I have compared mid-range mini and OLED TVs, and although it is closer than you would think, OLED wins in one vital area
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OLED And mini-guidance are the two leading display technologies, both offer improved image quality compared to standard LED TVs.
Most of the Best TVs Use these two technologies, but deciding which is suitable for you can depend on various factors. Earlier, OLED was the go-to option for better black levels and contrast, while mini-conducted was better for brightness. Although this remains partly the case, the differences between what every panel technology can offer have changed somewhat.
Part of the Best OLED -tvsas the LG G5Are more than 2,000 nits peak clarity, which is sufficient to compete with mini-guided TVs. And part of the Best mini-guided TVs Now have a considerably improved local dimming, which makes deeper and more OLED-like blacks possible.
I have the TCL C7K mini-guided TV, into the middle range model TCLs 2025 UK TV Line -Upand decided to compete against our reference Panasonic MZ1500 OLED TV (from 2023) to see how much the gap between the two technologies is closed.
A short comment: these two TVs are only available in the UK, but for our American readers the nearest equivalents would be the TCL QM7K mini-guided and both Panasonic Z85A OLED from 2024 or the LG C5 OLED from 2025.
OLED vs Mini-guided: color
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Both OLED and mini-guided have their advantages when it comes to color. With mini-guided TVs, colors are usually brighter and punchier, while colors on OLED TVs tend to look more saturated and have a greater depth because of the inherently high contrast of OLED Tech. However, this was not entirely the case with the C7K and MZ1500.
Look at one 4k Blu-ray Bad With both TVs in their Dolby Vision Dark Picture mode, the colors of the TCL C7K had a surprising amount of depth, while still presenting the punch-mini-guided TVs of their high peak clearance. The pink flowers around Elphaba during the scene ‘Wizard & I’ looked lively on both TVs, but I couldn’t help it, but I felt more attracted by the C7K.
The MZ1500 still showed the benefits of OLED’s self-emittering pixels versus the local low beam of the C7K, with the green skin of Elphaba and the blue details in a design on the wall that revealed a better contrast, but the C7K was not slow here.
It was also not slow to view demo images in HDR10 -Layout on the Spears & Munsil UHD Benchmark 4K Blu-ray. With both TVs set to the filmmaker -mode, the yellow and greens were brighter in the wings of a butterfly and seemed more natural compared to the braver, deeper display of the MZ1500.
OLED VS Mini-guided: black levels, contrast and detail
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An area where the C7K impressed in my comparison were black levels. By means of Alien: RomulusIn every scene in a dark corridor or tunnel, the black levels of the C7K seemed deeper and richer than I expected. Yes, the MZ1500 was better here, but it was still an excellent demonstration of the local dim effects of the C7K.
The same was where to look De Batman. Shadow detail on both TVs was excellent in the series of the opening of the crime scene and the C7K showed enormously improved black levels compared to some mini guide that I had tested in the past.
Contrast was another area where the competition was closer than expected. The C7K showed a great balance between light and dark shades in the bright lights that stimulated in both gloomy environment Alien: Romulus And De BatmanHold themselves well against the MZ1500.
As with color, the MZ1500 OLED textures gave more observed depth and detail, creating a more 3D-like quality. But the same textures, such as skin and facial characteristics, were also displayed with a lifelike quality on the C7K.
OLED vs Mini-guided: screen uniformity
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The C7K had made an impression on me so far, but there is one area where the Panasonic OLED triumphed: screen uniformity.
Screen uniformity refers to the power of a TV to evenly display large areas of the same color, such as black. OLED panels use self-emittering pixels instead of background lighting and as a result can deliver uniform tones over all parts of the screen. But because mini-guided TVs use background lighting to produce light, there is insufficient control of background lighting local Dimzones uniformity problems.
Looking at black and white scenes of OPPENHEIMERThe C7K has done a great job to accurately display black and white tones, along with a good range of shades of gray, but I also noticed brown stripes under the black letterbox bars in this widescreen scenes-a sign of sub-par screen uniformity. This was no problem with the MZ1500 OLED.
OLED vs Mini-guided: Conclusion
Eventually the MZ1500 OLED had the superior photo in my comparison, thanks to the self-emittering pixels. But there is something important here to remember: price.
For a 65-inch C7K at the launch you pay £ 1,399 ($ 1,499 for the QM7K in the US, and approximately AU $ 2,326), while the MZ1500 65-inch was at the launch in 2023 £ 2,900 (approximately $ 3,700 / au $ 5,400).
Panasonic’s OLEDs are notorously expensive, but even a new mid-range OLED like the LG C5 costs $ 2,699.99 / £ 2,699.99 / au $ 4,299. That is a price gap.
So yes, while the MZ1500 comes at the top, the C7K (and the QM7K, which earned four and a half out of five stars in our review), shows the solid level of performance that you can now expect from a mini-guided TV, together with the relatively high value when baking an OLED TV.
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