Ever since I saw my first RGB-backlit TV at CES 2025, from Samsung (immediately followed by Hisense and TCL later in the show), I’ve been very optimistic about the technology’s potential – even going so far as to call it “a huge danger to OLED TVs.”
2026 is truly the year of the RGB TV, with major launches coming from almost every major TV maker, and I’ve been really excited about the models I’ve seen previews, ranging from Samsung’s first 130-inch RGB TV, to Panasonic’s announcement of a future RGB model it may launch, to Hisense’s UR9 RGB TV which is unique in offering a DisplayPort connection, to Sony’s demo of the technology that it plans to launch in 2026.
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They’re not even there and they’re too confusing
A big part of the problem is that there are too many variations already – or possible variations – and considerations to follow.
You can read our full explanation on RGB backlit TVs here. Still, the bottom line is that because it uses a colored backlight, that means it can provide a wider color gamut than regular mini-LEDs and can potentially have less light blooming from bright to dark areas, since colors don’t always leak as obviously (as my colleague Jake Krol noted on his most recent trip to see Sony show off its RGB technology again).
So this is a new technology that’s better than regular mini-LEDs, right? This is the most premium technology, ready to take on the best OLED TVs?
Well, not according to TCL, which is including two RGB TVs in its new TV lineup, and neither of them is its flagship TV. The flagship is the TCL X11L, which uses a new and improved version of classic mini-LED technology to deliver impressive results compared to other mini-LED models in our tests.
Here’s what’s most confusing: One of the RGB TVs TCL launched is its second-fancier model, sitting just below the X11L, but the other is one of its less premium models, sitting below its mid-range 7 Series mini-LED TVs, due to its limited number of dimming zones and average brightness.
LG is also launching RGB TVs, which might come as a surprise given that these are THE standard bearer of OLED. Well, guess what? It’s positioning its RGB TVs below the LG G6 and LG C6 OLED TVs in the lineup, and it really seems to be pitching them so it can offer an affordable, larger-screen option than what its OLEDs can offer.
Philips is similarly launching an RGB TV model that appears to replace the mini-LED models it’s always had that sit below OLEDs in its product lineup, so it’s the same deal here.
So these three companies believe that RGB TVs will not be the flagship product. But Hisense disagrees! Its flagship TV this year is an RGB TV, and the TV just below it will also use RGB technology, then it will upgrade to regular mini-LED technology once you get to the mid-range U7 series (which looks great this year thanks to a new anti-glare layer).
Samsung also makes RGB TVs the flagship of its LED lineup, with mini-LED models only coming in at the low end with the QN80H and below (including some mini-LED models without QLED, which really shocked me).
Except Samsung has sort of a flagship TV split personality these days: Is the flagship the Samsung R95H RGB TV, or is it the elite Samsung S95H/S99H OLED TV (which impressed us in our first tests at home)? Basically, it’s both!
Sony will launch its “True RGB” TV this year, but we have no idea of its price or how it will compare to the Sony Bravia 8 II OLED TV in the lineup – but I expect it to rank above it, based on Sony’s pursuit of 4,000 nit reference quality TVs to match its studio monitors.
So to recap, is RGB the killer new high-end OLED technology? Well, LG and Philips seem to think that’s not the case, and OLED remains the better choice. Samsung has not chosen a side. TCL doesn’t like OLED anyway, and yet it still claims that RGB technology doesn’t even beat its own mini-LED technology.
Only Hisense is fully committed to this, and will even withdraw its only OLED television from sale in 2026.
So what is the average TV buyer supposed to think? Obviously, the TechRadar TV team is going to be testing them to determine which ones are indeed very high-end and which ones should be real alternatives to OLED as a high-end TV choice… but for someone just trying to understand the options available and the level of quality you get from a particular type of technology, the RGB launch looks like a total failure.
And that’s before we try to take into account what’s in the panels themselves.
All RGB technologies are probably not created equal
Since the launch of mini-LEDs around 2021, the technology has become… complicated. There are no rules on what can be called “mini-LED”, so some of the TVs marketed this way today are just TVs that we would have known in the past as direct LED TVs. Samsung has even launched edge-lit TVs that it markets as mini-LED, which in my opinion pushes the definition too far.
But also, do you get better results with something with very small integrated LEDs, but terrible control of the light passing from one area to another, or with something with larger LEDs in fewer areas, but with better shaping of the light as it passes through the panel?
At first, the technology was very similar, but it grew over time into something complex with a million ways to approach its simple concept.
RGB TVs are launching with a lot of confusion around the specific implementation already built in, even though they offer such a clear original concept (having a colored backlight instead of a single color).
For example, did you know that some RGB TVs may not use red, green, and blue LEDs in each backlight element, like all the technology promises? There are versions of this technology that use two LEDs (blue and green) with a glow-in-the-dark color filter to create the full range of hues. It would be cheaper to manufacture, but it would certainly be less efficient.
Sony has made a lot of noise about how its next TV will feature individual red, green and blue LEDs for each backlight element, as this is high-end technology. Sony appears to be briefing against other brands that could cut corners, to make it clear that its (probably expensive) TV is worth it.
Who would launch a cheaper TV that would save money this way? Most people would probably guess Chinese brands that have been undercutting Sony and Samsung for years.
But Hisense is doing exactly the same briefing as Sony against unnamed competitors who could use the cheaper version. The company told me that its two new RGB TVs use all three LED colors, unlike a few this could use the dual LED system.
Okay, what about TCL? The company is certainly getting attention from TV enthusiasts following the outcome of a lawsuit that says it can no longer call certain TVs “QLED.” Well, TCL told me explicitly that its high-end RGB model not only uses all three RGB LEDs, but it actually has two of each LED per element to offer better light performance.
The company said that the red element even uses an individual control chip per red LED, because the red wavelength requires the most careful management. For green and blue, the two LEDs are each controlled by a single chip.
Now Sony has made a big song and dance about having one LED per color, and TCL is offering two LEDs per color here – which is more premium now, eh, Sony? The answer is: I have no idea! We should try both, but all of this leaves me exhausted rather than excited about a new technology that hasn’t even been released yet. Many companies point the finger at others for cutting corners, but everyone also successfully points out that they absolutely do not skimp on shortcuts.
The good news is that it should be very obvious whether TVs are using the cheapest system once we receive them in our labs, because the spectral power distribution of a TV screen is like a fingerprint for different technologies, since it measures the inherent luminance of different wavelengths inside the panel, which is adjusted based on the content.
But the thing is, we’re not even done with the tech confusion yet, because at CES 2026, Hisense literally didn’t show its two new RGB TVs at all, choosing instead to show the next version of the technology, which is no longer RGB. It’s RGBC, as the company apparently adds a cyan LED in addition to red, green, and blue.
Am I excited about this? I don’t know, man, why don’t you let me see what I think about RGB first!
And I haven’t even talked about how RGB TVs will often have “color zones” instead of the “dimming zones” you get with mini-LEDs, which means you have to divide the number of color zones by three in order to get the number equivalent to simple dimming zones, because color zones count all three RGB elements as independently dimmable (but that’s silly, because we only care about the number of zones in terms of their ability to render things black).
What do you tell people in your own advertising?
Look, it’s obviously great that the world of television is more innovative and competitive than it’s ever been right now. This will mean better results and cheaper TVs for those who buy them, so I’m far from crazy about any of this.
But I’m perplexed because the TV companies are making it harder for themselves and me by deploying this technology in such a chaotic way.
Take Hisense, which is betting valiantly on RGB being the flagship high-end TV. This will surely just announce that RGB is the best you can get – nice and easy, right? Except TCL will offer an RGB TV that significantly undercuts both Hisense TVs, so Hisense’s own advertising could work against it because it makes that TV look incredibly tempting compared to its own – and both companies have chosen to name their versions of the technology “Mini RGB”, so they’ll sound incredibly similar to most people.
When someone asks me if one type of TV technology is better than another, or even just if something is good for a particular purpose, I can normally give a succinct answer, even if it starts with “it depends.”
I really don’t know how to respond with RGB technology this year. I’ll probably have to tell people to ignore the name and just think of it as mini-LED because of how it’s interspersed with mini-LED technology between different manufacturers at similar prices.
But that seems like a waste of new screen technology, doesn’t it? OLED has brand dominance as simple as THE high-end TV technology, and RGB could have challenged it, but collectively the brand was diluted before it was even fully launched.
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