Much like the old riddle, “I am tall when I am young, and short when I am old, what am I?” TCL’s backlight technology answers the riddle, “I’m better smaller than when bigger, and being small helps me make big TVs better, what am I?”
The answer is TCL’s implementation of our innovative Mini LED TV technology (the other answer is “a candle” 😉).
When TCL launched the world’s first Mini LED TV back in 2019, we knew we were on to something.
The industry took notice because at the time, it was the highest contrast ratio TV that RTINGS had ever tested. Since that launch, all the other TV manufacturers have followed our lead started using Mini LED technology to deliver a better viewing experience for our customers.
Let’s take a look at what Mini LED is, what it isn’t, and why not all Mini LED TVs are created equal.
Brains & Brawn for Better Picture
Mini LEDs are—of course—much smaller than traditional LEDs. The advantage to this is that with much smaller LEDs, you can put more of them in the TV. The benefit is that when done properly, more LEDs can deliver a more uniform picture, a brighter picture, and give you more precise control of the light coming out.
The backlight of an LED TV, after all, is the “horsepower” that drives the TV. All that light shines from the back of the TV through to the front, giving you your picture. Therefore, controlling that light is paramount to a great picture. What good is all that light if a dark, eerie scene loses all its impact because light is shining through where it shouldn’t?
Enter TCL’s AIPQ Processors and our local dimming algorithms.
True Mini LED TV
Employing reductio ad absurdum, if you put a single Mini LED in a TV, it would be dim, with no local dimming, but it could still be called “Mini LED”.
So, how do determine where Mini LED delivers the benefit it promises? At TCL, we want to let customers know that our Mini LED TVs have what it takes to deliver on the promise of great performance: for 2024 we have our QD-Mini LED in three levels of our high-performance TVs.
When you see QD-Mini LED on our QM7, QM8 and 115” TVs, we want folks to know that this guarantees an amazing viewing experience with our combination of High-Zone Local Dimming and High Brightness in the backlight.
Starting with our QM7, we are bringing an incredible level of performance to a much more achievable level. Despite the pricing (a byproduct of being vertically integrated, basically meaning “we make our own stuff”), you get performance that would have surpassed “flagship TVs” from just a few short years ago. You get upwards of 1,500+ local dimming zones (compare that to maybe a hundred to a couple hundred zones in lesser so-called “Mini LED TVs”) to precisely deliver the brightness, contrast and shadow detail you need for that amazing viewing experience. Seen in screen sizes from 55” up to a wall-devouring 98”, and add to that the up to 2,400 nits of peak brightness delivered by thousands of our micrometer class Mini LEDs, and you get a picture that’s second to none!
Well, maybe second to one or two…
Our QM8 series builds on our QD-Mini LED technology, offering more, and more densely packed, Mini LEDs. The benefit? Even higher peak brightness and even more zones!
It wasn’t long ago that our class-disrupting and award-winning 6-Series became the darling of the enthusiast community. It did this with a hundred or so zones of local dimming, in what was then our flagship TV. Now our flagship series delivers so much more. With up to 5,000+ zones of local dimming, you will see incredibly precise light control from the most stunning specular highlights, while also giving you stunning shadow detail, and inky backs when you need it.
Great engineering of our QD-Mini LED on the QM8 not only delivers a high zone count, but also amazing brightness. That’s 5,000 nits of amazing brightness! Those 5,000 nits make flashes, explosions, sunrises and all those bright scenes just look…. real. Found in sizes from 65” to 98”, your ultimate home theater is waiting for you.
The crown jewel of our line this year is a TV that, literally, we have never seen the likes of before.
Take everything baked into the QM8 and blow it up to the world’s largest QD-Mini LED TV at 115”: our 115QM891. Now, up to 20,000 zones of local dimming is adroitly handled by our powerful AIPQ ULTRA processor, the pinnace of TCL’s AIPQ Processor family found in sets all the way to our super-affordable S5 Series of TVs.
When it comes to delivering great performance, I hope you see that not all Mini LED TVs are created equal. Seeing the term “QD-Mini LED” on a TCL box, website listing, or on a fact tag in a store, is a sure-fire way to know you’re getting a great picture, not a great pitch.
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