TVs continue to push the envelope in terms of size, luminance and color capabilities, but perhaps the big news was the showcasing of LCD TVs with RGB backlights. While these were shown in private rooms at CES 2025, they were highlighted on the show floor at CES 2026.

These TV are generating both excitement and controversy as just before CES, LG Display posted videos suggesting there were issues with the new RGB backlit TV and that OLEDs were still superior. But at CES, LG Electronics showcased their version of an RGB LCD TV and highlighted its benefits.

While these RGB backlit should enable more saturated colors as well as a brighter or more efficient display, as LG Display pointed out, these are still zoned TVs and there is concern about color crosstalk – light leaking from zone to zone, as well as color instead of white halos around objects. However, such concerns are probably overstated as ordinary video content will likely not have the type of detail that will lead to noticeable artifacts – but only testing by the experts will reveal this down the road.

In other news, TCL announced a new TV that will use “super quantum dots (SQD).” Such QDs are not a new variation but simply QDs that have a very high specificity and tolerance. According to Nanosys, they are now supplying SQDs with a 1nm tolerance which will allow the display to push its gamut toward the spectral locus, expanding it color gamut. TCL’s flagship TV, the X11L series will be powered by SQD mini-LED backlight with the TV able to deliver an amazing 10K nits (in a 3% window) and 20K dimming zones. It looked incredible.

Samsung gets the prize for the biggest TV – a 130-inch model being offered in two styles. It is an LCD TV driven with an RGB microLED backlight. No performance detail or availability were discussed at CES.

Although Tianma is not a TV maker, they did show a 108-inch 4K microLED display at CES. Composed of a series of 8.9-inch tiles, formed into 27-inch modules, assembled in the 108-inch display, Tianma highlighted the fact that they made the display using an all-laser manufacturing process. This means, they used a laser to transfer the microLEDs dies to a carrier substrate and a laser to transfer to the final glass substrate. The microLEDs are on the order of 20-microns on an LPTS glass backplane with connectivity routed over the edges of each tile. Uniformity looked quite good.

Also impressive was the latest QD-OLED display shown by Samsung Display. This achieves 4,500 nits of luminance (in a 3% window?) making the highlights on the content really pop.

Many of the TV brands were also claiming 100% or higher coverage of the BT.2020 color gamut for some TVs without making clear they were referring to area coverage not standard coverage. Since the BT.2020 RGB primaries are single wavelengths, only lasers at those wavelengths can claim to offer 100% coverage of the BT.2020 standard. What seems to be happening is that companies are shifting the RGB primaries of their TV to create a gamut area that is as big or bigger than the area contained in the BT.2020 standard. Yes, these TVs have a wide gamut, but they cannot create 100% of the colors within the BT.2020 standard.