The results of three years of brutal testing are out: OLED TVs are more reliable than LCDs

After three years of brutal testing, RTINGS has finally updated its durability test results on 102 TVs.In this "torture test" of 102 TVs, the results were unexpected. Although OLED TVs faced the risk of screen burn-in, their overall hardware reliability was superior to traditional LCD TVs.

Test data showed that after approximately 10,000 hours of cumulative use, a total of 20 TVs were completely damaged and 24 TVs were partially damaged.

In terms of brand performance, LG and TCL stand out,Among LG's 24 TVs, only one OLED TV completely failed; and among the 10 TCL TVs, only one "collapsed" before the end of the test. However, LG also experienced several partial failures, but most of them occurred on LCD TVs, not OLEDs.

However, it should be noted that since only one of each model participated in the test and the sample size is too small, the test results cannot be regarded as a comprehensive assessment of the quality control of each brand.

From the perspective of backlight type, OLEDs that do not rely on backlight modules (including WOLED and QD-OLED) show extremely strong stability, while LCD TVs that use edge LED backlight arrays have the most failures.

RTINGS explained that the light guide paths of these TVs are prone to failure and most of the LED lamp beads are connected in series. The damage of one lamp bead often leads to the failure of the entire backlight. The failure rate of this type of TV is close to 60%.

Mini-LED TVs with full array local dimming (FALD) perform better, with the failure rate dropping to about 25%.

Regarding the screen burn-in problem that players are worried about, RTINGS pointed out that although all OLEDs showed traces under high-intensity extreme tests, this is not a big problem in normal daily use.

Additionally, the test revealed an interesting fact:The quality control of TVs does not improve linearly with price increases. The durability of many low-end models actually exceeds that of high-end models.But in terms of repairability, low-end models may be extremely difficult to dismantle and repair once damaged.