LED TV Guide - Introduction

LED TV Introduction

LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology has actually been around since the early part of the 19th Century, gaining a certain notoriety in the 70s with the arrival of bright red lit LED watches.

It is the recent integration of LED's into the familiar LCD flat panel TV however, that marks an exciting new development of a technology which offers the potential for a superior viewing experience.

LCD TV's have traditionally relied on a fluorescent 'backlight' (something like the one in many household kitchens) for their illumination. The problem with this 'always on' backlight is that it is difficult to achieve the rich deep blacks that we take for granted on Plasma screens.

Note: LED, LCD and Plasma TV's all fall into the HDTV (High Definition TV) category. If you would like to know more about HDTV please read our guide here.

LED TV advantages

An indication of the depth and purity of black levels produced by this new wave of LED TV's can be gleaned from the manufacturers claimed contrast ratios (in a nutshell the difference between the brightest white and darkest black that can be produced onscreen). Always to be taken with a pinch of salt, LED TV's will however invariably claim a contrast ratio of around 1,000,000:1 rather than a figure closer to 50,000:1 for traditional LCD TV's.

LED TV's consume much less power than your the traditional LCD TV's; About 40% less compared to a similar sized screen.

Certain implementations of LED technology produce much slimmer screens.