Hisense’s 116-inch UX Trichroma TV, unveiled at CES 2025, showcases a groundbreaking RGB LED technology poised to revolutionize display technology. While not boasting individual pixel control like OLED or MicroLED, this innovative system offers comparable contrast, exceptional brightness, remarkable accuracy, and other compelling advantages, challenging the dominance of existing display technologies.
The core of this advancement lies in the reimagining of backlighting. Traditional LED TVs employ local dimming with numerous LEDs and dimming zones to mitigate light bleed around bright objects against dark backgrounds. However, even the most advanced models suffer from some haloing and fall short of the pure blacks delivered by emissive displays like OLED and MicroLED, where each pixel generates its own light. Hisense’s RGB LED departs from this conventional approach by utilizing thousands of optical lenses, each housing red, green, and blue LEDs. This allows the panel to produce “pure colors directly at the source,” bypassing the color filters used in traditional LED TVs, resulting in a wider color gamut, claimed to cover 97% of the BT.2020 color space.
The direct generation of color at the light source affords the RGB LED technology several performance benefits. It achieves exceptional brightness levels while simultaneously enhancing backlight control, significantly reducing light bleed, a phenomenon Hisense terms “RGB local dimming.” This contrasts with traditional LED local dimming, where zones of LEDs, while improving contrast, still contribute to light bleed. Based on initial observations, Hisense’s RGB technology delivers deeper blacks, superior contrast, and a broader color palette compared to current LED TVs, potentially rivaling even OLED and MicroLED.
The emergence of RGB LED technology introduces a new contender in the ongoing “brightness wars” of display technology. While OLED TVs currently reign supreme in overall picture quality, boasting perfect black levels, near-infinite contrast, excellent off-axis viewing, and wide color gamuts, they are often outshone by high-end LED TVs in terms of peak brightness. Although flagship OLED models are pushing boundaries with brightness levels approaching 2,000 nits, and potentially even 4,000 nits in small windows with recent advancements, Hisense’s RGB LED technology presents a viable alternative, potentially surpassing these figures while simultaneously offering comparable, and in some areas, superior picture quality characteristics.
The implications of Hisense’s RGB LED technology are significant. It potentially offers a compelling alternative to OLED, providing similar, and in some aspects, superior picture quality, especially regarding brightness. While OLED continues to excel in aspects like per-pixel dimming and off-axis viewing, RGB LED offers a potent combination of brightness, contrast, and color accuracy that could reshape the landscape of high-end displays. Furthermore, the scalability of this technology, demonstrably showcased in the 116-inch Trichroma TV, suggests its potential applicability across various screen sizes, potentially impacting not only televisions but also other display applications.
The arrival of Hisense’s RGB LED technology marks a pivotal moment in display technology. While further development and real-world testing are required to fully assess its long-term potential and market impact, the initial demonstrations are promising. This technology has the potential to not only disrupt the existing hierarchy of display technologies but also to accelerate innovation in the industry, leading to a richer and more diverse landscape of display options for consumers. The competition between RGB LED, OLED, and MicroLED promises to be a driving force in the evolution of display technology in the coming years, ultimately benefiting consumers with even more compelling and immersive viewing experiences.
