Here’s why I want RGB Mini-LED for my next TV instead of OLED

I’m actually not in a rush to buy a new TV, and I encourage most people to stick with what they’ve got, as long as it continues to do what they need. I bought a Hisense mini-LED set last year that’s not only visually impressive, but more than capable of handling HDR streaming and 3D gaming. My only real complaint is that its default remote can’t automatically control the volume of my Sonos Ray soundbar. In fact, if anyone at Hisense or Sonos is listening, hit me up about the best solution.

I’m always keeping tabs on new TV technologies, however, both for professional reasons and my personal budget. One piece of display tech that popped onto my radar recently is RGB mini-LED, also known as micro-RGB. On the surface, it doesn’t sound much different than what I have now — but in a few years, OLED TVs could be demoted from the gold standard to a budget option, much like plasma sets were. I’ll explain both that and what you need to know about RGB mini-LED in general.

What is RGB mini-LED?

More than simple evolution

To explain this, I need to step back a bit and talk about conventional LCDs (liquid crystal displays). Any modern LCD depends on one or more LED (light-emitting diode) backlights to actually present an image. Without a backlight, an LCD is utterly useless — you can’t see anything.

Because a single backlight provides very little contrast, the trend with LCDs has been towards an ever-increasing number of LEDs, allowing more areas of any image to be dimmed for deeper (though not total) blacks. Newer TVs are equipped with hundreds of LEDs, often grouped together into a smaller number of dimming zones.

Mini-LED takes this a step further. Because it makes them dramatically smaller, it’s possible to cram thousands or tens of thousands of LEDs into a display panel. The result is so good that in many cases, it’s difficult to tell the difference versus OLED, despite the fact that OLED allows individual pixels to switch on and off. You might even prefer mini-LED, since OLED sets can’t get as bright. OLED is superior in a darkened room — but mini-LED can win the day when your TV has to compete with ambient light.

RGB mini-LED swaps white diodes for separate red, green, and blue units, which are also smaller than before (hence micro-RGB as an alternate name). The primary advantage to this isn’t contrast, however, it’s color reproduction. Because each color channel is independently changeable, RGB mini-LED TVs can achieve as much as 95 to 100% of the BT.2020/Rec. 2020 color gamut. As a frame of reference, it’s unlikely that an expensive quantum-dot (QD) OLED TV will achieve more than 92% of those colors.

Can the average person pick up the difference between 92 and 95%, or even 90 and 100%? Probably not. Indeed, OLED will continue to reign supreme for people who value contrast and detail, at least until micro-LED becomes affordable. But RGB mini-LED does kick another leg out from under OLED, and could (for a time) become the technology of choice for people who value color accuracy above all else. Certainly, there are pro video editors who would kill for 100% gamut coverage, and no one likes the burn-in risk posed by OLED.

Availability and other downsides to RGB mini-LED

It’s time to be patient

Sony

The biggest problem is simply cost. Currently, a “cheap” 100-inch RGB mini-LED TV from Hisense will set you back $20,000 plus tax. As if that wasn’t absurd enough, both Hisense and Samsung are selling $30,000 sets, sized at 116 and 115 inches respectively. You can buy a new electric car for less if you shop around. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather spend my money on a product that can literally take me to other cities or other realities, instead of just making Blade Runner 2049 look a little better than it does on a regular mini-LED TV. At the moment, RGB mini-LED is an indulgence for the rich.

That’s the way of all new TV display technologies, however. When LG shipped its first 4K TV in 2012, that also cost $20,000, and got you a mere 84 inches. By the end of the decade, sets the same size cost a fifth that amount. Today, it’s usually a terrible mistake to buy a 1080p TV over the 40-inch mark, if you can even find one that isn’t horribly outdated in other respects.

I can’t say exactly how soon RGB mini-LED will become affordable. It’s mostly a question of scaling up production — the more assembly lines are devoted to the tech, the cheaper production will become, due to factors like efficiency, competition, and parts costs. That’s what brought OLED to the masses. Consider that the first OLED TV was an 11-inch Sony model, released in 2007 for $2,500. In 2025, the tech is so standardized that you can find it on smartwatches and some of the cheapest budget phones.

I wouldn’t expect RGB mini-LED to become dramatically more affordable in 2026. While you’ll probably see some sets below $20,000, and possibly $10,000, even $2,000 is too much for the average person, and there’s no sign that electronics makers are in a rush to drive things down. On top of everything else, the economic situation is not helping these high costs. Many economies are turbulent, including the US, which has directed import tariffs against the countries where most TVs are assembled, among them China, Mexico, Vietnam, and South Korea. Relatively few TVs are manufactured within US borders.

Are there any other downsides to RGB mini-LED? Apart from it being outclassed by OLED in contrast, not really. It could be that by the time it’s truly affordable, more effort will have been pumped into micro-LED, which could translate into RGB mini-LED being a short-lived technology much like plasma. There was a time when plasma TVs were all the rage — by 2015, though, they were all but dead, replaced by OLED and increasingly better LCDs. Any plasma set you bought was probably at a discount, knowing full well that it would be considered obsolete in a few years.

Time will tell which way the wind blows. If I were a betting man, though, I’d put my money on RGB mini-LED taking the early lead, and remaining relevant for a long time. You won’t need to toss a set on the junk pile in 2030 unless you accidentally break it.