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(Image credit: RTINGS) Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Flipboard Share this article Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google RTINGS is back with an update on its ongoing longevity test, where they torture—test 102 TVs to see which lasts the longest. This tradition started three years ago, and the good news is that most TVs are fine for the first 10,000 hours of use, but 20 still died during the test, while 24 suffered partial damage. The data also shows that OLED burn-in is not a real issue unless you go especially hard on your TV.
Watch On When shopping for a new TV, everyone wonders which brand is most reliable, since most people will use it for years. Well, RTINGS' data shows that it's LG and TCL. They both have impressively low failure rates: only 1 LG OLED failed outright out of 24 total TVs, and only 1 TCL TV gave up right before the end of the test out of 10 models. LG did have several partial failures, though most occurred on LCDs rather than OLEDs.
Other brands like Samsung and Sony also fared well, but this is where we should note a slight bias in the testing. RTINGS themselves warn that this test is not indicative of quality control at large, since they included only one of each model, resulting in a tiny sample size. This is why brands like Insignia and Toshiba end up with a 100% failure rate: they only had one horse in the race.
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Moving on to backlight type, the lack of one proved to be the best choice as OLEDs — both WOLED and QD-OLED — were the least prone to failure over time. It was LCDs with edge-lit LED arrays that failed the most. RTINGS explains how the light guide path is a common failure point in these TVs, and most of them also see at least one LED dying outright. The issue with LEDs is that most are connected in series, so if one fails, there's a decent chance the entire row or group will stop working, and if not, the whole backlight.
Some TVs will refuse to turn on at this point, signaling a red light of death, while others display an image of catastrophic damage that renders them unusable. Overall, almost 60% of TVs without local dimming experienced either total or partial failure. TVs with full-array local dimming, like Mini-LED models, tested a lot better, including that one TCL martyr we mentioned earlier. Still, about 25% of FALD TVs still experience some failure, which transitions us nicely into OLED.
Despite the ever-looming shadow of image retention, OLEDs were by far the most reliable. They did suffer burn-in, yes, but only because the test was deliberately designed to torture test them. Every single OLED was affected, but RTINGS reiterates that under normal circumstances, these TVs wouldn't have experienced any burn-in. Now, if having no backlight at all makes OLED more resilient, how do the other panel types fare?
The test data shows it's IPS that performs the worst, with 15 out of 24 models experiencing some failure, but here's the point, nuance takes over. Most IPS TVs these days don't have local dimming, so it's their backlight that secretly skews numbers to make them stand out. Local dimming is almost exclusively found on VA models, which are more reliable, so it makes VA a bit more reliable. For instance, LG's edge-lit IPS TVs had noticeably more failures than their backlit models.
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/monitors/televisions/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/monitors/televisions/three-year-test-shows-oled-is-significantly-more-reliable-than-lcd-with-most-lasting-more-than-10-000-hours-20-tvs-failed-out-of-102-tested#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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