What's the big deal about LED backlit LCDs?

Just wondering what everyone's opinion/information is on the major advantages/features of LED backlit LCD displays. Only things I've really heard/seen are greater battery efficiency and being "greener" (maybe due to manufacturing process?).

 

Longer battery life, longer life span, lighter and usually brighter than CCFL.

a LED backlit is no guarantee for image quality though, there are bad LED backlit screens and good ones.

 

In theory an LED backlight should:
-Use less power
-Be brighter
-Last longer
-Provide better colors
-Be physically smaller

Some screens do all of these, some screens only do some, some don't do anything well. Obviously having a thinner, lighter laptop that gets better battery life and a brighter screen sounds good to most people. Also LEDs last a long time where CCFLs are still known to die after only a few years which means an expensive ($200-600) repair or being permanently tied to an external monitor.

 

I completely agree with you.

-J.B.

 

I believe the lighting is more uniform across the screen, less to none of the backlight bleeding you get from CCFL.

 

I've seen a couple LED screens with a lot of bleeding. I would not say LED screens have less backlight bleeding than CCFL.

 

actually LED has a LOT of backlight bleed because, unlike CCFL which shines a light from the back of the screen, an LED shines light from the bottom and top edges. I dont' know if I'm using any of the terminology correctly, but that's my understanding of it.

 

ccfl shines from top and bottom, too (unsure if this is true for all screens.. but i've at least some where it's true)

 

LEDs are like SSDs. You can't really say they're always better than their respective competition (CCFLs and HDs). They have potential to be a lot better, and they have general features which are typically better but it really depends on the make and model of it.

 

better viewing angles!!!

 

No, the viewing angles are the same. Also, there is no better color on LED backlit screens. These early ones are usually a little on the bluish side.

Greg

 

Yeah, the main advantages of LED displays are being less power consuming, have longer lifespan and being brighter.

They are still more expensive to make than CCFLs so CCFL is still the norm for notebook screens.

 

One of the reasons LED backlight is used is to get higher color gamut (color spectrum in the NTSC specification). That's why makers such as Dell can market 100% Adobe color gamut. This is almost impossible with CCFL backlight.

 

it's just the form factor of led's that makes them a little screwy to me. it must be a lot of little units strung together like a string of pearls. but whatever they use, they need to make more serviceable.

eventually, everything is going to go led.

i have fenix led flashlight with a single cree emitter that uses a single AA battery. it produces much more light and a higher quality beam than a multi-led flashlight with 2 D cells did a few years ago. forget about power hungry incandescents.

 

A good LED backlight will

> Be brighter
> Use less power @ the same brightness as the older tech
> Have no backlight bleed
> Have a longer life span
> Have no "hotspots"

I have yet to own or use a LED backlit screen that did not achieve all of the above, but I guess if it was cheaply designed & made you could lose a few of those benefits.

 

I have an LED LCD 1440 x 900 (as described by Dell) on my XPS M1530. Is this how all LED are advertised? Is this a hybrid or true LED screen?

 

should be a true screen.

The LED is just the BACKLIGHT, the source of light for the display. Not the display itself. The display panels are the same as they always have been since the incandescent tubes.

 

Thats the beauty of this forum. I'm always learning something new; as abvious as it may seem.

 

LED backlight uses low voltage (so no inverter to go wrong), is all solid state, does not dim with time (as CCFL tends to do). The better energy efficiency makes it easier to provide brighter backlight which uses less power.

There was the technical challenge of getting even backlighting from a series of point sources (my Sony G11 has slightly uneven lighting along the bottom of the display) but seems to have been overcome.

The cost premium over CCFL backlighting will reduce and disappear as manufacture of the new displays increases.

John

 

Having repaired many screens with broken backlights, I must say that there is NOTHING and I mean NOTHING more frustrating than replacing a CCFL backlight. I don't care about anything other than longevity in regards to backlights, the additional pros of LEDs are nice, but the fact that they last for a significantly longer time is what sold me.

Soldering the stupid power leads coming out of an inverter while not tearing a screen apart is virtually impossible, it takes several hours and usually results in dead pixels. Thankfully some modern LCD monitors allow you to slot load the CCFL. Regardless, those many horribly negative experiences involving soldering irons and hundreds of wasted hours have turned me away from CCFLs for a very long time.

 

I'm currently switching all my systems to SSDs. I _have_ switched all my light to LEDs (yes, all roomlighting is LED based). And I can't switch back anymore. Once you started to use it, there's no turning back

The only thing without LED is my 24" lcd screen. My notebook has LED light and is great. (then again, tablet screens are always great compared to nontablet, so i heard)

 

odd, my 2408 isn't LED but it advertises 108% color gamut. are they lying

 

Probably uses a dithering technique but yeah its not a true 108%

@ davepermen What kind of LED's are you using for home lighting? Do they fit in a standard lightbulb socket?

 

Many people believe they 'must' have a LED screen because they believe it will look great. That's a mistake. For example the LG/Philips in the Macbooks has a 1:150 contrast rate. Even the CCFL ECO screen in Sony FW (single lamp) does better than that.

 

yes they all fit into standard lightbulps.. i have uhm.. i have to google.. i shopped at www.pearl.de

(but a warning: you need a lot of money, and a lot of lightbulps still, i love them. i love espencially, that they're instant-on. this is just something you get so used to, you really can't stand ordinary lights anymore, that had to take some time to illuminate..


I'm an official Solid State freak. I love Solid State Disks, and i love Solid State Lighting.

 

Dave:

Do the LEDs work correctly on dimming circuits?

 

yes, if you like stroboscope disco lights nope they don't. there are some special fabrications, that even work for dimming, but normally, no.

the other idea would be to build a cirquit that illuminates an array of led depending on power input, to simulate dimming with the amount of "on" leds.

 

I found a few shops, they range from $30 to $120. Looks to me even though they are expensive the life of the product and the power draw they use will make them pay for themselves over time. Plus I can get cool white instead of warm white

But they do not appear as good of a deal as the florescents I bought not too long ago to replace my regular light bulbs, they dont cost much at all, have a longer life than a normal light, give a "cool white" and also still use less power. Seems to be the middle man between a normal lightbulb and the leds that has a win/win between price & performance.

These are the ones I am talking about: http://www.lightbulbsdirect.com/page/001/PROD/EnergyStar/UB274

I still have to get atleast one LED light though just so I can say I gave it a shot.

 

they can be dimmed, you just have to step down the voltage.

stormeffect, i hear ya, and all that tape bs. that's why I stressed that they need to make these serviceable as a standard. I did this once on a samsung screen and that will be the last... unless i think of a way to replace the ccfl and reflector as a unit.

 

Interesting...

I am looking for the laptop with the best image quality, and I had almost formed the opinion that the RGB LED backlit displays will provide better image quality than CCFL displays. Is that not the case?

Just to add an example - which of the two laptops mentioned below will give me better picture quality :

-- Sony FW with dual lamp CCFL dislplay
-- Dell M6400 17'' with RGB LED display
-- Sony AW 18.4'' with Adobe RGB LED display

 

I was trying to find a decently priced laptop with a LED back-light ... alas nothing for now.
I was mildly disappointed with the fact my Acer 5930G came with CCFL, however, there is reason to think the CCFL in present day laptops will be better from the ones used 2 and a half years ago, so I'm ok with it for the most part.

In another 2 and a half years though, there is a pretty good possibility that virtually all laptops will feature a LED back-light.
The pro's of the LED back-light significantly outweigh the CCFL's in my opinion for the reasons which were already stated above.

 

My remark was about White LED displays, not about RGB LED displays.

Generally speaking RGB LED displays will have better color reproduction than CCFL displays.

Without seeing them the RGB LEDs are likely to have better image quality than the CCFL. But that's an assumption that isn't always right. So it would be better to go look yourself or dig up some reviews to confirm.

 

How come? Look for ASUS' N series laptops which all have LED backlight:

N80Vn-X1 (14.1") - $899 + free shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220389

N80Vn-GP011C (14.1") - $1149
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220391

N50Vn-A1B (15.4") - $949
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220393

 

Studio 15 has an excellent LED screen too. One of the best: 287 cd/m² real brightness and 714:1 real contrast.
http://www.notebookjournal.de/tests/test_dell_studio_15_montevina-737/4

 

I forgot to mention I was looking for such laptops in UK (where they are severely overpriced).
Find me a notebook in UK with Acer 5930G specs that costs the same (£600 or up to £650) AND has a led back-light.

 

According to the manufacturer and resellers, this is an error. Only the WXGA screen is LED, the others are CCFL.