If you've ever been in the market for a new TV, you've probably felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of different types and names, making it hard to even know what to look for. With alphabet soup of features like HDR, 120Hz, and HDMI 2.1, it can be hard to know what's new, important, or better than what you're used to. TVs come with so many of these features that it's hard to tell the difference.
Notably, unlike other TV tech terms, QLED and OLED are fundamentally different, despite having only one letter difference.
For the past few years, Samsung has been branding its TVs as "QLED". Its 2024 QLED lineup includes Neo QLED models in 4K and 8K resolutions, The Frame Art TV, and serif, portrait-rotating TVs. But Samsung isn't alone in trying to do so - TCL also makes QLED TVs, including the excellent QM8, and Amazon has its own Fire TV Omni QLED TV.
On the other side of the spectrum are OLED TVs. For the past few years, LG has dominated the OLED market, and its lineup of OLED TVs in 2024 is broader than ever. Sony and Sharp also sell OLED TVs in the US.
So what's the difference between OLED and QLED? Simply put, OLED will always beat QLED when it comes to picture quality. But there's more to the comparison than just picture quality, so let's take a closer look!
QLED vs OLED
Unlike other TV tech terms, QLED and OLED are only one letter apart, but they're fundamentally different. We'll explain which is better with this comparison.
QLED
Quantum dot Light-Emitting Diode
- A variation of LED LCDs, adding quantum dot film to an LCD "sandwich"
- Like LCD, it is "transmissive" in its current form and relies on LED backlighting
OLED
Organic Light-Emitting Diode
- A fundamentally different technology than LCD, the main type of TV
- "Emissive" where the pixels emit their own light
A QLED TV is just an LCD TV with quantum dots. The main point is that QLEDs are closer to regular old LCDs than OLEDs, which most experts consider to be a distinctly different kind of TV, just like plasma before it.
Quantum dot
Quantum dots are microscopic molecules that emit different colors of light when they hit light. In a QLED TV, the dots are embedded in a film, and the light that hits the dots is provided by an LED backlight. This light then travels through a few different layers inside the TV, including a liquid crystal or LCD layer, to create the picture. The light from the LED source is called "transmissive" because it travels through the layers to the surface of the screen.
If you look at the layer "sandwich" of an LCD TV, the LED backlight shines through the quantum dot layer into the LCD panel itself.
Samsung has been using quantum dots to augment LCD TVs since 2015 and introduced QLED TV branding in 2017. Samsung says that these quantum dots have evolved over time, citing improvements in color and light output as examples. However, the improvement due to better quantum dots is much less than the improvement due to other image quality factors.
Other TV manufacturers, including Vizio and Hisense, also use quantum dots in their LCD TVs, but they don't call these sets QLED TVs.
OLED TVs are not LCD TVs
LCDs are the dominant technology for flat panel TVs and have been around for a long time. They are cheaper than OLEDs, especially in larger sizes, and can be manufactured by numerous panel manufacturers.
OLEDs are different in that they don't use an LED backlight to generate light. Instead, light is generated by millions of individual OLED sub-pixels. The pixels themselves-the tiny dots that make up the image-emit light, which is why they're called "light-emitting" display technology. This difference leads to all sorts of picture quality effects.
OLED TVs don't require LED backlighting, so in addition to the image quality benefits, they can be incredibly thin.
Image Quality Comparison - OLED Wins
Pricing and performance
Most QLED series, from the most expensive to the least expensive, perform much better than their cheaper counterparts. This is mainly because the improved picture quality of QLED TVs has little to do with quantum dot technology. Instead, mini-LED backlighting, better full-array local dimming, brighter highlights, and improved viewing angles are the main reasons why QLED TVs with these features outperform those without.
Meanwhile, all OLED TVs have very similar picture quality, and they all scored perfect scores for picture quality in our tests.
Contrast
OLED offers better contrast and black levels
One of the most important factors in picture quality is black levels, and the light-emitting nature of OLED TVs allows unused pixels to be completely turned off, providing virtually unlimited contrast. QLED/LCD TVs, on the other hand, even the best models with the best full-array local dimming, let some light through, resulting in washed-out, grayish black levels and blooming around bright spots.
Brightness
The brightest QLED and LCD TVs can be brighter than any OLED model, which is especially advantageous in bright rooms and with HDR content. However, OLED TVs are also bright enough for most rooms, and their superior contrast can still provide a better overall HDR image than QLED/LCD TVs.
Uniformity and viewing angle
For LCD-based displays, different areas of the screen may always appear brighter, and the backlight structure is visible on some content. Even the best LCDs can lose brightness, lose contrast, and change color when viewed from a seat other than in front of the screen. OLED TVs have a nearly perfectly uniform screen, maintaining fidelity at all but the most extreme angles.
Resolution, color, video processing, and other quality factors
Most QLED and OLED TVs have the same resolution, 4K, and both technologies can also achieve 8K resolution. Neither technology has a significant inherent advantage in color or video processing, but both can offer improved color
Price and size - QLED wins
OLED TVs - 42", 48", 55", 65", 77", 83", 88", 97"
OLED TVs currently available on the market come in six sizes. New for 2022 are the 42-inch and 97-inch sizes. The largest OLED TV is the 97-inch G2 model.
qled tv - 32", 43", 50", 55", 58" , 65", 75", 82", 85", 98"
QLED TVs, on the other hand, can be made in a wide range of sizes because they are LCD. LCD TVs that aren't QLED can be smaller.
One of the big advantages that QLED and LCD have over OLED is the cost of major sizes over 65 inches. Large televisions are one of the fastest growing segments of the market and show no signs of slowing down. However, a 77-inch OLED TV costs more than $$2,200, far more than most 75-inch QLED TVs, and the price difference is even more extreme at larger sizes.
OLED burn-in issues
OLED TVs - 42", 48", 55", 65", 77", 83", 88", 97"
Burn-in occurs when a part of the screen is constantly exposed - for example, a channel logo, news ticker, or scoreboard is fixed on the TV and remains in the background like a ghost even when other images are displayed on the screen. All OLED screens are subject to burn-in, and are more vulnerable than LCD displays and QLEDs.
Burn-in typically occurs when a single static image element, such as a channel logo, is repeated and stays on the screen for a long period of time. For example, this can be a problem if you watch Fox News, ESPN, and MSNBC for hours on end every day and don't watch enough other programs. However, if you vary what you see, you're unlikely to experience burn-in.
So the winner?
If you compare OLED TVs to QLED TVs, OLED wins every time, at least for now.
In addition to the US brands mentioned above, Panasonic, Philips, Grundig, and others sell OLED TVs in Europe. All OLED TVs in the world use panels manufactured by LG or Samsung.
Until 2022, LG was the only company making OLED panels, but that year Samsung started making its own panels using QD-OLED technology. Like QLED TVs, Samsung promises improved color and brightness over traditional OLED TVs because it uses quantum dots, and in our testing, the Samsung S95C QD-OLED's colors were very good.
However, one of the things that makes the LG G3 better is that it uses a new OLED panel technology called Micro Lens Array (MLA) to improve brightness, and we expect OLED technology to continue to improve over the next few years.
But QLEDs have a bright future. Samsung is looking beyond QD-OLED TVs to direct view quantum dots, a technology that eliminates the liquid crystal layer and uses the quantum dots themselves as the light source. Emissive QLED TVs have the potential to achieve absolute black levels and "infinite" contrast like OLEDs, while being more energy efficient and possibly producing better colors. This is a very exciting development, but it will be a few years before light-emitting QLED TVs hit the market.
There are also micro-LEDs. This is another light-emitting technology, led by Samsung but also sold by LG, that is currently reserved for the ultra-wealthy, with the largest examples costing over $1 million. As the name suggests, this technology uses millions of very small LEDs as pixels. MicroLEDs can deliver the same perfect black levels as OLEDs without the risk of burn-in. They offer higher brightness, a wider color gamut, and none of the viewing angle and uniformity issues of LCDs than any other current display technology. They're also very large. We don't use quantum dots yet, but there's no telling what will happen when they hit the market.