LG QNED TVs Put 30,000 Mini LEDs Behind An LCD Screen

You might think that OLED is practically the endgame of displays and you might be mostly correct. But while OLEDs often offer the best features, those also come at a higher price than LCD-based panels. LCDs might not all be that bad, especially with some recent innovations in the market. At least that's what LG is implying with its newest TV series with a new marketing buzzword. Called LG QNED, perhaps to contrast with rival Samsung's QLED, the new Mini LED TVs are boasting the highest number of backlighting LEDs added to LG's other TV buzzwords.

Terms like QNED, QLED, and even Mini LED are all too easy to mistake for OLED but, in truth, they are really still LCD displays. The difference from plain LCDs is that these use LEDs, specifically Mini LEDs, to provide the necessary backlight for the LCDs. This allows for better contrast and brightness controls, especially when you have more dimming zones available.

In the case of the new LG QNED Mini LED TVs, that amounts to 30,000 Mini LEDs and 2,500 dimming zones, at least for the high-end 86-inch 8K flagship. On paper, LG promises an extremely high contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1. It also promises the staples of high-end TVs these days, especially with its new Quantum NanoCell tech, a combination of Quantum dots and its NanoCell LCD technologies.

Despite all the marketing hype, LG doesn't miss the chance to make it clear that it considers OLEDs at still the pinnacle of its offerings. It's also still more expensive and this new QNED Mini LED TV is designed to promise the best LCD technology at more accessible (read: cheaper) prices.

The LG QNED Mini LED TV will be showcased at the first-ever virtual CES 2021 event on January 11. Other than the 86-inch model, the company has remained mum on any other size options, much less when the TVs will launch and how much this new series will cost you.