LCD versus LED TV: Which Suits You Best?

Shopping for a new television can already be an overwhelming experience without having to worry about deciding between LED or LCD televisions besides. It's easy to be overwhelmed with the different options out there, what with varying resolutions (720p? 1080i?), screen sizes, and different types of backlighting technology. Before you rush into a purchase, let's take a look at the difference between LED and LCD technology, so as to remove just one variable from this potentially confusing equation.

Why Is Backlighting Necessary?

Put simply, LED and LCD technology are two different ways to "backlight" a television. Modern televisions need to be lit because they have no light source of their own, unlike previous generations of CRT televisions. In point of fact, an LED TV is just another type of LCD TV, but with a different type of backlighting. To avoid confusion, however, the simpler acronyms "LED" and "LCD" were introduced.

What's an LCD TV?

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A television that's simply referred to as "LCD" uses a form of backlighting known as cold cathode fluorescent lamps (or CCFLs). The most significant disadvantage of this type of backlighting is the fact that it lights the entire screen evenly. What this means is that different sections of an image that might require different lighting (think of a small white shape on a dark background) cannot be seen unless the backlights on the entire screen are brightened almost to maximum. What this does is seriously undermine the picture quality for most of the image, most particularly by altering the contrast of the image. You don't experience "true blacks" - instead, the entire image is washed-out.

The primary advantage of LCD TVs, however, is that they are slightly cheaper than their LED counterparts.

What's an LED TV?

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LED backlighting, on the other hand, is a way to locally adjust the brightness of an image for different sections of the screen. In addition to this, LEDs are a great deal smaller than the CCFL tubes in LCD TVs, which means that LED screens are much thinner and are therefore lighter and take up less space.

For those concerned with power consumption, another benefit of choosing an LED TV is that it uses less power than LCD TVs.

Hopefully now you have a better understanding of the differences between LED and LCD televisions. It should be mentioned that CCFL backlit televisions are waning in popularity; LED backlighting is positioning itself as the new frontrunner in HDTV technology. That said, you can still pick up an LCD TV just about anywhere that sells TVs. It's not the absolute pinnacle of television technology anymore, but it's still a great choice for budget-conscious customers.