What is an LED TV?
Plasma and LCD televisions have been around for a while, but what’s this new kid on the block — the LED TV?
Samsung UN46B8000 LED backlit LCD TV
To understand LED displays, a little background on LCDs is needed. All LCD televisions need a backlight behind the LCD screen to illuminate the screen. Until recently fluorescent tubes have been used. These tubes can’t be dimmed, making it difficult to have deep blacks displayed.
By using many LED lights behind the LCD panel, different sections of the display can be dimmed. This dimming makes it possible for a dark section of the scene to be closer to black.
Other set manufacturers use LED lights on the edge of the screen. The benefit here is that very thin televisions are possible. However, localized dimming of dark scenes isn’t possible when LEDs are used this way.
LED-lit sets have the additional bonus of requiring less energy.
So is an LED-lit LCD set the TV to buy? Maybe yes, maybe no. Currently LED/LCD TVs cost significantly more than plasma TVs or old-fashioned LCD sets lit by fluorescent tubes. But give it a little time and the prices will come down.
When buying a new TV, trust your eyes. Do colors look natural? Do fast-moving objects move smoothly across the screen? Can you see details in dark areas? Don’t get too caught up in current tech ‘buzz’ words.
As you’re out shopping this season, keep your eyes open for LED/LCD sets. Let me know what you think of them.
I'm just getting used to color TV, and now this…. Just kidding, but it's not easy to keep up with the progress for the non-technically gifted. I assume virtual TV's are next.
BestBuy has a 40 inch Samsung LED-LCD TV that is: Model: UN40B6000VFXZA
SKU: 9245355 – on sale for $1,399. Not bad – eh? I have found that one can always enhance the "standard" Samsung sound with a Bose system. The trick is to have proper speaker separation and hopefully the listener did not work on or near the flight-deck of an aircraft carrier or near a flight-line without noise suppression headphones…
The Samsung shown in this article is the model we picked up from Best Buy (California – bay area) online. We happened upon a one day sale for $1599. This price was the same price for the Black Firday only sale.
Excellent response; no bluring or pixilation. Audio is the weak link in this model (and not really much of a weak link at that).
BD is a must…you old timers that hold on to your first and second generation AV systems should consider upgrading to a newer, yet modest, home theater package that includes a minimum of 3 HDMI in and 1 HDMI out to the Samsung. This is much easier that running everything to the Samsung and using it's inputs.