Sony Steps Up

FOR SEVERAL years now OLED has been king of the HDTV hill, offering the best available HDTV performance. 

- Thomas J. Norton

This isn't to say that it has been free of issues; no technology is perfect. Early on, OLEDs had a reputation for being subject to burn-in. While that was overstated, it was still a concern that careful owners worked to avoid. Owners were advised not to leave still images, particularly bright ones, on the screen for extended periods-watch out for those bright scoreboards in otherwise active scenes. But I've lived with OLEDs for years now, often with largely stationary scoreboards at the bottom of the screen, and never had a trace of permanent burn-in. To be fair, however, I don't drive my TVs particularly hard.

One OLED limitation that has always been an issue, however, is lower available brightness compared to the better LCD televisions. However, LCDs have traditionally lacked the deep, inky blacks exhibited by a good OLED. The difference becomes glaringly evident when viewing a starfield against the blackness of outer space on an OLED compared to an LCD.

But the advent of LCD local dimming allows the backlighting needed by an LCD television to be dimmed (or turned off) in areas of the screen that should be dark or black as required by the source content, without affecting brighter areas of the image. More recently, this technology has been significantly improved by the advent of mini LEDs. Much smaller than conventional LEDs, a large number of mini LEDs, controlled by sophisticated microprocessing, can challenge OLED technology in the ability to produce pristine blacks.

OLEDs are still the champs for many TV consumers, and with good reasons. But mini LED designs have impressed me recently and Sony's X93L, our subject here, is a potent example.