OLED or QLED, which and why?

[ianrb]

Is there any real difference between these, and if so which should I get?

[tenohfive]

Big difference. QLED is Samsung deliberately trying to sell their chosen lighting path as in some way similar to OLED - it isn't. QLED is a Samsung LED TV. There will be a number of lighting zones (or lighting around the edges) - up to several hundred zones in total. That controls which parts of the image on screen are bright, and which aren't.

OLED works by lighting the image on a pixel by pixel basis. Each pixel is individually lit. Given that there are over 8m pixels, that means that there is much more specific control of the image than a few hundred local dimming zones (or edge backlighting.)

OLED TV's will display darker blacks and more details in the shadow.
LED TV's can (model dependent, but comparing the ones competing with OLED) offer greater brightness overall across more of the image.This can be important and is most visible when watching HDR content.

It's generally accepted that a good OLED will offer a better image for watching movies than the equivalent LED, but not 100% of the time - there are some good OLED's out there. And for gaming where bright vivid images are part of the appeal, LED can sometimes be preferable. (I've got an LED for the record - I chose a good quality LED at 65" over a smaller OLED.)



TL:DR; post up the TV's you're looking at or your budget and intended use, plus intended content - be it Standard Definition TV, HD, 4K, Netflix streaming, X-Box etc and you should get some recommendations.

Edited by tenohfive on Monday 22 October 15:49

[ianrb]

It's just for watching TV & movies.

Budget <£1K.

Size 55" to 60".

I don't need a smart TV, everyting I need can be plugged in.

[hornmeister]

I wouldn't get hung up on the technology if you like the picture.

OLED is technically better than LED but then a cheap OLED TV could look worse than a top end LED. Both technologies have their bonuses and also their drawbacks.

Make sure it has a picture you like (Actually go and demo them) and make sure it is as reasonably future proofed as possible with the formats & number of inputs it supports.

With your budget I would suggest a good OLED is pushing it but wait to see what Black Friday offers up.

As per above I went top quality 60" QLED over a smaller OLED and still happy a year on.

Edited by hornmeister on Tuesday 23 October 13:29

[anonymous-user]

Less than £1k, 55-65" basically HAS to be LCD./QLED. Oled 55 starts around £1300 (last time I looked).

P..s I'd be interested to see a review of an OLED TV that is not as good as an LCD TV. The technology is totally different and OLED is miles ahead in terms of contrast and blacks. Saying that, if you just watch East Enders and Bargain Hunt you are never going to notice.

[Jonny.]

ianrb said:

It's just for watching TV & movies.

Budget <£1K.

Size 55" to 60".

I don't need a smart TV, everyting I need can be plugged in.

I found an LG OLED which is 55” for £979.99, it has multiple ports so you can plug what you need in and happens to be a smart tv anyway. Here’s a link in case it helps.

Here

[Luke.]

If you can push the budget slightly, this is what you want. Was £3000 at launch a couple of years back.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/LG-OLED55B7V-Premium-Ultr...

[Luke.]

Jonny. said:

I found an LG OLED which is 55” for £979.99, it has multiple ports so you can plug what you need in and happens to be a smart tv anyway. Here’s a link in case it helps.

Here

And that's an LG panel rather than an OLED telly. Their processing software could easily let it down.

[tenohfive]

£1300 is about the price point for OLED's (the LG B7 is the current MX-5) but it's been hovering around that price for awhile - with BF/CM coming, you could see it go lower.

I'd also be hunting for the Sony XF9005 at that price. I'm not au fait with what Samsungs are in that price bracket, but if it's one of the Q range it's worth looking at the reviews. Or the NU7000 and above.

I disagree with the comment about choosing based upon what looks good in store - most places set them up terribly, with demo mode enabled to make everything vivid and oversaturated whilst running a short loop of 4K content, or they'll go the other way and run SD content through them. You simply won't get any idea of how it will look with your content running through it.

[Big Worm 1]

OP - Did you make a decision on this?

I'm currently trying to decide and would be interested in what you decided and why?

I'm looking at the OLED Panasonic TX55FZ802B and the Samsung QLED QE55Q8DN (which you can claim a Galaxy S9+ phone with until 18/12). Both are around the £1500 mark.

[tenohfive]

That Panasonic is getting some excellent reviews. Unless you need LED for watching in really bright ambient conditions, go OLED.
If you were looking at 65" LED vs 55" OLED then it would be more of a decision to be made. But given the phone package, you're basically accepting that the QLED is the lesser expensive TV so it's not really a comparison of the merits of the TV's, so much as a comparison of your given price point. You either want to spend £1500 on a TV, or a significantly lesser amount (when you factor in the phones value.)
(Sony LED owner here, so no personal bias in play.)

[juggsy]

I found it useful comparing different ones side by side playing the same content, then you can see the differences particularly between QLED and OLED. Try and get them to play the content you typically watch (sports, action movies, documentaries, 1080p, BluRay, 4K etc.), places like Richer Sounds are pretty accommodating for this. Don’t get sucked too much into the 4K goodness, it looks fabulous but you need the content sources to support it, so if you’re mainly viewing Freesat for example factor this into your decision making.

I plumped for the OLED in the end as a result of this, there’s not masses in it but you can see the differences in the black levels for example, but I believe QLED/LED is better for motion (e.g football) as well as brightness. Although the one I went for (LG OLED65C8) is plenty bright, particularly against my old 8yr old 46” LED.

[Polite M135 driver]

They’ll probably all be better than your old one so it’s kind of irrelevant which new one you get (this is my tv buying approach).

[chilistrucker]

juggsy said:

I found it useful comparing different ones side by side playing the same content, then you can see the differences particularly between QLED and OLED. Try and get them to play the content you typically watch (sports, action movies, documentaries, 1080p, BluRay, 4K etc.), places like Richer Sounds are pretty accommodating for this. Don’t get sucked too much into the 4K goodness, it looks fabulous but you need the content sources to support it, so if you’re mainly viewing Freesat for example factor this into your decision making.

I plumped for the OLED in the end as a result of this, there’s not masses in it but you can see the differences in the black levels for example, but I believe QLED/LED is better for motion (e.g football) as well as brightness. Although the one I went for (LG OLED65C8) is plenty bright, particularly against my old 8yr old 46” LED.

I'd agree with this and did as much research as I could, (with my limited knowledge on the subject.) Lots of decent advice on here, also Richer sounds website and their videos are pretty helpful and I really like the What Hi-Fi reviews.

In the end and with my budget I Got the LG Oled 55 B8, had it for a week now and really impressed so far even though I haven't had a chance to properly explore its various functions yet. I've upgraded to Netflix 4k and have watched a few Blu-Rays and played a few games on the PS4, all in all very impressed.


I do have plans to upgrade in the new year to a Xbox 1X and a Kef System for sound once the house is done. I was quite surprised on how decent the Tv's own sound is when gaming or watching a Blu Ray, much better than I was expecting but I am thinking of a stop gap sound bar for the short term.


Budget of £250 and at mo the Yamaha YAS 207 looks ideal unless anyone else has a better recommendation.


Sorry to go a bit off topic there.


I would def recommend an Oled TV.

[chilistrucker]

juggsy said:

I found it useful comparing different ones side by side playing the same content, then you can see the differences particularly between QLED and OLED. Try and get them to play the content you typically watch (sports, action movies, documentaries, 1080p, BluRay, 4K etc.), places like Richer Sounds are pretty accommodating for this. Don’t get sucked too much into the 4K goodness, it looks fabulous but you need the content sources to support it, so if you’re mainly viewing Freesat for example factor this into your decision making.

I plumped for the OLED in the end as a result of this, there’s not masses in it but you can see the differences in the black levels for example, but I believe QLED/LED is better for motion (e.g football) as well as brightness. Although the one I went for (LG OLED65C8) is plenty bright, particularly against my old 8yr old 46” LED.

I'd agree with this and did as much research as I could, (with my limited knowledge on the subject.) Lots of decent advice on here, also Richer sounds website and their videos are pretty helpful and I really like the What Hi-Fi reviews.

In the end and with my budget I Got the LG Oled 55 B8, had it for a week now and really impressed so far even though I haven't had a chance to properly explore its various functions yet. I've upgraded to Netflix 4k and have watched a few Blu-Rays and played a few games on the PS4, all in all very impressed.


I do have plans to upgrade in the new year to a Xbox 1X and a Kef System for sound once the house is done. I was quite surprised on how decent the Tv's own sound is when gaming or watching a Blu Ray, much better than I was expecting but I am thinking of a stop gap sound bar for the short term.


Budget of £250 and at mo the Yamaha YAS 207 looks ideal unless anyone else has a better recommendation.


Sorry to go a bit off topic there.


I would def recommend an Oled TV.

[matc]

Those of you that went for 65”LED over 55”OLED which model did you go for?

I can’t justify the £2+k for a 65”OLED but feel in the room it’s going in I’d always regret getting a 55”, so being forced down the LED route! Looking to spend up to £1,300 really.

[tenohfive]

matc said:

Those of you that went for 65”LED over 55”OLED which model did you go for?

I can’t justify the £2+k for a 65”OLED but feel in the room it’s going in I’d always regret getting a 55”, so being forced down the LED route! Looking to spend up to £1,300 really.

I went for the Sony XE9305. At the time I bought it I had to scrabble to find the last of the stock. Sony reduced the number of models for this year, so the closest equivalent would be the XF9005. I've only seen passing comment on it (favourable) so I'd look at some reviews, but it's currently on RS for £1400:
https://www.richersounds.com/tv-projectors/all-tvs...

Review here:
https://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/reviews/Sony/xf90

If you do go Sony (or any other Android TV) pop some money to one side for a streamer - Shield, Roku or similar - as with the exception of Shield Android TV tends to run really slowly on most TV's. It's a half decent OS and on the Shield it's brilliant but most TV's don't seem to have the grunt to run it smoothly.

[Pvapour]

Are there any PWM free oled TVs yet?

Wife suffers with headaches from LEDs and our plasma is getting on a bit!

[Red 5]

ianrb said:

Is there any real difference between these, and if so which should I get?

As mentioned OLED lights / controls individual pixels at high speed.
It has good black levels required for a consistent grey scale.
It has better (good) motion for all types of image.

Sport and games are no different to anything else that moves btw, so if anyone mentions these things, it means they have been sold a line of marketing BS / sales pitch!

The Pana 802 is marginally better than the LG models, due to their processing efforts.
Processing can’t be quantified by a number on a spec sheet, so this is overlooked by people doing ‘Reasearch’

Black level is what’s required to make a good believable picture, as humans see things based on contrast.

OLED can suffer screen burn though, so prolonged image displays are best avoided. Not an issue for normal viewers.

QLED is a made up marketing term!
The TVs are LCD screens, pure and simple.
When LCD screens sales were slowing down, we started to see the same products being called LED screens, as they had LED back lights. This was a marketing dept lie.

When OLED came to market, Samsung were gutted their LCD screens were so far behind.
However, all they did was to think of a new buzz work for some tech already in their screens, that could start with a letter that looks closest to ‘0’
So ‘Quantum’ LED was hatched.

It’s still an LCD TV with slow pixel refresh and blurred motion though.
It’s also mega cheap to produce.
Samsung just use a premium ticket and marketing ‘QLED’ BS to make you think it’s not a hopelessly outdated and performed tech.

‘But it’s really brighter’ cry the spec sheet readers and marketing departments!
If you calibrate one for normal domestic viewing, it is turned down to below the peak brightness of an OLED screen anyway!


Samsung do some things well, but their desperate product push and marketing dept are often blatantly fibbing. These lies then get repeated by sloppy journalists and accepted as ‘facts’ thereafter!



Other examples....
I explained that curved TV screens are mostly rubbish for domestic situations, due to the reduced viewing angles. Only sitting bang in the centre and pretty close, produce any remote advantage!

Samsung spent a fortune on training and marketing, to the effect that curved screens actually have a wider viewing angle than flat ones!


Listening to people repeating all the perceived wisdom and old wives tales, is like the old re-gassing and 3 year life span of Plasma screens.
These were also printed / reported / repeated facts at the time, that took almost a decade to fade away, such is the power of marketing!

This is what makes it hard for a TV buyer!


In answer to the actual question though.....
If you have a sub 1k budget, you need not be comparing the two highest priced products available.
You can afford a good 55” LCD TV that will be way better than your old one.
LCD is still pretty good, so not a problem with better models.
Just stick to Sony, Samsung and Panasonic and you’ll be happy.

Or, I suggest you look out for nearly new, or demo clearance products, right at the death of a range and be prepared to travel at a moments notice.
Then you might get an LG OLED screen, which in case you’d not noticed, I think is better

All TVs are ‘Smart’ as that part is about £1.50 to build in. ‘Smart TV’ is another thing marketing told us we must have. So this will be built in, like it or not.

I just realised the OP never returned to the topic lol!

[budgie smuggler]

Red 5 said:

When OLED came to market, Samsung were gutted their LCD screens were so far behind.
However, all they did was to think of a new buzz work for some tech already in their screens, that could start with a letter that looks closest to ‘0’
So ‘Quantum’ LED was hatched.

That's the weird thing, they did have OLED screens a few years back (2014 ish). They were mega money though. I guess they thought OLED would never become cheap enough to be a mass market technology.