In the industry we have been with LED panel monitors and their sub technologies such as IPS, VA or TN for a long time, but of course there are other variations of the backlighting technology of the monitors in process, being the mini LED technology the most important because it is already a reality. In this article we are going to tell you what this technology consists of , how it differs from traditional LED panels, and which monitors you can buy with this technology.
Mini LED technology is considered one of the great revolutions in display panels, as it brings together the advantages of current LED panels but also OLED screens, without the disadvantages of these such as burn-in. But before going to talk about it in depth, let’s first see what this new technology consists of.
What is mini LED technology and how does it work?
Today’s monitors that use LED technology actually mean that the backlighting panel that brightens the screen has LEDs. If a conventional LED panel has LEDs of a size of 1,000 microns, as the name indicates, mini LED panels have LEDs of a smaller size, in this case approximately 200 microns , which means a reduction in the size of the 80% per diode, or in other words, five times more points of light are now integrated on the same surface.
The use of this technology allows for higher contrast and dynamic range , with more intense colors and a greater difference between the brightest whites and the darkest blacks. Therefore, we are talking that a monitor with a mini LED panel is quite close to the values that an OLED panel gives but without the disadvantages of it, although it is true that one of the advantages of OLED panels is that each pixel is light emitting itself, they do not have backlighting as such.
What improvements does this technology bring compared to traditional LED?
Most modern LCD models use LEDs for their backlighting; When an LED is illuminated through an LCD panel displaying a black or dark scene, the blacks fade out and are not “black” at all. The LCD panel, in a way, blocks the light coming from behind. To combat this problem, panel manufacturers turned to local dimming. By dimming the specific LEDs in the backlight behind an LCD panel, the blacks appear shallower literally because they have less light.
The problem is that due to traditional LEDs, whose size is around 1,000 microns, as we have said, only a certain number of diodes can be placed behind the screen, and the areas they illuminate are relatively large, so dimming a single LED makes a fairly large portion of the screen is dimmed. In comparison, using mini LED technology that is five times smaller in size, the dimmed area is much more accurate, allowing not only greater definition, but much deeper blacks because the highlights are smaller.
How is the mini LED different from the micro LED and OLED?
Panels with micro LED backlighting have diodes even smaller than those with mini LEDs, and as a comparison to give you an idea, Samsung‘s micro LED panels place 3 points of light for each pixel where mini LED panels place only one. . In other words, micro LED panels have a density of LEDs three times higher than mini LEDs, but in return they are much more difficult and therefore expensive to manufacture.
Ultimately this provides the best contrast ratio and color control that is possible with current technology. For its part, OLED technology is quite similar to micro LEDs in terms of performance but allows each pixel to emit its own light, and this is the reason why these types of displays offer the deepest blacks and brightest whites of the world. the industry.
Monitors available with mini LED technology
At present there are already several television models available with this technology, but when we refer to monitors for PC, things change and the offer in the market is much more scarce, as much as that for now there is only one model available that can be to buy.
This is the Dell UltraSharp 32 HDR PremiereColor monitor, which of course is geared towards imaging and content creation professionals and comes loaded with top-of-the-line features, but it is also quite expensive and, in fact, we could say that only the most fortunate pockets will be able to afford it since its price is around 4,500 euros .
This monitor has all the high-end features that characterize the manufacturer’s UltraSharp range, such as its base that allows total ergonomics, but undoubtedly stands out for its more than 2,000 backlight zones, a coverage of 99.8% of the space DCI-P3 color and 93% Adobe RGB, DisplayHDR 1000 certification (with a brightness of 1,000 cd / m2) and everything you can imagine oriented to content creation.
