LCD stands for liquid crystal display. An LCD television works by shining a backlight through a layer of liquid crystal material, which twists to let more or less light through at each pixel, and then through colour filters to produce the final image. The liquid crystal layer itself does not produce light, so a separate backlight is always required.
This basic design underpins several marketing names buyers see in shops. A QLED television is an LCD with a quantum dot colour layer added, and a set with a Mini-LED backlight is still an LCD as well. What varies between models is mainly the quality of the backlight and its dimming control, along with the colour layer used.
Compared with self emissive OLED panels, LCD televisions generally reach higher peak brightness for a given price, which suits bright rooms, while black levels depend heavily on how well the backlight can dim behind dark parts of the picture. Our TV types overview compares LCD based sets with OLED across everyday viewing situations.
