Last year was a mixed bag for Mini LED TVs. Despite companies making a lot of noise about 2024 being the year the tech dethroned OLED at the top end of the market, the sets we reviewed failed to deliver the goods.
That’s why if you look at our Hisense U8N, Samsung QN95D and Sony Bravia 9 reviews you will see a trio of four-star ratings next to them and a common theme in the verdict section saying something along the lines of “at this price OLEDs perform better”.
That’s also why in our best TV guide you’ll see that we tend to recommend OLED at the top end of the market and Mini LED in the mid-range. And, why I wrote a rather scathing end of year summary reporting 2024’s Mini LED TV experiment failed – all hail OLED.
However, to my surprise, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2025) in Las Vegas this week, it was Mini LED not OLED sets that were catching my eye most. Why, you ask?
Because the Mini LED sets being unveiled all seem to focus on fixing issues with the technology rather than just chasing brightness improvements, the way this year’s OLEDs are. TCL and Hisense’s latest flagship Mini LED sets are a good example of this.
Starting with TCL’s new QM6K. While the marketing material does make a big deal about the TV going “53 per cent brighter” than its predecessor, it also features clever new Micro OD technology. Combined with a High Vertical Alignment (HVA) panel, the technology aims to fix one of Mini LED’s recurring issues: blooming.
Also known as the “halo effect” this is an issue we regularly experience when testing Mini LED TVs, where a distracting glow appears around bright objects displayed over dark backgrounds. Trust me when I say it can ruin movie immersion fairly easily once you notice it.
The Micro OD part aims to fix this by reducing the optical distance between the backlight and diffuser plate. Combined with the HVA panel, this lets the TV offer a 7000:1 contrast ratio, according to TCL.
If it works, and the TCL set offers better light control, this could radically improve picture performance in a more holistic fashion than just upping its maximum brightness.
Next up is the Hisense TriChroma LED TV, which the company claims is the first set ever to include RGB Local Dimming Display Technology.
This combines (atypical of Mini LED) Local Dimming technology that uses independent red, green, and blue LEDs to generate pure colours “directly at the source”. By comparison, most normal Local Dimming set-ups use white or blue highlights that are filtered through a quantum-dot filter to create colours.
This should help fix the same issue TCL wants to, with Hisense claiming it will “virtually eliminate blooming while maintaining precise control over every pixel”.
While we haven’t tested either solution, the fact the companies are making proper efforts to fix a known issue is very welcome. This is especially true at CES 2025 as I remain somewhat unconvinced by OLED TV makers’ ongoing obsession with nits at CES 2025.
The only big claims we have seen from both LG and Samsung for OLED focus on brightness. In LG’s case the new “Brightness Booster Ultimate” hardware, which is set to make its debut on the LG G5, is meant to let the set go “40 per cent” brighter than the LG G4. Meanwhile Samsung claims the QD-OLED panel on its new Samsung S95F is “30 per cent brighter” than last year’s model.
Yes, those are impressive figures, and this could lead to picture quality improvements if implemented well, but it’s not really fixing a problem the way this year’s Mini LED solutions are; having tested all of last year’s flagship OLEDs, I can confirm they all went plenty bright.
This is why for me, what’s happening with Mini LED TVs at CES 2025 is far more interesting.
MORE:
We rate the best Mini LED TVs
Our picks of the best OLED TVs
Check out our best gaming TV guide
