Home TV
OLED, QLED or Mini-LED: which television for which room
The technology inside the television decides less than the room it hangs in. A decision aid by lighting conditions.
The question comes up in almost every consultation: OLED or not? The honest answer depends less on the device than on the room – above all on the light.
OLED: unbeatable in a darkened room
OLED televisions drive every pixel individually. Black is really black, the contrast is unrivalled, and the picture stays colour-accurate even from the side. In a living room with dimmed light in the evening, that is the most beautiful picture quality money can buy.
The weakness is peak brightness. In front of a large window front in the afternoon, the picture loses definition.
Mini-LED and QLED: for bright rooms
Sets with Mini-LED backlighting reach considerably higher brightness and keep strong colours even in daylight. The black level stays behind OLED; in bright rooms that is hardly noticeable. For living rooms with a lot of glass, this is the more practical choice.
The size: usually bought too small
Rule of thumb for today's 4K sets: seating distance in centimetres divided by 1.5 gives the sensible diagonal. At three metres that is around 75 inches. Almost nobody buys too big – almost everyone buys too small.
What brings more in everyday life than the technology
- The right height: picture centre at eye level when seated.
- Calibration: factory settings are optimised for the sales floor, not for your living room.
- Good sound: even the best television sounds flat without a soundbar or system.
- Cables in the wall instead of on the sideboard.
What a good television costs
In the 65-inch class it is not the figures in the brochure that decide but panel, brightness and picture processor – we put those differences into perspective for your room in the consultation. Above that you pay for design, sound or picture refinement – rarely for a visibly better picture.
Our advice: rather last year's model in a larger diagonal than the latest one in small. The picture improvements from year to year are marginal; the size difference is not.
Burn-in: still an issue?
With OLED that was the big worry for a long time. Current sets shift the picture minimally, detect static elements and run automatic maintenance cycles. For normal television and streaming the risk is low today. Anyone who runs the same news channel with a fixed logo for eight hours a day is still better off choosing Mini-LED.
Sound remains the weak spot
Flat sets have no room for speakers. Even expensive televisions sound thin as soon as music or a film soundtrack gets demanding. A soundbar with a separate subwoofer is the biggest audible leap for comparatively little money. Anyone who wants more moves to a system with ceiling speakers.
Wall mounting or furniture
Wall mounting looks tidy but demands planning: height, cable route, socket behind the device, access to the connections. We work with mounts that pull forward for connecting – that saves taking the set down later.
More articles
News
HDR, nits, VRR, eARC: television terms explained clearly
Manufacturers' data sheets read like a riddle. We translate the most important terms – and say which ones really count when buying.
Which TV size for which seating distance? The rules of thumb
The right screen diagonal depends on seating distance and resolution, not on the shelf in the shop. Rules of thumb, a table and the limit beyond which a projector makes more sense.
LG, Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, Philips: which brand for what
The big manufacturers all build good televisions – but with different strengths. An overview from installation practice, without a ranking.