Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Television

Edge-Lit LCD TV Durability Concerns Emerge in New Test (arstechnica.com) 34

A recent investigation by consumer electronics testing site RTINGs has raised concerns about the long-term durability of edge-lit LCD-LED televisions, a popular choice among consumers for their slim profiles and aesthetic appeal. The study, which simulated approximately six years of use through 10,000 hours of extreme testing on dozens of TVs, revealed a troubling trend of uniformity issues in edge-lit models, particularly affecting Samsung and LG products.

According to RTINGs' findings, 64% of edge-lit TVs tested exhibited noticeable uniformity problems, compared to only 20% of full array local dimming (FALD) and direct-lit models. The primary issues identified were warped reflector sheets, cracked light guide plates, and burnt-out LEDs, all exacerbated by extended use at maximum brightness settings. RTINGs attributed these problems to the concentrated heat generation in edge-lit designs, with some LEDs reaching temperatures as high as 253.4F (123C). While Samsung defended its use of edge-lit technology, citing 15 years of reliable implementation and rigorous testing procedures, and LG reported no difference in defect rates between edge-lit and other LCD TV designs, RTINGs' research suggests that consumers seeking more durable TVs may want to consider alternatives to edge-lit models.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Edge-Lit LCD TV Durability Concerns Emerge in New Test

Comments Filter:
  • Given how dirt cheap these TVs have gotten, why would anyone care? 10,000 hours from a 65" TV that set you back $400 is not so bad. Even better if you paid $300 for a 42".
    • Disposable electronics. It's not like the software in a smart TV will retain full functionality for 15 years either.

    • by BlacKSacrificE ( 1089327 ) on Friday August 02, 2024 @04:10PM (#64676456)

      Those of us who care about the retarded amount of resources we are using and rubbish we are generating, to create and dump e-waste at ever increasing rates, will care. Granted, we seem to be in the minority though.

      • Re:No one will care (Score:4, Informative)

        by BishopBerkeley ( 734647 ) on Friday August 02, 2024 @04:39PM (#64676512) Journal
        In the article, some of the issues emerge as early as 2200 hours (5 hours a day, every day, for two years). It is unclear if any of the issues cited are noticeable enough to motivate a viewer to buy a new TV. Furthermore, the article doesn't say how many hours, on average, the average tv viewer watches a TV over its lifetime. It's an indictment of the quality on a level that may not matter.
        • My Mom is a boomer, so the TV is on for 15 hours a day. But I don't care if the picture looks bad on my Mom's TV. That's her problem and she isn't likely to notice or be able to describe what she doesn't like about it.

        • Who would have thought that if you cram a bunch of very hot-running electronics into the tiniest possible space in order to win a thinness dicksize competition that no-one is interested in, you run into heat problems? Must have had the same people working on it who think that phones so thin they bend in your pants pocket were a good idea.
      • by antdude ( 79039 )

        Also, it's annoying to to find a new TV to buy, take down old one, put new one up, reconfigure, etc. :(

      • It's blissful to read a thread full of people that all claim to be the better person because they jumped through some hoops to make the mind control device in their homes to be as eco friendly or as cheap as possible.

        "Geee, I'm the coolest guy, because I only paid 400 paper dollars for my mind control device, because they are now disposable and subsidized through data mining the viewership anyway! Now I have 55 inches of high definition surround sound mind control in my bedroom and they're data mining every

        • Lol, holy shit. The sole TV in my house is connected to a Dell 9020 USFF PC. The last thing I watched on it was an episode of Community streamed from my media server. Mostly, I am watching electronic/space/engineering related youtube content.

          Meanwhile, the guy who spews 400 odd words of acerbic, self righteous bile is trying to tell me that I think I'm better than others. Take your fucking medication you malfunctioning cunt.

          • "Anyone who thinks that mainstream TV was mind-control, refuses to watch it ever and warns others to not watch it, must OBVIOUSLY be mentally ill and should be medicated until they comply."

            Nah. I'm neither self-righteous nor am I better than others. And I'm pretty sure I'm not mentally ill. But I do think that TV is a brain-rotting mechanism and it the watchers' brains are rotted worse if the content they watch has a) faster cuts, b) shorter runtimes, c) sex, drugs, violence, crime, inconsequential or mass

    • All of the 43" class TVs in that price range have direct LED backlights. I know because I just looked at all of them and bought one (LG 43UT80, which is not great but seems to be the least horrible of them.)

    • If you are happy with edge lit, which is kind of patchy to begin with, a little bit more patchiness probably won't matter. Most owners probably won't even notice.
    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      Each generation of TV set seems to lose more of the features that I care about. And gain more that I could do without.

      I had an old Vizio that had a great OTA tuner, electronic program guide and multiple HDMI inputs. It died. The best replacement I could find in the same price class has a crap tuner, no EPG (that isn't Internet/subscription based) and actually shits itself every few months when I don't connect it to WiFi and on-line services (or hit the factory reset option hidden deep within a maintenance

    • The damning thing is the marginal cost:

      In absolute terms, sure, TVs are cheap if you aren't picky; but it seems deeply perverse for a $400 TV to die early for want of an extra dollar worth of heat spreader on the backlight(or, in some cases, just a willingness to have a few passive vent slits in the rear shell; rather than the solid surface that looks incrementally better in renders and is hidden against the wall in practice.
  • by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Friday August 02, 2024 @04:22PM (#64676480) Homepage

    Nothing that reaches 123 C for extended periods will be reliable.

    What would it cos them to put in a few extra LEDs and run them at lower current? Pennies?

    • by sodul ( 833177 )

      I only read the summary but it seems that the edge lit displays allows them to have slimmer designs, which has a cool/premium factor.
      Our current 4k TV is many years old with a few local dimming areas and it looks fine.

      Having to haul-in and install a 65" panel is not something I'm looking forward to do every other year. I would much rather pay a little more and have a TV that will last 10y+ and not waste earth resources.

      TVs have been good enough visually that there is not enough quality improvement to jump t

      • by evanh ( 627108 )

        It reads like the problem is all about brightness. The LEDs are just being driven too hard to claim that top spot on the brightness spec.

      • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        I only read the summary but it seems that the edge lit displays allows them to have slimmer designs, which has a cool/premium factor.
        Our current 4k TV is many years old with a few local dimming areas and it looks fine.

        Having to haul-in and install a 65" panel is not something I'm looking forward to do every other year. I would much rather pay a little more and have a TV that will last 10y+ and not waste earth resources.

        In this case it's pay a little less. Edge lit TVs are the premium sexy high end TVs that

        • by rta ( 559125 )

          Note that OLEDs do not have any of these issues,...

          But all the OLEDs still have burn-in issues. Probably the top question when rtngs started their long-term accelerated aging tests was (to paraphrase) "do 2021+ OLEDs still have burn in, or has it been solved like the manufacturers claim?"

          and the answer to that is that they all still get burn-in (https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/longevity-burn-in-test-updates-and-results ) even w/ the built in compensation factors.

          A somewhat surprising other finding was how badly LCDs age too (and not just the edge-lit ones

          • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

            But all the OLEDs still have burn-in issues. Probably the top question when rtngs started their long-term accelerated aging tests was (to paraphrase) "do 2021+ OLEDs still have burn in, or has it been solved like the manufacturers claim?"

            True, but that's an OLED problem. And they are doing accelerated aging - no one realistically has their OLED at full brightness playing CNN for 8-12 hours a day (they turn them off after that to let the compensation routines run).

            But you have to admit, OLEDs are great, and

    • Physics. You didn't solve the problem by adding more LEDs on the edge.

      • Simple question, is the heat production curve vs brightness linear on LED's? If not then running more at less current can help. But that eats into sales profits.
    • Well, anything properly engineered for running at 123 degC for extended periods will actually be reliable.

      This is potentially not so much a cost issue, but a lifetime issue, as in designed for limited lifetime. Having worked for a supplier of chips to Samsung, I know they required 500 hours HTOL (high temperature operating lifetime) to pass, where the standard was actually 1000 hours. They set the bar based on their ideas. From their annual profits and turnover, it seems they know what they're doing, this

  • by jddj ( 1085169 ) on Friday August 02, 2024 @04:43PM (#64676520) Journal

    "Dude, that TV gets HOT! It's 253 AF!"

    • by rta ( 559125 )

      That's pretty embarrassing. 253.4 is BARELY still 253.

      imo it would have to be at most 253.00... but preferably 253.000... or better to be 253 AF

  • by TheNameOfNick ( 7286618 ) on Saturday August 03, 2024 @02:27AM (#64677224)

    Maximum brightness is neither healthy nor pleasant. It just makes the TV look better in a direct comparison with other TVs in a brightly lit store, so that's the default. Turn off most of the image enhancers too. You don't need a saturation that makes everything look like a candy store. Once you have a good picture, the thing will last long past the time you want a new one for other reasons.

  • But what consumer with a sense of standards buys a backlit tv today?

    When I bought my plasma back in the day, I was a so happy with it, today 14 years later, a feature I never used is dead due to user error (the vga port) and it has died once but was resuscitated with a factory reset. I should have bought an LG 4k OLED 3d back in 2017 when they still existed, because the plasma draws power and get warm. But ever since they developed pixels that lit up by themselves why would anyone want anything else?

  • It's true, but did these people fall through a time warp? I thought this debate was over 10 years ago. In 2012 I bought and returned 3 TVs before I found a good one. All were thin-panel edge-lit things with terrible backlight bleed. Things haven't changed since then. If anything, it's gotten worse. Backlight uniformity is luck-of-the-draw, and even if you get a TV with good backlight it will change and warp over time as things heat up and sag.

    Yet FALD TVs (if that's what we're calling it now) suffer from th

If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a conclusion. -- William Baumol

Working...