How RGB Mini-LED will transform the premium TV landscape in 2026
SOURCE:TechRadar|BY: John Archer
Mini-LED TVs that use RGB backlighting tech will arrive in a wider range of screen sizes from a wide array of brands in 2026. Should OLED TVs be worried?
(Image credit: Future)
Even though we’re still in the death throes of 2025 at the time I’m writing these words, there’s already zero doubt about what the biggest TV technology story for 2026 is going to be: RGB mini-LED.
At the time of writing no less than five makers of the world’s best TVs (TCL, Hisense, Samsung, LG and Sony) have declared that they’re going to be releasing full TV series in 2026 that use variants of RGB mini-LED technology, with LG and Samsung already going so far as to reveal detailed information on those upcoming RGB mini-LED TV ranges even ahead of the January 2026 CES where the technology is really going to make a splash.
In fact, a couple of ultra-high-end RGB mini-LED TVs, Hisense’s 116-inch 116UX ( $25,000 / £19,999) and Samsung’s 115-inch MRE115MR95F ($29,999 / £24,999) have already been released into the market. With eye-watering prices and challenging screen sizes like those, however, it’s fair to say that these RGB mini-LED forerunners haven’t exactly helped the technology make its mark with your typical mainstream TV buyer. That all looks set to change fast in 2026, though.
Smaller and cheaper
Hisense's 116UX 116-inch RGB mini-LED TV (Image credit: Hisense)
The evidence to date suggests that 2026 RGB mini-LED TVs are not only going to be available in much more mainstream screen sizes and at much lower prices than the duo we’ve seen to date, but may actually not even sit at the top of some brands’ 2026 TV ranges. Which could be music to cash-strapped AV fans’ ears if RGB mini-LED can maintain the sort of LED TV picture quality leap at the mainstream level that its two ‘out there’ debutantes have.
At which point you may well be starting to wonder what the fuss is all about - and how this new TV technology actually differs from other TV technologies already established in the TV world. So let’s get into that now.
RGB mini-LED by another name
The first thing to stress is that, as often happens with a new technology adopted by multiple brands, RGB mini-LED is not the technology’s only name. It’s what Hisense called it when it released the first TV to use the technology, but then Samsung and, more recently, LG have both gone with Micro RGB (which, as we’ll explain in a moment, isn’t to be confused with Micro LED). Samsung and LG went with this name to reflect the way the LEDs they’re using in their sets are smaller than those used by Hisense in its debut RGB Mini-LED TV, potentially offering finer light control.
Sony and TCL have yet to formally name their takes on RGB Mini-LED TV technology, but no matter what they come up with all the technologies will in fact be built around the same core principle. Namely, creating colour using true independent RGB light sources, rather than shining a single white or blue light through colour filters or Quantum Dot layers like LED TVs usually do.
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How it works
Instead of emitting white or blue light, Micro RGB TVs use an array of ‘optical units’ with red, green and blue LEDs placed inside an optical lens (Image credit: samsung)
This hasn’t been done before simply because, as you might imagine, squeezing separate red, green and blue LEDs into the space previously occupied by single-colour LEDs isn’t technically easy to either manufacture or control. Such miniaturisation issues are, in fact, arguably the main reason why long-awaited Micro LED technology is taking so long to get anywhere near mainstream adoption, as the need to deliver red, green and blue LEDs for every pixel in a micro LED screen, a necessity to deliver a truly self-emissive picture, means working with truly microscopic LED elements that are incredibly hard to manufacture and place with any sort of commercial, price-friendly yield rate.
RGB mini-LED is effectively a compromise on the principle of Micro LED, where we still get a filter-free approach to colour based on actual red, green and blue LED backlighting, but where you don’t get separate RGB LEDs for every pixel. Instead, the pixels are illuminated by an array of ‘optical units’, which are lower in number than the screen’s pixel count, that comprise the red, green and blue LEDs placed inside an optical lens. The light from these RGB units is then shared out across the higher number of pixels in the screen.
With all the RGB mini-LED and Micro RGB TVs detailed or released so far, an extra layer of light control has been applied to the new backlight array via local dimming, where different clusters of RGB mini LED units can be set to output different light levels, according to the needs of the picture. This should enhance contrast, especially when it comes to delivering deeper black colours – though actually, using direct red, green and blue backlighting rather than white or blue source lights plus colour filters also has the potential to improve black level response, as there’s less potential for ‘stray’ light to infiltrate the TVs’ optical systems.
Picture quality benefits
RGB backlighting presents a full-color light source to the pixels in the TV's LCD panel (Image credit: sony)
The main advantage of RGB mini-LED technology, though, is of course its improved colour performance. For instance, LG claims that the relative colour purity of its new Micro RGB TVs will allow them to cover the entire DCI-P3, Adobe RGB and even the extreme BT.2020 industry standard colour gamuts. We’ve spent enough time now, too, with the already released Hisense and Samsung RGB Mini-LED/Micro RGB screens, as well as pre-production samples of Sony’s upcoming RGB mini-LED models, to know that every take on the new technology really can lead to purer, more refined and more vibrant colours, all delivered with high levels of brightness behind them, too.
Add to all of this the fact that RGB mini-LED technology seems from our experience (especially of the upcoming Sony models) to support wider viewing angles than regular LED TVs do, and it’s easy to see why so many companies are embracing the technology - and why news of its potential relative affordability has got us even more excited for it than we usually would be by the arrival of a new type of TV.
If you build it they will come
There are a couple of concerns hanging over RGB mini-LED in these early days. In particular, since it still depends on local dimming for a degree of its light control prowess, there’s still the potential for dark scenes to suffer with backlight blooming and clouding inconsistencies where the local dimming system isn’t clever or localised enough to subtly ‘blend’ the edges of neighbouring different backlight output zones. This was certainly an issue at times with Hisense’s RGB mini-LED curtain raiser.
Experience with the first two officially released RGB mini-LED TVs also suggests a tendency for manufacturers to perhaps be a bit too exuberant in showcasing the full potential of their new screens, stretching content not designed for such next-gen extremes to places where it perhaps no longer looks totally natural, or where some colours don’t look in balance with others. Connected with that, little if any content is currently being mastered to take advantage of the full scope of RGB mini-LED’s capabilities.
The ‘screen capabilities outstripping content’ point also applies, though, to really all of today’s existing premium TV technologies – and so perhaps the arrival of RGB mini-LED simply adds more ‘if you build it they will come’ weight to the desire in some quarters for content creators to be bolder with their mastering efforts.
RGB mini-LED: OLED killer?
(Image credit: sony)
It’s also worth reflecting a little more on the apparent decision by LG to continue positioning OLED as its premium technology, rather than its new Micro RGB series. This may have more to do with LG’s well-established record and experience with OLED screens, as well as its obvious ties with major OLED panel maker LG Display. But it could also quite simply be that LG continues to think that nothing, not even RGB mini-LED, can beat the truly self-emissive experience OLED can give you.
It will be interesting to see where Samsung positions its Micro RGB TVs in relation to its various 2026 OLED series. Especially as Sony, which also carries both OLED and LCD TVs in its range, has seemed during its demonstrations to date as if it’s leaning towards positioning RGB mini-LED as its premium picture technology for 2026
In the end, though, regardless of whether RGB mini-LED turns out to be an ‘OLED beater’ or not, surely anything that’s seemingly capable of substantially boosting the capabilities of the typically brighter and more affordable LCD TV market without costing the earth can only be a good thing.
AV Technology Contributor
John has been writing about home entertainment technology for more than two decades - an especially impressive feat considering he still claims to only be 35 years old (yeah, right). In that time he’s reviewed hundreds if not thousands of TVs, projectors and speakers, and spent frankly far too long sitting by himself in a dark room.
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