LCD vs. LED, What would YOU invest in?

[kickass audio]

Hmmm LCD vs LED... Look at what they're made up of... Liquid Crystals or Light emitting diodes... the LCD's have a tendency to fade over time while LED's have an extremely long lifespan... the LED will also have the strength advantage over LCD's as well and they are also capable of producing much clearer pictures than LCD's

This is not what an led tv is. let me further explain to stop the confusion...

An led tv is the EXACT same tv as an lcd. The ONLY difference is the backlight method. Traditional lcd's have a fluorescent light that illuminates the glass itself. This lighting method is achieved usually by having one side of the lcd panel (typically the bottom) that contains a very thin fluorescent tube, the other sides of the lcd are mirrors that reflect the light back toward the middle of your screen. Sounds good right? WRONG. This is alright for basic use however they are bad as if you can pay close attention to your screen you will notice that part of the screen will appear to be darker than the rest, this is because the light reflecting through the glass is not 100% spread out evenly. So mainly the edges of your display and the middle will be the brightest spots where the other parts are a little darker for brightness. With a fluorescent light you will also have a yellowish tint to the whites so this is sometimes a downfall to people. And these tv's operate a little warmer as fluorescent lights give off heat whereas led's do not have any heat that is given off.

Now an LED lcd tv will use the same technology as the tv mentioned above however instead of a fluorescent tube to illuminate the screen there are led's that are placed on the edges of the display (typically the entire outside perimeter of the lcd panel) to light up the screen. This is very good as the light does not have to reflect at all in the panel and the panel is always evenly lit. Now they also have another led display that has led's that are along the entire back side of the lcd panel. This means that instead of the lcd's just being lined up along the side edges of the panel the led's are all packed tightly together and are the same size as the full panel. For example say you have a tv that is 12x12, you would also have an led board that is 12x12 to light up the whole screen. These tv's cost massive amounts of money but are the best you can get for picture quality and color without getting a plasma screen. They have a feature called "local dimming" which means that if you have a dark spot on your screen instead of the brightness being at one setting all the time, the zones where the lcd has a black image will dim the backlights. Lets say you get a picture where half your monitor is all white and the other half is all black. If you have a tv (whether it be a traditional lcd or edge-lit led panel) you will notice that the white will be bright however the black will have a grayish tint to it. This is because the backlight is still operating at its full brightness even though it is not needed for the black. Now do this on a tv with local dimming and the white side will be bright and pure and the black side will be pitch black. This is because the black side will turn the led's down or sometimes even off to keep the contrast ratio up very high.

Long post i know but i hate when people give the wrong information about the difference in led and lcd. Its still an lcd but with a different backlight.

edit: for the guy 2 posts above, oled's are not widely available for tv's as they are super expensive to have but they are the best of the best. Apple uses them in their ipod/iphone products and i believe their mac books have them as well. These are the ONLY type of screen technology where the led is actually emitting different light colors to make up the picture. They are totally different than led lcd tv's. An oled 42" tv will probably cost more than 4000.

[sprkn_ranger]

I agree with almost everything kickass says. The only things I disagree with are his statements that LEDs don't emit any heat at all. They do just not as much heat as the fluorescent lamps do. And they also use a lot less energy as as well which in turn helps them operate at a lower temp while still producing the same amount of lumens as the fluorescent lamps. Also the OLED screens are limited to mostly just cell phone screens right now however LG (I believe) announced they plan to have 46" and 55" OLED tv's to market by the end of 2012. Don't expect them to be cheap though. The cheapest OLED tv right now available is a Sony model that is geared towards commercial applications an it's only a 22" I believe and it's around $9000. Te technology is getting better and cheaper but it's still a few years away I believe. Oh and apple doesn't use OLED panels for any of their products.