Make sense of TV tech with our jargon buster

QLED stands for ‘Quantum Dot Light Emitting Diode’ – another popular kind of display panel. It features a built-in quantum dot layer, which creates a rich spectrum of colour when exposed to a backlight.

Why choose a QLED TV:

• Improved contrast between the darkest and brightest parts of a picture

• A bold and more varied colour palette (that’s far more life-like too)

• Seriously durable – you could happily game for 24 hours without experiencing burn-in

• Pushed to the limit by Samsung, who pioneered the tech - and offer the biggest variety of QLED TVs

OLED stands for ‘Organic Light Emitting Diode’ - a type of display panel inside the TV. It’s made up of pixels which illuminate themselves without the need of an LED backlight.

Why choose an OLED TV:

• Lower power consumption

• Enhanced image quality – see vibrant colours, with clearer whites and deeper blacks

• Perfect for football and other sports thanks to a lack of motion blur

• Faster response times – your display will change quickly from one colour to another. This makes them an ideal gaming TV, as it’ll easily keep up with the fastest action

• A super slim screen (as there’s no backlight on an OLED TV)

• Tech favoured by big, trustworthy names like LG, Sony and Panasonic

The part of the TV that makes light, which the screen needs to work properly. It’s found behind the display panel.

• It makes your screen glow – which is quite important if you want to see what’s going on

• Adds depth to shadows and makes brighter colours more vivid.

Otherwise known as High Dynamic Range, it creates far better contrast between really light colours and really dark ones on the screen.

Why choose a TV with HDR:

• You’ll see more accurate detail, shadows and colours

• The human eye can pick up more light, colour and detail than a TV can usually display. But with HDR, the picture you’re seeing is more true-to-life than ever before

The most common TV tech around - with 4 times the resolution of full HD (which it has quickly replaced). 4K TVs have about 8.3 million pixels in total.

Why choose a 4K UHD TV:

• Loads of 4K content available – from streaming to gaming

• Better definition, texture and detail – with a crisper, more defined picture

• Much brighter colours

• Upscales any HD content to near 4K quality

Tiny crystals of slightly different sizes that glow – and produce colours - when a light is shone on them. Found in QLED TVs, a layer of quantum dots sit in front of the backlight.

Why choose a TV with Quantum Dot:

• Can produce over a billion colours

• Colour is more authentic and natural

If a video or image is repeated over and over for a long period of time on a TV, it can leave a permanent mark.

Don’t worry though. This only really happens on display units that are on 7 days a week in a shop. Even if you were unlucky enough to leave your TV on for 24 hours playing the exact same thing, there’s built-in smart tech to prevent problems.

Most brands use a screen saver function. Others use screen shift or logo luminance adjustment to protect your image quality, or lower brightness automatically. All of this is designed to prevent long term damage to the screen.

Using a bunch of tiny LED lights, local dimming improves the light and dark tones on your screen. It’ll switch off certain areas of pixels to make whites brighter and blacks even bolder.

Why use local dimming:

• Sometimes light can bleed through onto your screen in the wrong places. This would usually make a distracting halo effect, but local dimming stops this from happening

• Colours will really pop

Cutting-edge resolution with 4 times more pixels than 4K (about 33 million in total). It’s a level up from 4K.

Why choose an 8K TV:

• It’s the highest resolution type of ultra-high-definition TV you can currently buy

• A seriously bold and sharp picture, with even more detail than 4K

• More defined colours, and even more clarity

• Most 8K TVs don’t come smaller than 50 inches - and we reckon that sometimes a bigger TV is better

• Into your gaming? Dynamic resolution scaling automatically adjusts your picture quality to be the best it can be. Those nail-biting multiplayer victories never looked so good

• Upscales HD/4K content for improved 8K viewing

Your TV’s picture quality is decided by its resolution, as well as the type of screen and other key tech. But what is resolution? It’s the number of pixels that make up your TV’s picture, measured up horizontally and then vertically across the screen. The higher the numbers, the better the picture will be.

Like a flipbook, a TV picture is a series of images shown at high speed. The faster these images flash up on screen, the smoother the picture. The processing rate tells you how fast that happens. Measured in hertz (Hz) – the higher the number the better, as it generates a smoother, less blurry picture. Perfect for watching the footy or gaming!

The best of local dimming tech. Small separate LED lights are placed behind the screen in various zones. These zones are then brightened or dimmed to suit whatever you’re watching – offering even better picture quality.

Why use full-array local dimming:

• It makes the picture on 4K HDR TVs look even better, with improved colour contrast

• More accurate dimming areas - less light will bloom near the brightest sections of the screen

Instead of being sat behind the screen, LED lights are positioned around its edges. They use much fewer LEDs than full-array or back-lit TVs.

Why use edge-lit local dimming:

• TVs with this tech are usually slimmer - so there’s more space for the rest of your setup

• They’re more energy efficient than TVs with other kinds of dimming

Sometimes called ‘global dimming’ (just to make things a bit more confusing), the LED light sits behind the screen. With the LED’s working together as a single light, the whole picture will get lighter or darker when it needs to.

Why use back-lit local dimming:

• It’s usually found on affordable types of TV, making dimming tech even more accessible

• Light is spread more evenly across the whole picture - instead of being limited to a few zones

Almost every modern TV is ‘smart’. This just means that they connect seamlessly to your Wi-Fi at home, letting you easily stream online content.

Why choose a smart TV:

• Stream Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime and more through their dedicated apps

• Play videos from your phone straight to your telly

• You won’t need to buy a separate streaming box or stick

• Connect to Alexa, Google Assistant, or other smart devices in your house

• A smooth and fast user experience

TV shows, films and other content that’s recorded or broadcast in 4K resolution.

• Loads of 4K content available from streaming giants Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and BBC iPlayer

• 4K programming on Sky and Virgin Media TV. Discover your next favourite box set, documentary or blockbuster film in stunning quality

• Xbox Series X and PS5 both support 4K resolution. Smash your enemies in style with smoother gaming and far more detail

• Watch your team fight for the title on BT Sport Ultimate

• 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray films for an amazing cinematic experience

Content that’s recorded or broadcast in 8K resolution. A step up from 4K.

• BT Sport and Samsung recently teamed up to broadcast matches from the Premier League and Champions League

• Stream video from the likes of YouTube and Vimeo

• The Tokyo 2020 Olympics covered major events in the format – and this’ll probably carry on at Paris 2024

Quickly control built-in features using your voice. Open apps, play specific shows and tweak settings without a remote.

Why choose a TV with voice control:

• Browse through TV channels, the web and streaming services in an instant

• Simple to use. Stop faffing with multiple button presses to turn down the volume or dial up the brightness, and use your voice instead

An audio format that builds on traditional surround sound. It adds height and width to make it seem like sound is coming from around you, as well as above you.

Why choose a TV with Dolby Atmos:

• Everything you watch or play is far more immersive and cinematic. Hear cars whizz by you, while explosions boom and crack all around

• While usually found in sound bars, some TVs feature Dolby Atmos speakers within their in-built sound system

Adaptive Sound optimises the audio from your TV on the fly. It does this by looking at the current sound from whatever you’re watching as well as the space you’re sat in. This mode can be quickly activated on many Samsung TVs. Clever huh?

Another bit of ace Samsung tech here. Object Tracking Sound takes a look at the content and input of your telly. It then improves and sends the correct sounds to the right TV speakers at the right time.

Why choose a TV with object tracking sound:

• Take an F1 car zooming round the track. As it zips across your screen, the sound will shift from left to right

• No matter whether you’re streaming a soap or battling through the latest first-person shooter, your audio moves to match the action

Sony’s audio poster child. Hear sound that comes straight from the screen. Speakers placed behind it vibrate – making sound which changes place within the picture itself.

Why choose a TV with Acoustic Surface Audio:

• Feel even more involved with what you’re seeing. Hear sound effects and dialogue from the right positions on your screen

• The built-in tech means you can go without a soundbar if you want - so your setup will be that much sleeker

A smart sound setting that puts dialogue front and centre. Hear the voices of any key characters in even better detail, without them being drowned out by sound effects or music. You’ll find it on certain Samsung TVs, and it can be activated with the press of a button.

This uses AI and the built-in mic on your LG Magic Remote to determine the type of room your TV is sat in. Picking up audio from your chosen entertainment, the microphone will then tweak the sound of your telly to suit the space. The best possible audio to suit the size and shape of your living room? Magic.