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If your old television has finally given up and it is time to shop for a new set, you may be surprised to find many new technological breakthroughs. All the newer sets are now digital ready without needing a converter box. While looking around, you will find that televisions are now referred to in many more letters that just the plain old TV. There are all types of TVs including LCD, Plasma, DLP and LED TVs.
In LCD televisions, earlier models used fluorescent tubes as backlighting. Since these tubes are on whenever the television is on, it is difficult for them to show deep black colors that are necessary for nice sharp pictures. The light leaks to the screen surface even if the set were trying to project black. Fluorescent lighting also does not contain all the colors in the rainbow, so the colors that can be shown on the screen are limited. These limitations are why photographs shot with fluorescent lights often show poor color quality. Fluorescent lighting can limits the colors shown on a TV, while LED lighting can offer a higher range of colors.
There are two ways the LED lighting can be set up in a TV. One is to have the LED lights set along the edge of the screen and it is called an edge lit LED TV. The other way is to have them behind the screen in a setup called a back lit LED. If you are concerned about energy consumption, both of these LED technologies use less energy than a fluorescent tube LCD or a plasma screen. If you want an ultra thin technology in your television and pay less, then you would probably choose the edge lit LED screen.
If you are willing to pay more and the thickness of 1 1/2 or 2 inches does not matter to you, then the back lit LED TV will give you the better viewing experience. When a black segment is needed on screen, a block of the lights are turned off to make the screen look sharper. The problem is that the technology to turn off single lamp is expensive so the television will turn off a block of lights so that some of the adjacent colors may not appear to be as bright as they should be.
As this technology is newer, you can pay up to two times as much for an LED backlit LCD TV as you would for a similar size LCD or plasma TV. Before purchasing, you should spend some time viewing all three sets to see which better fits your viewing desires. After comparing them in the store, be sure to compare the features and prices online with those offered locally. Ultimately, you will decide which LED TV set will satisfy your viewing pleasure for the price.
