CES 2026 showcases the future of TVs. Find out which display technology will make the biggest splash

If you’re looking for some spice at CES 2026, you can never go wrong with TVs. The annual consumer electronics show always features huge walls filled with TVs packed with cutting-edge features like transparent screens Or ultra-high brightness.

In previous years at CESwe’ve seen everything from battery powered system TVs that stick to a wall to OLEDs which roll like a treasure map. I’m not a TV designer, so I could never anticipate the weird things companies are cooking up right now. Even though these cutting-edge devices grab the headlines, we’ll stay focused on the products that really matter to you.

We know people don’t buy TVs for gadgets. Picture quality is the most important aspect of any TV, and I expect we’ll see progress in this area, especially in the affordable end of the market.

Like computers and phones, TVs have a shelf life of 12 months and are updated annually, usually with picture and feature improvements. Here’s what this year’s CES promises.

Mini-LED trickle

Two 2025 TVs are showing the way forward: the Hisense QD7 and the TCL QM9. Both models have mini-LED technologybut they’re at either end of the market: the Hisense is a budget TV and the TCL is a flagship. Both have been significant in their improvements in image quality, particularly the QD7. The Hisense’s mini-LED backlighting was far superior to the budget TV competition this year, and I hope this is the start of a new trend. Local dimming has a positive effect on LCD image quality, and the ability to do it affordably is better for everyone.

Mini-LED is an evolution of traditional LCD TV backlight technology, using thousands of tiny light-emitting diodes to improve picture quality. One of the first mini-LED TVs to become available was the TCL 8 Series 2019and it’s a technology that has become more widely available with each passing year.

Improvements in display technology can sometimes seem incremental, almost glacial, but this year, mini-LED backlighting has helped make LCD TVs stunningly bright. That’s a good thing. For example, in 2025, TCL changed its technology to “Halo Control”, designed to reduce LCD bloom, and it worked!

The brightest TV I reviewed last year was the QM9Kand it took full advantage of this upgrade: it was bright and capable of great contrast. You can expect to see this technology rolled out to more TVs across the company’s lineup. Competitors like Samsung and Hisense will no doubt be taking notes as well.

The Evolution of Micro RGB Backlighting

The brightest TVs I saw in 2025 were the hardest to test in the lab. This is mainly because they were huge – over 100 inches diagonal – and they included the Hisense 116UX TV and the Samsung Micro RGB TV.

The key to their success was a micro-RGB backlight, separate from the micro-LED display type. These backlights are made up of red, green and blue micro-LEDs, and they have two main advantages: They do not need a color filter, either quantum dot or otherwise, and they can create brighter screens. At CES we’ll see a whole bunch of TVs based on this model, led by both Samsung THE LG. What we’ll see are TVs in all sizes – starting at 55 inches – and at prices considerably lower than a car.

The bright future of OLED

Although OLED has always had an advantage over LED in terms of contrast, this gap has narrowed. While OLED can’t improve on its already excellent black levels, the only way the technology has advanced is in brightness, and I expect this trend to continue into 2026. LG G5 was the brightest OLED TV I tested this year, for example, and it was brighter than LCD TVs from just a few cycles ago. It effectively did this by stacking two OLED panels on top of each other in what the company called “quad stacks.”

I’d like to see improvements on the “more affordable” side of OLED, which hasn’t seen any real upgrades in a long time. THE $1,400 LG C5for example, is not particularly different from LG C4and the LG C4 was based on the LG C3, and so on.

If OLED is to compete with the new threat of mini-LEDs, manufacturers need to make it more attractive to a wider range of buyers. By that I mean OLED TVs need brighter panels across the board, starting with entry-level models. While doubling the number of panels is obviously costly, OLED manufacturers can make other changes, including voltage adjustments and improved filters.

Other things to consider

Thanks to advances like Dolby Vision 2 and Samsung HDR10 Plus Advanced, the TVs announced at CES will be brighter than ever, and that brightness will actually be useful for HDR-enabled movies and games.

Even though TV companies almost never talk about budget models at CES, the cutting-edge technology we’ve seen this year – and in 2026 – will undoubtedly trickle down to the budget end. What does this mean? Better image quality for less money.

Tariffs on imported products and resulting inflation have been a wild card for tech products in 2025, and it’s still unclear what effect this will have on next year’s prices. It’s unlikely, however, that most of the TVs shown at CES will have a price tag. Some substantive pricing discussions may take place during the show, given the international nature of the convention, but actual pricing will not be revealed until months later.

The essentials

We don’t have long to wait for the latest television news. CES 2026 starts on January 6, so stay tuned to see what’s new. I’m visiting CES in Las Vegas for the first time in a while and I’ll be more interested in the actual benefits to you, the reader, than the attention-grabbing gimmicks. I’m hopeful that we’ll see better, brighter, more affordable TVs than ever before.