by Nicholas Ward

Created on: June 24, 2010

When comparing LCD TVs to LED TVs you have to realize that they are both the same technology. The only difference between LED and LCD is that LED is considerably slimmer so lets take a look at why it's slimmer.

LCD screens are built using a solid sheet of glass, which when lit up projects color based on the specified input voltage on each pixel contained within them. This process allows the TV to display a picture, while you may have already known that. What you may not have known is that LED TVs do the exact same thing.

The difference between an LCD TV and an LED TV is the way that they generate that light. The light in a standard LCD TV is generated by using small florescent bulbs similar to the ones found used in schools, shops, and government facilities. While this has proven to be effective, there are some issues with this method.

Florescent bulbs, while they do have a long life, do not live forever. This means that components need to be changed once in a while for an electronic component. This is not a good thing. The second problem is that while the florescents can be very small, they have to extend the full length of the image, and in order to properly display light through the glass they need to be of a large enough radius to generate the needed light. Bigger screens need bigger florescents. Because of this, bigger screens typically are not as skinny or light.

With LED technology the drawbacks of florescents have been removed; instead of using big bulky florescent bulbs full of gas they instead use LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) to generate the light you see flowing through your TV screen.

This has three big advantages the first is that by using bright LED's, they can position the lights directly behind the screen. This gives the viewer a wider viewing angle and a more evenly lit screen. The second advantage is that LED's can be as small as you need them to be. LED's are basically a resistor without a casing, as voltage passes through the LED it meets with resistance, and with no casing or a clear casing, the resistance generates heat which creates light. The final advantage to using LED technology is that LED's tend to last longer then humans do. So short of an electrical problem LED TVs may well still be kicking for you to give them to your grandchildren.

As you can see, the LED TVs have some serious advantages over LCD, but they are both based on the same technology. When you hear about LED TVs, you may think it's new, but it's not really new LED's have been around since before the 80's and they will probably be around for a lot longer too.

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