I feel like it used to be size, color, and clarity meant more expensive. Now I look at a 500$ 4k TV and a 2000$ 4k TV and I don’t know what the difference is. They can both be smart TVs, be the same size, and have a lot of same advertised features, but what are the subtle unspoken mysteries that justify a huge price gap?
The screen technology is the biggest differentiator. Cheap sets use LCD. Some will have local dimming zones where parts of the backlight dim in order to increase contrast a bit, but there is light bleed which I find distracting
There’s a newer tech called mini LED which is basically an LCD with an array of much smaller led backlights behind it than a cheaper set. This allows for much more precise local dimming of pixels, creating a picture with a better contrast ratio and much less light bleed.
The more expensive stuff is OLED which is a different technology entirely. Its main benefit is that each pixel is lit independently without the need for backlighting which provides VERY deep blacks (the pixels are off), often described as a near infinite contrast ratio, with no light bleed. The main drawbacks are low peak brightness and the possibility of burn in, though both are getting better with time.
The newest and priciest is micro LED, which uses self illuminating LEDs as pixels so it has the same contrast advantages as OLED but it has much higher peak brightness and no burn in. This is extremely expensive and not widely available yet, but is being pitched as replacing OLED eventually.
We fell asleep with the Diablo 3 inventory screen open on our OLED and now it’s permanently burned in. Thankfully it is only noticable against yellow backgrounds. Other than that drawback, OLED screens are amazing. We have a 4k LCD screen in another room and it looks like trash compared to the OLED.
Have you tried doing a pixel refresh? One night of a static screen shouldn’t cause burn in on any OLED panel.
Yes, we went through all of the troubleshooting and possible fix steps, and then went through them again when we tried to file a warranty claim. Of course they claimed screen burn in isn’t covered by the warranty. There were multiple times that we walked away from that game with the inventory open. Never for more than a few hours, but I guess that plus the one night was enough. Thanks for the idea though!
Did you at least have some nice equipment? It could bring back fond memories of a past build.