LED TV Update

Filed Under LED TV, LG LED TV, Philips LED TV

The LED TV market is hotting up with recent announcements from LG and Philips to add to the Samsung LED TV hype.

It’s not clear to me if the vendors yet agree on what constitutes an “LED TV”. Each has their own spin to suit their products’ strengths and orientation.

Some vendors e.g. Philips and LG use LEDs for backlighting, whereas others use it as the primary illumination.

Philips LED TVs

Philips say their Ambilight 42PFL9803H/10 42 inch LCD / LED TV features:

LED Lux Display
MPEG4 HDTV* and the Perfect Pixel HD Engine
Perfect Motion, Perfect Colours and Perfect Contrast with Ambilight Spectra 2

This LCD TV has multi-array LED backlighting and uses multiple LED arrays each controlled individually, in contrast to regular LCD screens that only have one backlight to illuminate the entire screen.

Note: This is different LED technology to Samsung LED TVs where the fundamental illumination of the TV is done via LEDs, not just the backlighting. You could describe this as “half-way house” LED TV technology

However, the Philips LED TVs generally get excellent reviews, although the retail price is higher (up to twice as much) than a comparable Samsung LED TV.

Philips LED TV

LG LED TVs

LG’s LH90 LED TVs have been announced and priced (42 inch model retails at approx $2,400) but the availability isn’t clear yet - possibly next month (June 09).

The LG TV specs include:

2,000,000 : 1 MEGA Contrast Ratio
1080p Full HD Resolution - TruMotion 240Hz
LED back light Technology
24p Real Cinema
Picture Wizard : Easy Self Calibration
Smart Energy Saving Plus

LG LH90 LCD-LED TV

Samsung LED TVs

Samsung LED TVs use LEDs as their primary light source, instead of traditional cold cathode fluorescent lamps.

Samsung say this allows their LED TVs to achieve higher contrast ratios, thinner TVs and 40% energy saving compared with LCD TVs of the same size.

Viewing tests indicate LEDs produce darker blacks and crisp whites, with vivid colors, resulting in improved picture quality. Samsung have also added their Auto Motion Plus frame interpolation technology that reduces motion blur and image judder.

On the minus side, it seems that the average life span of an LED TV is 40,000 hours, which is down on an LCD TV which averages 60,000 viewing hours.

If you watch TV 4 hours a day, 40,000 hours = 13.7 years and 8 hours a day viewin gtime = 6.85 years.

The Samsung LED TV models were introduced in 46-inch (priced at P260,000) and 40-inch (P160,000) variants last month while the B7000 55-inch model will be launched this May.

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