What are Micro RGB TVs and why are they all over the place at CES 2026?

Micro RGB TVs first arrived with little fanfare and a complicated identify, so you could have mistaken it for different panel tech or not even observed. That’s not more likely to be the case this yr, although — it’s the recent new “luxurious” show expertise and is at . So why can we even want these new TVs and the way are they totally different from OLED, Micro LED and Mini LED fashions? Right here’s the way it works and the way it compares.

A short historical past of flat panel show tech

To higher perceive Micro RGB, it helps to see how flat panel show expertise has advanced over the past 20 years. The primary LCD TVs used liquid crystals that grow to be clear to mild when voltage is utilized, letting a rear backlight shine by means of as a pixel. These pixels mix to create transferring or nonetheless pictures, with shade created through an RGB filter layer positioned in entrance.

The primary downside is that LCD crystals let some mild partially leak by means of, so blacks are darkish gray as an alternative of pure black. And for a backlight, early LCD TVs used a white display screen lit by dim and power-hungry fluorescent lights, which triggered uneven mild distribution. And eventually, the RGB filter shade layer diminished a panel’s brightness.

The following step up, then, was to make use of LED backlights as an alternative, positioned at first on the edges of the white display screen after which later straight behind it (the primary TV with this tech was ). That added the advantages of upper brightness, decrease energy consumption, improved shade steadiness and even mild distribution. It additionally allowed particular person dimming zones that enhance distinction by permitting near-pure blacks in shadow areas of a picture.

Quantum dot (QD) expertise got here on the scene round 2013 with Sony’s Triluminos televisions. Any such LCD panel employs a semiconductor nanocrystal layer (quite than an RGB filter layer) that may produce pure monochromatic purple, inexperienced, and blue mild when struck with a blue backlight. Not like earlier LCDs, they provide greater brightness and shade accuracy due to the purity (narrowness) of the bottom RGB colours. The most effective-known TVs utilizing this tech are Samsung’s QLED fashions.

The most recent evolution of QD LED expertise is Mini LED. That mixes the accuracy of quantum dot tech with a whole lot and even hundreds of LED dimming zones. These fashions supply excessive brightness and shade accuracy together with good distinction, however nonetheless don’t ship good blacks and may show “blooming” in scenes with vivid factors of sunshine as a result of leakage into neighboring pixels.

Each of these issues have been solved with OLED expertise, which first got here available on the market in 2007 with . The panels are made utilizing sheets coated with natural LEDs, every paired with a transistor that may change the LED on or off. On common OLED TVs, OLED pixels are white and a filter layer generates colours, a lot as with LED TVs. Nonetheless, with QD-OLEDs, OLED pixels are blue and shade is created through a quantum dot layer, like LED QD shows. The most recent model of QD-OLED featured on (Samsung’s Fifth-gen QD-OLED) makes use of an RGB stripe sample to cut back shade “fringing” on textual content.

That is the primary, and nonetheless the one broadly commercialized TV tech that may change its mild supply off on a pixel-by-pixel foundation, permitting good black ranges and near-infinite distinction. Nonetheless, as a result of their natural nature, OLED TVs undergo from a scarcity of brightness and the potential for “burn-in” that may kill pixels.

There’s one other kind of self-illuminating tech known as Micro LED. Moderately than natural, it makes use of microscopic inorganic LEDs to kind the person pixel components. These can be turned on or off individually, so they provide the identical pure blacks and sky-high distinction as OLED. On the similar time they’re doubtlessly brighter than OLED and don’t undergo from burn-in. The tech continues to be prohibitively costly to fabricate, although, so none have arrived to market apart from Samsung’s , which prices a cool $40,000.

Micro RGB

Earlier than speaking about Micro RGB, let’s have a look at shade area and gamut each for HDR, which makes use of the BT.2020 customary, and SDR, generally related to the REC.709 customary. REC.709 is good for normal HD content material like TV broadcasts and YouTube movies. It might probably show a restricted set of colours and brightness is usually capped at 100 nits.

BT.2020, nevertheless, is designed for high-end HDR streaming and 4K or 8K content material creation (through Dolby Imaginative and prescient, HDR 10 or HDR10+). It has a a lot wider shade gamut, which means it could possibly show a greater variety of colours and a much bigger chunk of the seen shade spectrum. It’s additionally designed for considerably greater brightness ranges of 1,000 nits or extra.

To realize the colour accuracy required for BT.2020, TVs will need to have extraordinarily correct purple, inexperienced and blue pixels. Up till final yr, essentially the most color-accurate TVs used quantum dot expertise and achieved a most of round 85 % BT.2020 protection (some projectors can cowl one hundred pc or extra of the BT.2020 spectrum as they use RGB lasers to create colours).

That brings us to Micro RGB (also referred to as ), essentially the most superior LED panel but. Not like the uniform white or blue backlights discovered on Mini LED fashions, it options individually-controlled, exact purple, inexperienced and blue LED backlights that shine by means of a liquid crystal layer. It additionally provides extra native dimming zones. The web result’s greater shade accuracy and higher distinction than common Mini LED shows, however with doubtlessly higher brightness than OLED. Since every pixel nonetheless can’t be turned on and off like OLED or Micro LED, although, distinction falls in need of these applied sciences.

To date, there may be one and just one Micro RGB TV available on the market, . The colour accuracy is spectacular with one hundred pc protection of the difficult BT.2020 HDR customary, an industry-first and big leap over quantum dot tech. Which means it could possibly produce billions of colours natively and show a better proportion of them within the seen spectrum than any TV up to now.

Samsung disregarded a couple of key specs just like the native dimming zone depend, solely saying that it has 4 instances greater than its similarly-priced 115-inch Q90F QLED mannequin (so doubtless round 3,600). The corporate additionally did not disclose the whole brightness in nits, however the determine ought to be spectacular given the potential of Micro RGB.

We have been gobsmacked with the MR95F Micro RGB mannequin in individual. Engadget editor Sam Rutherford mentioned it produced “stunningly wealthy and vivid colours that put Samsung’s different top-tier TVs to disgrace,” together with the aforementioned Q90F. It additionally got here with an equally beautiful $29,999 price ticket.

A few different producers together with have additionally launched RGB Mini LED fashions just like Samsung’s Micro RGB, however they differ barely in that the RGB modules are bigger than those discovered on Samsung’s newest TVs.

Which firms may have Micro RGB tech at CES 2026?

Fortunately, the variety of Micro RGB TVs is about to dramatically enhance. Earlier this month, Samsung a full lineup utilizing the expertise with 55-, 65-, 75-, 85-, 100- and 115-inch display screen sizes, saying they’d set “a brand new customary for premium house viewing.” These units may even supply one hundred pc BT.2020 HDR protection underneath a brand new certification customary known as Micro RGB Precision Coloration 100. Whereas actually more likely to carry extra cheap costs than the primary mannequin, they’ll in all probability nonetheless be Samsung’s costliest TVs when launched later this yr.

And on Sunday, Samsung additionally revealed a 130-inch Micro RGB prototype meant to showcase the expertise. As soon as once more, it blew us away partially simply due to the large measurement, but additionally because of the unbelievable “shade accuracy and richness,” as Engadget editor Devindra Hardawar put it. “I couldn’t assist however discover how everybody simply appeared a bit shocked, just like the monkeys from 2001 seeing the monolith for the primary time,” he added.

On the similar time, LG its first Micro RGB “evo” TV lineup in 75-, 86- and 100-inch fashions. The corporate can also be promising one hundred pc BT.2020 shade gamut protection and mentioned the units may have over a thousand native dimming zones for shade management. Not solely that, it mentioned that its new TVs will ship one hundred pc protection in SDR modes as nicely, each for Adobe RGB and the problem P3 customary.

It was attention-grabbing to check LG’s Wallpaper and different OLED units with the brand new Micro RGB tech, with our editor Devindra once more being amazed. “LG already announced its Micro RGB set a couple of weeks in the past, however that did not put together me for standing in entrance of the 100-inch demo TV it delivered to CES,” he mentioned. “All through quite a lot of clips, colours appeared splendidly wealthy, and the general texture of the photographs appeared surprisingly life-like.”