Compare Direct LED and Edge LED

Direct LED and Edge LED are ways to place the matrix back­light LED pan­el. They dif­fer in the loca­tion of the LED ele­ments. In the first case, the LED pan­el is locat­ed direct­ly behind the image form­ing one, in the sec­ond — along its edges (actu­al­ly — to the side of it).

Both of these tech­nolo­gies are used in tele­vi­sions and mon­i­tors. And the dif­fer­ence between them lies not only in the design, but also in some oper­a­tional capa­bil­i­ties.

To under­stand what is bet­ter to choose, con­sid­er these types in more detail.

How the Direct LED backlight works

The screen, equipped with Direct LED, is arranged “like a sand­wich”, that is, it con­sists of sev­er­al main lay­ers. The first, the rear­most, is direct­ly the LEDs. They can be locat­ed both quite “often” and “rarely” depend­ing on the TV mod­el used.

The sec­ond lay­er is the image pan­el itself. It is made on a translu­cent base so that the light from the LED ele­ments can pen­e­trate through it.

And the third is a pro­tec­tive plas­tic film or glass.

The main advan­tage of this tech­nol­o­gy is the pos­si­bil­i­ty of local dim­ming. In this mode, some of the LEDs are turned off, cre­at­ing a rich­er black col­or. The dynam­ic con­trast ratio of the dis­play becomes huge, up to 1,000,000:1 or — on some mon­i­tor mod­els — even more. On TVs with rear LEDs and sup­port for local dim­ming, it is very con­ve­nient and pleas­ant to work with dark back­grounds or watch movies that have many scenes in the dark.

How­ev­er, local dim­ming is not avail­able on all back­lit TVs and dis­plays. It is rec­om­mend­ed to check with the sell­er before buy­ing.

How Edge LED lighting works

Edge LED is some­what sim­pler. The pan­el of pix­els that cre­ate the image is on a reflec­tive white or sil­ver sub­strate, and the LED pan­el is locat­ed on its sides. Thanks to this, you can sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the thick­ness of the TV itself or the dis­play.

The main dis­ad­van­tage of side light­ing is the uneven dis­tri­b­u­tion of bright­ness and the appear­ance of “lights”. They can be seen on both light and dark back­grounds. Lights “gath­er” at the edges and cor­ners of the screen — where the LEDs are locat­ed direct­ly.

So, on dark scenes, the “pic­ture” in the cor­ner of the TV screen will appear dark gray. And on light sat­u­ra­tion at the edges will be much high­er than in the cen­ter.

Despite the pos­si­ble “glare”, the min­i­mum input lag is prac­ti­cal­ly a “killer fea­ture” for gam­ing mon­i­tors. This will espe­cial­ly appeal to gamers who will see every object on the map in dynam­ic com­pe­ti­tions.

In addi­tion, TVs with side-mount­ed LED ele­ments are real­ly ultra-thin. In 2017–2018, sev­er­al home TV mod­els with a thick­ness of about 5 cm or less were pre­sent­ed, includ­ing those with a sep­a­rate com­put­ing unit. And these TVs, which are thin­ner than the pic­ture, are equipped with just such a matrix.

What’s better?

There is no sin­gle answer to this ques­tion. And it’s not just the dif­fer­ences between tech­nolo­gies. Often the qual­i­ty of the matrix itself varies between dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers.

1. So, for exam­ple, the author of this mate­r­i­al has a TV with Direct LED at home. How­ev­er, local dim­ming tech­nol­o­gy is not imple­ment­ed in this mod­el, so in the evenings the screen turns into a spot­light that illu­mi­nates the entire room at any set­ting.

2. Direct LED is only good if it is com­ple­ment­ed by local dim­ming. This helps to increase con­trast (dynam­ic and sta­t­ic) and also makes scenes more cin­e­mat­ic.

3. Edge LED is good if the devel­op­er of the screen itself took care of the uni­for­mi­ty of the glow. Oth­er­wise, the “lights” at the cor­ners will begin to irri­tate.

4. Thus, if you need to choose between these two types, it is bet­ter to go to the store and see for your­self which type of TV or mon­i­tor you like best.