look at the pros and consOLED TVs are the best TVs you can get, but other technologies come awfully close for less cashWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

OLED TVs are the best TVs you can get, but other technologies come awfully close for less cash

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: LG)

LG G2 OLED TV mounted on living room wall with family watching

(Image credit: LG)

Should you buy one of thebest OLED TVs? The short answer is yes, because they’re brilliant. The longer answer is that it depends on what you want and how much you want to spend, because while OLED TV is thebest TVtech around it’s also often the most expensive – and rival technologies can come very close in picture quality for considerably less money. In fact, our pick of the best TV for most people isn’t OLED; it’s a rival technology called Neo-QLED. Let’s explain.

What’s the difference between OLED, QLED, Neo-QLED, Mini-LED and LED?

In a word, light. Every display is made of millions of pixels, the little dots that make up the picture, but the way they are lit is different in different kinds of display. In an OLED, each pixel is its own light source. In all other LED displays the pixels are lit from behind or from the sides.

That makes a very big difference because it’s much harder to deliver pure blacks with a back- or side-lit screen: you get what’s called “light bleed” when light leaks from one section of the display into the bits you want to stay dark. Various manufacturers have come up with ever more clever ways to mitigate this, but OLED still delivers better contrast and often much better brightness too.

(Image credit: Samsung)

Samsung S95B OLED TV on multicolor background

(Image credit: Samsung)

Are OLED TVs expensive?

Yes, but they’re considerably less so than before: you can now find OLED TVs among thebest TVs under £1,000. As the technology has matured, manufacturers have found ways to make them more cheaply; that in turn means lower prices for us.

The other thing that’s changed is size. The first OLEDs had to be massive, because firms couldn’t make small panels efficiently enough without costing ridiculous sums of money. Now, though, you can get OLED displays among thebest 40, 42 and 43-inch TVsso you no longer need an enormous house to fit your TV into.

What alternatives should I consider?

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