CES 2021: TCL unimpressed by LG, Samsung Mini-LED televisions

Two of the biggest television brands have announced the new tech that will light up your television — but an emerging rival wasn’t impressed.

Korean tech giants Samsung and LG have revealed the new technology they will begin putting in their televisions, but a director at Chinese rival TCL had a simple question for the two tech giants: “What took you so long?”

TCL commercial director Aaron Dew took a few shots at the panelmakers without addressing them directly as tech companies from around the world show off their upcoming products at an all-digital Consumer Electronics Show.

“I am sure you will notice many competing brands have recognised the value and performance of using mini-LED backlights to improve the performance of televisions,” Mr Dew said in a blog post.

“We expect all major brands to eventually try to embrace this powerful technology by introducing mini-LED technology to their TVs for the first time.”

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TCL is on its third-generation of mini LED televisions.

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Samsung showed off a monstrous 110-inch micro-LED powered television that will let you watch four channels at once if you really want to, in addition to new QLED televisions using mini-LED.

LG also had new mini-LED televisions along with the self-lighting OLED displays the company is lauded for.

Mr Dew described those OLED displays feature technology “that hasn’t notably changed since it was first used in TVs in the early 2010s and still only accounts for less than three per cent of global TV sales”.

LG's QNED range using mini LED.

Samsung unveiled its Neo QLED TV screens at CES 2021.

Mini-LEDs are tiny backlights used to illuminate the liquid crystal display (LCD) in your television. The smaller size allows more to be fitted and the more LEDs you can get in a TV, theoretically, the brighter and more detailed the image will be.

TCL kicked off the mini-LED phase in 2018.

“To those brands excited to introduce mini-LED in 2021, my only question is ‘What took you so long?’,” Mr Dew wrote.

It could be because the companies had other things to be talking about in recent years, including the 8K televisions they were still trying to decide how to classify at last year’s CES.

Mr Dew added TCL “isn’t investing in the niche older display technology” but hinted TCL will have “newer and more powerful self-emissive display technologies coming in the years ahead”.