If you found a time machine and travelled back to December 2023, you’d see a tired shell of a professional ‘shiny things chaser’ (me) penning an end of year feature detailing why 2024 could be the year Mini LED takes on OLED.
At the time there was a good reason for that. Sony had indicated it would be moving to prioritise Mini LED sets in its top-end line, alongside OLED models. A fact then demonstrated in the new year when it unveiled its 2024 flagship, the Bravia 9, which uses a Mini LED, not QD-OLED panel.
Samsung had also jumped on the bandwagon, telling investors in its final earnings call for the year that it would be betting on giant Mini LED and 8K TVs in 2024. Hisense and TCL then announced similar plans – though with those two it was no great surprise, as both have been throwing shade at OLED for years.
But now, with 2024 in the rearview mirror and myself and theWhat Hi-Fi? team having once again sacrificed our retinas, and short term sanity, testing every flagship TV we could get our hands on over the past 12 months, you may justifiably be wondering: did the gamble pay off?
The short answer is no, it did not.
If you run through our reviews of some of 2024’s top-end Mini LED TV heavy-hitters, which includes the Sony Bravia 9, Hisense U8N, Samsung QN95D and more, you’ll notice a common theme: they all scored four stars.
Conversely, their main OLED rivals, including the flagship LG G4, Panasonic Z95A and Samsung S95D, as well as step-down LG C4, Sony Bravia 8 and Philips OLED809, all got five stars.
If you were to ask for a detailed breakdown as to why, the answer would vary slightly depending on the exact Mini LED and OLED sets we were talking about. But ultimately the answer would boil down to a simple point: the OLED sets offered better picture quality, holistically.
Whether it was the wonderful, pixel perfect light control we saw on the Bravia 8, the stellar, authentic colour reproduction of the Z95A or wonderfully sharp and punchy performance of the C4, the OLEDs performed better.
Just to prove my point, here’s a quick smorgasbord of direct quotes saying as much from our reviewers, starting with the Bravia 9:
“For most people, we simply feel that the cheaper Bravia 8 OLED is the better option thanks to its improved skin tones, more consistent handling of colours, better three-dimensional depth and sharper details.”
And the Hisense U8:
“If you can stretch to invest a few hundred more you can grab an LG C4, which offers easier set-up, deeper blacks, pixel level contrast control, an equally good app ecosystem and better gaming features. This means that for now the U8N is a good, but not perfect, option for any premium TV buyer.”
And finally, the Samsung QN95D:
“Unfortunately, a handful of factors hold it back from true greatness: distracting visual oddities and a middling sound system are frustrating, and the blooming effect found in particularly dark scenes is very disappointing. There is also the S95D, which lurks uncomfortably close on price and with its glorious QD-OLED panel produces a deeper, richer and more cinematic picture overall.”
Does that mean Mini LED is bad? No. To be clear, all we’re saying here is that it still can’t compete in the top end of the market on TVs that cost as much as an OLED.
In the mid-range part of the market we’ve seen plenty of strong Mini LED performers that offer exceptional value for money. Our 2024 Award-winner, the TCL 85C805K is clear evidence of that. While its picture isn’t on a par with an OLED’s, its lower price means it’s still a fantastic option, especially for people on a budget – remember we always review with performance-per-pound/dollar in mind.
The new Mini LEDs are also a step forward for the technology, delivering uniformly better performance than their predecessors, so there is still hope for the technology – but 2024 wasn’t its time. Which is why I’m going to end this feature with some borrowed words from our home cinema editor, Tom Parsons, in our Bravia 9 review, which accurately sums up our feelings on Mini LED in general.
“We’re certainly not writing off Sony’s new Mini LED backlighting system, as a second-generation version could be truly brilliant but, at this point, its strengths – impressive though they are – don’t quite outweigh its compromises.”
MORE:
These are the best Mini LED TVs we’ve reviewed
We rate the best OLED TVs
Our picks of the best 65-inch TVs