If you have looked at all the fabulous photos of an LED TV from this year’s catalogues and are set to buy one for yourself, it will really be helpful in your purchase if you know a few facts about the technology first. The LED TV had a great reception at this year’s CES Trade Show and Samsung was the first one to actually have brought the technology into the market with its Samsung 7000 television set range.
Simply put an LED TV is actually an LCD television which incorporates an additional technology. LEDs are light emitting diodes which are an efficient light source and while previously other methods of lighting up the LCD screen were used such as fluorescent tubes, now the LEDs are utilized to light up the LCD display.
While fluorescent tubes provide light, they have a few drawbacks. They take up more space and are heavy in weight. Also they do not provide sufficient color quality because the blacks displayed are not true blacks and this reduces the vibrancy of all other colors. This is basically why the LED technology came along – so they could provide a lighting source that can show the purest blacks and whites.
At the present there are a couple of LED TVs available to the consumer. One of them is back-lit model which allows the LCD display to be lit up by back lighting through a number of LEDs placed behind the television panel. The other one is the break through edge lit version which uses LEDs as a light source positioned around the edges of the television screen. Using LEDs as back lights requires a lot of space in the back of the television set, making the LED TV thicker in size. The edge lit LED display however, requires less back panel space and hence the designs are much slimmer and sleek.