I don’t like the term “OLED Killer.” It’s been beaten to death, and is now pretty much clickbait. Only once, recently, I applied the term to a TV, mentioning it only to stoke discussion.
But I think I have found a real potential OLED killer. Sony showed it to me.
During a recent visit to Sony’s headquarters in Tokyo, I was shown a display prototype, and I haven’t seen anything like it before. Turns out, Sony has been working on RGB mini-LED for three years now. Having seen it, I can tell you: If there was ever going to be an OLED killer — at least in the premium TV space — this is it. It’s a game-changer.
What is mini-LED?
If you’re unclear on how RGB mini-LED technology works or don’t yet know why these TVs are so great, or if you’re screaming, “But Caleb, didn’t Hisense already announce this?”… let’s catch up and dig into why this is important.
Mini-LED TVs improved on regular LED TVs by shrinking down the size of the LED backlight. LED and mini-LED TVs have always used LCD panels, but the big improvements we’ve seen to LCD TVs have been to the backlight technology — like processing and dimming zones and brightness power — so we started calling them “LED TVs.” Now that mini-LED is out, we call them “mini-LED TVs.”
By making the LED backlights tiny, TV manufacturers have been able to cram more of them in a smaller amount of space and break down the grid of backlights into more numerous and smaller zones. In most cases, the benefits have been higher brightness, better black levels, better contrast — what we love to see when looking at a TV — and better efficiency. All of this became available with fewer of the annoying distractions of regular LED TVs, such as blooming, halo, and obvious backlight transitions — which can keep us from being fully immersed when watching a movie.
A cool aspect about mini-LED: It didn’t cost much to begin making. Only the backlight and processing (the brains behind the operation) had changed, so the TVs could be made using existing production. That allowed mini-LEDs to come down in price quickly, and democratized premium picture quality.
There are many reasons to love mini-LED, however like regular LED, it has a persistent weakness: the color of the mini-LED light.
The white light conundrum
LCD TVs have always worked by shining white light through a color filter. The purer the white light, the easier the color filter can do its job to deliver a beautiful picture. However, it’s too difficult to get pure white light from an LED, so TV makers had to settle on using blue LEDs or mini-LEDs to shine on red and green quantum dots — a combination that provides that nice, pure white light. These TVs are called “QLED TVs” — the Q stands for “quantum dots” — and they work great.
However, there’s a problem with a white backlight: It’s visible when it leaks through an LCD panel. It results in milky or grey blacks, and causes halos around bright objects on dark backgrounds. It makes getting shadow details in otherwise pitch-black scenes hard to pull off. And, because the color filter has to work so hard, it’s also hard to get expanded color gamut and color brightness. Our eyes love colors and they definitely enjoy sparkling brightness.
RGB mini-LED addresses these problems by eliminating the reliance on blue LEDs and the white light they create in partnership with quantum dots. When the backlight produces independent red, green, and blue colors, there are some key benefits. Backlight bleeding, blooming, and halo is reduced and harder to see. When watching the TV, you’re more drawn to the picture than the backlight that’s helping to create it. There’s also a lighter load on the LCD panel’s color filter; the less work it has to do, the more brightness can come through.
The RGB future is here
This is where Sony’s RGB mini-LED technology comes in. With today’s announcement, we now know that mass production of these RGB mini-LED displays will start this year. We’re probably looking at RGB mini-LED TVs from Sony in 2026. When that happens, I think the OLED TV story starts to shift.
Many enthusiasts have been wondering what a Bravia 10 might look like. I might be wrong, but I think it could be an RGB mini-LED TV — and I couldn’t be more excited.
Why am I waving around the “OLED-killer” term now? Why am I now talking so much about Sony’s RGB mini-LED without also talking about the RGB mini-LED that Hisense has already announced and will probably come to market with this year?
Let’s talk about the “OLED Killer” thing first. The only TV technology that could beat back OLED was one that got black levels, white brightness and color brightness, and color purity/color gamut up to OLED levels — or at least, perceptually up to OLED levels. It would also need to have awesome off-angle viewing, an area consistently dominated by OLED.
However, it isn’t just about picture quality. The real OLED killer will do all of that in a wide range of sizes — including up to 98 or 100 inches — and do it for less than OLED.
Sony’s RGB mini-LED tech can do all of that in my opinion. I think it will be able to punch up beyond the 77-inch screen size without spinning into super-expensive pricing territory. Providing picture quality that rivals OLED in all ways that matter, while also costing less — that’s the magic formula.
Let’s bring Hisense into the conversation. It’s going to be first, and will lay claim to having the first RGB mini-LED TV on the market. When its 116-inch monster TV starts hitting showrooms, home theaters, and maybe even some living rooms, it will likely be showered with praise. (I’ve seen a prototype of that TV in action, albeit briefly, and it is super impressive.)
Sony’s magic recipe?
What we haven’t talked about enough, however, is how hard it is to make RGB mini-LED backlighting work well.
Picture a screen showing a big yellow flower with bright green leaves. Both the yellow flower and green leaves are serviced by the same backlight zone. This requires some serious decisions that require quick execution. You have red, green, and blue primary colors to work with as a light source, and a color filter. Do you make the backlight yellow and use color filtering to get the green for the leaves? Do you make a green backlight and use color filtering to get the yellow for the flower? Which method is more efficient, and how is that decision made in real-time?
When I asked Sony’s engineers these questions, they didn’t provide the magic recipe, but did say that’s why they have been working on it for years and why it won’t be coming out until 2026. Sony isn’t interested in being first — they just want to be the best. (Sound familiar? Ahem Apple.)
It turns out, the processing required is quite tricky and difficult to pull off. We’re talking about coordinating additive color-mixing with one hand and subtractive color-making with the other. It’s taking a really hard job and making it a whole lot harder. But if anyone has the processing chops to do it, it’s Sony.
I was able to see Sony’s prototype do that exact thing: a yellow flower and green leaves, handled by a backlight showing just one color. Sony’s processing works, and very well. I was blown away by that RGB mini-LED TV. You don’t have to take my word for it. Many other respected journalists and content creators saw it, too, and will likely be providing similarly rave reviews.
The race is on
Clearly, Hisense also has the processing needed to pull off RGB mini-LED — I just don’t know how well it works compared to the Sony TV. (I hope to learn more when I visit Hisense soon.) Beyond how well their processing will work, I also don’t know their timetable for scaling RGB mini-LED tech down to normal-sized TVs. We can likely expect some smaller sizes (perhaps a 65-inch?) in 2026, because that’s how Hisense operates.
What we do know: Hisense will be competing directly with Sony. The race is on. We already have something exciting to look forward to in 2026, with a giant-sized appetizer coming in 2025, courtesy of Hisense. Now it’s just a matter of seeing how things shake out. I’d be surprised if at least one other brand didn’t toss its name in the RGB mini-LED ring as well.
Regardless, OLED now has a real challenger in the premium TV space. It will likely continue to win awards for years to come, but OLED won’t be the slam-dunk winner for best TV tech it once was.
That’s a good thing. Technological progress is what we need to stoke competition because when brands compete, consumers win. That’s what has me so excited about RGB mini-LED.
