QLED vs. OLED (and QD-OLED): Which TV Tech Is Right for You?

That brings us to QLED TVs. Those sets are LCD TVs, with one defining difference: They use quantum dots to produce colors.

QLED TVs from companies such as Amazon, Hisense, LG, Panasonic, Roku, Samsung, Sony, and TCL use a blue LED light source plus a film embedded with tiny quantum dots, which are nano-sized crystals. The quantum-dot film is sandwiched between the other layers of the LCD panel, replacing the color filter in front of the LED backlight.

When those tiny crystals are hit with the blue light from the backlight, they glow, emitting very saturated primary colors, which vary based on the size and composition of the quantum dot material. The system renders very accurate colors, even at higher brightness levels where colors can start to look a bit washed out.

You should also be aware of two newer enhancements to LCD technology. One is a feature called local dimming, which divides a TV’s LED backlights into zones that can be dimmed or illuminated separately. That can help improve contrast and black levels.

It works best with TVs that have full-array backlights, meaning that there are LEDs across the entire back of the set. In contrast, many less expensive LCD TVs on the market are edge-lit sets, with LED backlights along the edges of the display. Those sets may still use local dimming, but it tends to be less effective and sometimes results in an effect called blooming, where you see halos of light around bright images shown against dark backgrounds.

Local dimming can work especially well in TVs that use Mini LEDs, the latest backlight advancement. Shrinking the size of the LEDs lets companies cram more of them into the backlight. Because the LEDs are so small, you can have many dimmable zones—say, 1,000 or more instead of the dozens typically found in even the best LCD sets until recent years. And they can be controlled more precisely to help improve contrast and black levels and reduce halos.

That has created a new set of TV acronyms because some companies have decided to give sets that use quantum dots and Mini LED backlights proprietary names. LG, for example, markets its models with those features as QNED TVs (though not all QNED sets have Mini LEDs). Samsung is calling them Neo QLED sets. Hisense uses the term ULED TVs, and in 2025, all its ULED TVs will have Mini LED backlights. Both Amazon (Omni series) and Roku Pro- and Plus-series now have Mini LED TVs, and all of TCL’s QM-series sets (QM6, QM7, and QM8) for 2025 have Mini LED backlights.

OLED TVs, described below, have some inherent advantages over LCD sets. However, the best LCD/LED TVs now rival OLEDs in terms of picture quality and HDR performance, which can help a TV present brighter, more vivid images with greater contrast and a wider array of colors, much closer to what we see in real life.

Until a few years ago, all OLED TVs from companies including LG, Sony, and Vizio used a flavor of the technology called WOLED. (That’s the rare TV acronym that hasn’t been used in advertising, by the way.) Those sets have a white OLED light source, plus color filters that produce the red, green, and blue of the color spectrum. You can see the panel structure of that type of TV in the image above.

Because color filters absorb some light, those sets add a white subpixel that bypasses the color filter to add extra brightness. The downside is that at the very high brightness levels required for some HDR content, that extra white subpixel can make colors look a bit washed out.

In the past, OLED TVs lacked the kind of peak brightness we see in the best LCD sets. However, they’ve been getting brighter, and last year we saw a few OLED TVs that could approach the best LCD peak brightness levels. LG’s G4-series sets, such as the LG OLED65G4SUB, and the Panasonic TV-65Z95AP used a new MLA (micro lens array) panel that made them among the brightest OLED TVs we’ve tested.

In 2025, both manufacturers dropped MLA and are instead using a new "four-stack" OLED technology, where the red and green layers are sandwiched between two blue layers. The companies say that separating the red, green, and blue elements enables TVs to produce brighter images with greater color purity. TVs using that new technology have done very well in our 2025 tests.

Just like QLED TVs, QD-OLED sets start with a blue light source and use quantum-dot material to produce red and green light. But because they are OLEDs, the light source is actually each individual pixel.

Because QD-OLED TVs don’t use color filters in front of the light source, they have the potential to reach higher peak brightness levels without losing any contrast.

In 2025, we’ve seen continued improvements that allow both WOLED sets and QD-OLED TVs to hit higher brightness levels and help boost HDR performance. Several TVs this year, including higher-end models from LG, Samsung, and Sony, offer higher peak brightness levels than last year’s sets, enabling them to deliver a very satisfying HDR experience.

One thing that was a bit confusing last year was that Samsung had both WOLED and QD-OLED models within the S90D-series sets. The 55-, 65-, and 77-inch models used QD-OLED panels, while the 42-, 48-, and 83-inch sets used WOLED. That’s continuing in 2025.

More broadly, the best TVs in any category these days can combine high peak brightness with impressive black levels, plus vibrant, accurate colors and bright screens. That’s true for both LCDs and OLEDs. If you’re shopping for a television, you have more top-flight choices than ever before.