Quantum dot TVs beat RGB LED TVs, says a company that makes QD TVs

At the Los Angeles Convention Center, two 85-inch TVs sit side-by-side inside the Nanosys lounge during Display Week – an annual business-to-business conference that focuses on display technology of all kinds. One TV was a mini-LED panel with high-quality dots, and the other was RGB LED – the hottest TV trend this year. Both TVs were showing the same thing at the same time to show the difference between the two technologies – or more specifically, to show the possible shortcomings of RGB LED backlights compared to super quantum dot (SQD), which uses blue LEDs for backlighting.

I have to say that Nanosys made quantum dots for the first TV.

The TV on the right, with Nanosys super quantum dots, is labeled Image of TCL X11L – the low-striped grill proves as much – and the other was probably the TCL RM9L. Nanosys couldn’t confirm the details, but I’ve seen RGB LED TVs from Hisense, Samsung, LG, and Sony individually, and that wasn’t it. Jeff Yurek, vice president of marketing at Nanosys, told me that both TVs were in Filmmaker Mode and the color was set to natural so they could all hit the big shots.

As a quick refresher, RGB LED TVs use red, green, and blue LEDs that are divided into groups to create colored lights based on the image displayed on the screen. In theory, this gives the TV brighter and more saturated colors than mini-LED TVs like the X11L with blue LEDs, without having to rely on quantum dots. The the first thing found is that the colored light emitted by the backlight attacks adjacent pixels or areas that differ in color, which is called color crosstalk. Basically, this can cause the red of a bright shirt or hat to make the owner’s skin red. And that’s exactly what this show showed.

Throughout the show, the same video feed went to both TVs. One picture showed three lines: two rows of boxes with the primary and secondary colors – blue, green, red, cyan, magenta, and yellow – and the third had a thin cross on a black background under each color box. The top row of boxes can alternate between a solid box and one with a white cross inside. On an RGB LED TV, when a white cross appeared on the top line, it was easy to see the color of the area around the cross was lighter and less saturated. This kind of crosstalk doesn’t just happen within the top row of boxes; the color of the box from the middle row also appears in the bottom row of crosses. This is shown on TV’ BT.2020 color gamut in the same way, introducing a white cross reduces the spread of BT.2020, especially with blue and green colors.

But unless you’re like me, you don’t watch solid blocks on your TV for entertainment. The result is also skin folds – something that, like people, is easily recognized. As the color of the blocks comes out of the white cross, so the color of the skin; Pictures of a black woman’s face caused her skin to change to look like a background. To make sure my eye doesn’t bleed, unlike the TV, I use the viewfinder to focus on one side of the woman’s face, blocking out the rest. I could still tell what color it was because of the change in his skin.

SQD TV did not display a wide range of colors. It also had better contrast, which comes down to the number of dimming zones. The X11L is advertised as having a capacity of up to 20,000, though according to Rtingsthe 85-inch model has 14,400 – an impressive number. The RGB LED TV used for comparison has, I was told, about 8,000 areas less. One reason why this number is low is because each dimming unit on an RGB TV, at least, must have three LEDs – red, green, and blue – and those take up space. But when the backlight is made up of only blue LEDs, one LED can be a smaller space, with better control.

All of this is reflected in the real thing. During the fast-paced and fast-cut scenes, I can also notice the difference in the bright colors that affect those around them, especially with the skin. And in the night view, a distinct difference was evident. If the RGB LED TV was in the room alone, with no SQD TV in comparison, I don’t think the crosstalk would be as bright. Our eyes can quickly become accustomed to visual objects, and we stop seeing them. But ignoring the comparison doesn’t solve the problem.

This is not new. Industry experts have been concerned about the potential for color variations in RGB LED TVs since the technology debuted at CES 2025. Those concerns have grown as RGB LED TVs hit the market this year. LG Display, mainly an OLED panel manufacturer that is in direct competition with RGB LED, he made videos a few weeks before this year’s CES, I’m highlighting the problems.

Of course, both Nanosys and LG Display have interests in reducing RGB TV technology. The performance of a single RGB LED TV does not tell the story everything RGB LED TV. I didn’t notice any conflicting issues during my review This UR9although the more I see other RGB LED TVs, the more I think that Hisense can ignore this issue and return to white light, not RGB, every time there are more colors on the screen. Also the potential of Sony’s upcoming RGB LED TVs could make colors meaningless on those sets. And we are still at the beginning of the RGB LED TV story. As technology continues to grow and improve, these issues should be mitigated. But in 2026, SQD seems to have the upper hand.