At the Los Angeles Convention Center, two 85-inch TVs sat side by side inside the Nanosys meeting room at Display Week - a yearly business-to-business convention focusing on the technology that goes into displays of all types. One TV was a mini-LED panel with super quantum dots, and the other was an RGB LED - […]
Tech Gadgets TVs Quantum dot TVs beat RGB LED TVs, says the company that makes QDs for TVs A side-by-side comparison of an RGB LED TV and a QD TV showed color crosstalk and contrast issues in the RGB LED TV.
A side-by-side comparison of an RGB LED TV and a QD TV showed color crosstalk and contrast issues in the RGB LED TV.
by John Higgins May 9, 2026, 12:00 PM UTC Link Share Gift RGB LED technology might be everyone’s focus for TV tech in 2026, but quantum-dot TVs still might be the better choice.
Photo by John Higgins / The Verge John Higgins is a senior reviewer covering TVs and audio. He has over 20 years experience in AV, and has previously been on staff at Digital Trends and Reviewed.
At the Los Angeles Convention Center, two 85-inch TVs sat side by side inside the Nanosys meeting room at Display Week — a yearly business-to-business convention focusing on the technology that goes into displays of all types. One TV was a mini-LED panel with super quantum dots, and the other was an RGB LED — this year’s hottest TV trend. Both TVs were showing the same content at the same time to highlight the differences between the two technologies — or more specifically, to show the potential failings of RGB LED backlights when compared to super quantum dot (SQD), which uses blue LEDs for the backlight.
I should probably mention that Nanosys made the quantum dots in the first TV.
During the side-by-side demo, the TVs played the same content simultaneously for easy comparison.
Photo by John Higgins / The Verge The TV on the right, with the Nanosys super quantum dots, was labeled as the TCL X11L — the striped lower grille confirming as much — and the other was most likely the TCL RM9L. Nanosys wouldn’t confirm as much, but I’ve seen the RGB LED TVs from Hisense, Samsung, LG, and Sony in person, and it wasn’t any of those. Jeff Yurek, vice president of marketing at Nanosys, informed me that both TVs were in Filmmaker Mode and color was set to native to allow both to hit the largest gamut possible.
As a quick refresher, RGB LED TVs use red, green, and blue LEDs grouped into zones to create a colored backlight based on the image displayed on screen. Theoretically, this gives the TV more vibrant and saturated colors than mini-LED TVs like the X11L with blue backlights, without needing to rely solely on the quantum dots. The primary potential issue is that the colored light provided by the backlight will bleed into adjacent pixels or zones that differ in color, resulting in what’s called color crosstalk. Practically, this could cause the red of a bright shirt or hat to cause the skin of the wearer to have a reddish hue. And that’s exactly what this demo showed.
One of the demonstrations alternated between this slide with two rows of boxes and a row of crosses and the next slide.
But unless you’re a measurement nerd like me, you don’t watch solid blocks of color on your TV for fun. The effect is also present with skin tones — something that, as humans, is easily noticed. Just as the color of the blocks bleeds into the white cross, so does a colored background into skin tone; still images of a woman’s face with a colored background caused her skin tone to shift toward the background color. To make sure my eye wasn’t causing the color bleed, as opposed to the TV, I used a scope to focus just a portion of the woman’s face, blocking out the rest from my view. I could still tell which background color was displayed by the change in hue of her skin.
While BT.2020 measurements stayed at a consistent percentage on the SQD TV, the percentage went down on the RGB LED TV as the color patch got smaller.
All of this is perceptible in actual content. During an action scene with quick movement and fast cuts, I could still pick out differences as bright colors affected those surrounding them, particularly with skin tones. And in night scenes, the contrast difference was notable. If the RGB LED TV was in the room by itself, without the SQD TV for comparison, I don’t think the color crosstalk would look as glaring. Our eyes can adjust quickly to visual issues, and we stop noticing them. But taking away the comparison doesn’t take away the problem.
This isn’t brand-new information. Industry experts have been concerned about the potential for color crosstalk in RGB LED TVs since the technology debuted at CES 2025. Those concerns have grown as more RGB LED TVs arrive on the market this year. LG Display, notably a maker of OLED panels which are in direct competition with RGB LED, produced videos a few weeks before this year’s CES, highlighting the problems.
Of course, both Nanosys and LG Display have vested interests in downplaying RGB TV tech. The performance of one RGB LED TV also doesn’t tell the story for all RGB LED TVs. I didn’t notice any crosstalk issues when I reviewed the Hisense UR9 , although the more I see other RGB LED TVs, the more I think the Hisense may be bypassing the issue and falling back to white backlighting, not RGB, whenever there were a lot of colors on screen. Also the processing capabilities of the upcoming Sony RGB LED TVs could make color crosstalk a nonissue on those sets. And we’re still right at the beginning of the RGB LED TV story. As the technology continues to develop and refine, these issues should be mitigated. But for 2026, SQD at least looks to have the upper hand.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
John Higgins Gadgets Tech TVs Most Popular Most Popular Nintendo is raising Switch 2 prices Tesla is recalling its cheaper Cybertruck because the wheels might fall off Canvas is online again after ShinyHunters threaten to leak schools’ data Google Fitbit Air preorders come with a second band for free The future of game consoles is looking bleak The Verge Daily A free daily digest of the news that matters most.
Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice .
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Advertiser Content From This is the title for the native ad
