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Every few years the television industry finds a new type of display technology that is the newest and greatest. And with the exception of plasma TVs, almost every one of them has a name like a bowl of alphabet soup on the carpet. There are OLED, ULED, QLED, LCD, Mini-LED, MicroLED. For most of the 20th century the old standard, the CRT, was no exception.
Now there’s a new one: Micro RGB. It was all the buzz at CES 2026, and word has spread that almost every major TV manufacturer is planning a wide range of micro RGB TVs for release this year. It’s more evolutionary than revolutionary, but it offers the most accurate color of any display technology out there. You might think we’ve been down this road before, but this could be a game changer.
Popular display types
To understand what makes micro RGB (red, green, and blue) the hot, new screen technology, you need to understand how other display technologies work. Most panels these days are LED screens based on LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) technology. These display panels require a backlight behind the pixels that collectively form the image on the screen.
When an LED, QLED, or Mini-LED (which Hisense calls ULED and Samsung calls Neo QLED) displays want to show black, they turn off the corresponding segment of pixels. But the backlight behind them is always on, so they’re never really dark even when the pixels are off. Think of it like holding a black blanket over an open window. The light behind the blanket shows a little. Most LCD-based screens are like that.
C5 OLED 4K TV (65 inch)
U8 Mini-LED 4K TV (65-inch)
S95F 4K OLED TV (65 inches)
How does Micro RGB compare to LED?
Micro RGB, an LCD-based design like most LED panels, still includes a backlight behind its pixels. Instead of using the same white or blue-white backlights as other LCD-based displays, it uses red, green, and Blue backlights that the TV controls individually. So yes, unfortunately that means blacks aren’t completely dark because there’s still backlight shining through those switched-off pixels. But Micro RGB’s ace is not up its sleeve. It’s in your color.
Instead of a white backlight shining through a pixel that’s showing one color or another, which somewhat shifts or washes out the pixel’s color hue, a micro RGB backlight can shine exactly the same color as the pixel in front of it. Colors are more vibrant and, since the white backlight doesn’t match the color of the pixels, more accurate. Micro RGB is said to be so accurate that it can display 100 percent of the BT.2020 color gamut, the common standard for measuring colors in displays. No other screen out there can match this.
How does Micro RGB compare to OLED?
Right now the king of the TV display hill is OLED, which makes sense organic Light emitting diode. If you’re shopping for the best TV money can buy, it probably has an OLED screen. OLED hits on something revolutionary: instead of using a backlight, each pixel produces its own light.
When it wants to show black and turn off the pixels, there is no backlight behind it so light leaks through. That pixel is completely and utterly dark. Controlling light at pixel levels makes for amazingly adjustable contrast ratios and incredibly fast response times. Like many premium technologies that kick the rear end of the competition, OLED’s Achilles Hill is that it’s quite expensive. You don’t see budget TVs with OLED displays.
There is something better, though: MicroLED. And it’s even more expensive. It uses microscopic inorganic LEDs that measure less than 100 microns in diameter. Like OLED, MiniLED offers exceptionally deep blacks because it doesn’t use a backlight, as well as a nearly infinite contrast ratio. This makes OLED superior by being more energy efficient, and it can reach much higher brightness levels than OLEDs, which is good for TVs in bright rooms.
Right now you can order a Samsung 114-inch MicroLED unless you expect to walk into a store and find it on the floor. Oh, and bring a credit card that can handle a $150,000 order. Now you can see why the market is left wanting for better display technology than traditional LCD-based panels, but not so good that it costs stupid money like OLED and MicroLED.
But the interesting thing is that as expensive and exotic as these two screen technologies are, neither OLED nor MicroLED can match the color accuracy of Micro RGB. Compared to Micro RGB’s ability to display 100 percent of the BT.2020 color gamut, MicroLED and OLED only manage 75 percent and 90 percent, respectively.
You can get a Micro RGB TV today…
But don’t put out the checkbook just yet. As with any brand-new technology, micro RGB TVs are still rare, and when you do find one for sale it’s eye-wateringly expensive. For all the buzz around Micro RGB, the only one you can buy in the US right now is the Samsung MR95F 115-inch Smart TV for $30,000.
That price will drop. Samsung and Hisense say they have plans for micro RGB TVs in a range of sizes, all the way up to 55 inches. LG announced plans for Micro RGB TVs up to 75 inches and TCL up to 65 inches.
Micro RGB will be technology for the masses. But, in the case of worthwhile 8K TVs, people will have to be patient. Some manufacturers have yet to set specific release dates for their micro RGB TVs, but going by manufacturers’ statements, we can expect them to enter the market en masse throughout 2026.
Fire TV Omni Mini-LED Series (55-inch)
Pro Series 4K TV (55 inch)
Pool Pro 2.0 Full Sun Outdoor TV
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