Display Lab
Every Display Explained,
Without the Marketing BS
QLED, QNED, Neo QLED, Mini-LED, OLED, MicroLED. Most of those names just sell a TV. Only a couple of them actually tell you how the screen works.
Underneath the badges there are really only two ideas: a screen either shines light through a filter, or lights up every pixel on its own. Display Lab goes through them one at a time with visuals you can poke at, so you can see what each one fixes, where it cheats, and the wall it eventually hits.
Pick any one from the list above, or keep scrolling to read them in order. ↓
On
Perfect
Every screen does one of two things. A backlit panel (left) shines one sheet of light and the pixels act as shutters, so even “black” stays faintly lit. A self-emissive panel (right) makes light in each pixel, so off means truly black.
The Big Idea
Two ways to make a picture. Everything else is a variation.
Almost every screen you can buy is one of these two. The names on the box, QLED, Neo QLED, QNED, are just versions of them.
Backlit
A single sheet of light sits behind the whole panel, and each pixel works like a tiny shutter, blocking the light it doesn't need. Problem is, shutters leak, so black is really just dimmed light. Everything from LCD to LED to Mini-LED to QLED is one more attempt to tame that leak.
Self-Emissive
Here every pixel makes its own light, so off means actually black, with the kind of contrast a backlight can never touch and instant response. The trade is peak brightness and aging, since light that makes itself also wears out. CRT started here. OLED, QD-OLED, MicroLED and QDEL are all modern takes on the same idea.
See It In Cross-Section
Cut a screen in half and flip the power.
Same picture, two completely different ways of building it. Turn the power off and watch what happens to black: the backlit stack keeps glowing, the self-emissive stack just stops.
Lineage 01
Backlit: pushing a single sheet of light to its limit
Each step fixes the last one's flaw and adds a brand new one, until LCD just runs out of room.
Backlit / LCD lineage
Lineage 02
Self-Emissive: letting every pixel make its own light
The only real way past the backlight. It's also where displays began.