TCL 55C825 Mini LED TV A thousand lights

This TCL C825 television uses ‘Mini LED’ technology. The Mini LED concept groups thousands of tiny LEDs into 128 dimming zones on this 55-inch model (160 zones on the 65-inch), backing a Quantum Dot colour layer and an LCD panel. And in that respect it seems a conceptually simple enough advance on the fewer zones, fewer lights of the past. So the surprise comes when you see TCL’s analysis of the results of this change, and particularly its comparison with OLED, still regarded by many, ourselves included for the most part, as the TV technology du jour in areas such as contrast and HDR, if not in absolute brightness. OLED’s ability to display low-level detail at even 0.001 nits allows 19 ‘stops’ (iterative doublings of brightness) in dynamic range up to peak brightness of perhaps 700-1000 nits, with average brightness levels around 150 nits.

But this Mini LED panel, from TCL’s subsidiary CSOL (China Star Optoelectronics Technology), now claims the same low-level display ability of 0.001 nits, while its average brightness is more than three times that of OLED, achieving an overall dynamic range of 20 stops. Then there’s colour — TCL’s Mini LED claims to deliver fully 100% of the DCI-P3 colour volume compared with OLED’s 70%. Indeed TCL claims Mini LED to be the equal of OLED’s darks and wide viewing angles, and its superior in peak brightness, average brightness, dynamic range, colour volume and the possibility of burn-in none with Mini LED). If this is so, then, can we conclude that OLED’s day in the