Should you’re searching for sizzle at CES 2026, you may by no means go incorrect with the televisions. The annual shopper electronics expo all the time consists of large partitions filled with TVs with cutting-edge options resembling transparent screens or ultra-high brightness.
In previous years at CES, we have seen every thing from battery-powered TVs that stick to a wall to OLEDs that roll up like a treasure map. I am not a TV designer, so I may by no means anticipate the weird issues firms are cooking up proper now. Whereas these cutting-edge gadgets could seize headlines, our focus will stay on the merchandise that truly matter to you.
We all know that individuals do not buy TVs for gimmicks. Image high quality is crucial facet of any TV, and I anticipate we’ll see developments in that space, particularly on the inexpensive finish of the market.
Like computer systems and telephones, TVs have a 12-month shelf life and are up to date yearly, normally with image and have enhancements. This is what this 12 months’s CES guarantees.
The mini-LED trickle-down
Two televisions from 2025 level the best way ahead — the Hisense QD7 and the TCL QM9. Each fashions have mini-LED technology, however they’re at both excessive of the market — the Hisense is a funds TV, and the TCL is a flagship. Each had been important for his or her enhancements to image high quality, particularly the QD7. The Hisense’s mini-LED backlight was a lower above the funds TV competitors this 12 months, and I hope it is the beginning of a brand new development. Native dimming has a constructive impact on LCD image high quality, and the flexibility to do it at an inexpensive value is best for everybody.
Mini-LED is an evolution of conventional LCD TV backlight tech, utilizing hundreds of tiny light-emitting diodes to enhance image high quality. One of many first mini-LED TVs to develop into accessible was the 2019 TCL 8-Series, and it is a know-how which has develop into extra extensively accessible with every passing 12 months.
The micro-LED backlit Hisense QD7QF is one of the best funds TV I’ve ever reviewed, and I anticipate to see extra of this tech in 2026
Enhancements in show know-how can generally appear incremental, nearly glacial, however this 12 months, mini-LED backlights helped make LCD TVs eye-weepingly vivid. This can be a good factor. As an example, in 2025, TCL modified its know-how to “Halo management,” which was designed to cut back LCD bloom, and it labored!
The brightest TV I reviewed final 12 months was the QM9K, and it took full benefit of this improve: It was vivid and able to nice distinction. You may anticipate to see this know-how rolled out to extra TVs within the firm’s vary. Rivals like Samsung and Hisense will little doubt be taking notes as effectively.
The Micro RGB backlight evolution
The Samsung R95H is a forthcoming Micro RBG tv.
The brightest TVs I noticed in 2025 had been essentially the most impractical to check in a lab setting. That is largely as a result of they had been enormous — over 100 inches diagonal — and so they included the Hisense 116UX TV and the Samsung Micro RGB TV.
The important thing to their success was a micro-RGB backlight, which is distinct from the micro-LED display type. These backlights are fabricated from crimson, inexperienced and blue micro-LEDs, and so they have two fundamental advantages: They do not want a coloration filter, whether or not quantum dot or in any other case, and so they can create brighter screens. At CES, we’ll see an entire bunch of TVs primarily based on this — led by each Samsung the LG. What we’ll see is TVs of all sizes — from 55 inches and up — and at costs which are significantly lower than a automobile.
OLED’s vivid future
Enjoying a number of rounds of Name of Obligation on 2025’s brightest OLED — the LG G5
Whereas OLED has all the time had a bonus over LED by way of distinction, that hole has decreased. Although OLED cannot enhance on its already nice black ranges, the a method the know-how has proven development is with brightness, and I anticipate this development to proceed in 2026. The LG G5 was the brightest OLED TV I examined this 12 months, as an example, and it was brighter than the LCD TVs of only some cycles in the past. It successfully did this by layering two OLED panels on high of one another in what the corporate known as “4 stack.”
I would like to see enhancements on the “extra inexpensive” finish of OLED, which hasn’t seen any true upgrades in a very long time. The $1,400 LG C5, for instance, isn’t significantly completely different from the LG C4, and the LG C4 was primarily based on the LG C3, and so forth.
If OLED is to compete with the brand new mini-LED risk, producers must make it extra enticing to a wider vary of patrons. By this, I imply OLED TVs want brighter panels throughout the board, beginning with the entry-level fashions. Whereas doubling the variety of panels is clearly pricey, there are different tweaks that OLED producers could make, together with voltage tweaks and improved filters.
Different issues to contemplate
Due to developments like Dolby Vision 2 and Samsung HDR10 Plus Superior, the TVs introduced at CES might be brighter than ever, and this brightness will truly be helpful for appropriate HDR motion pictures and gaming.
Whereas TV firms nearly by no means discuss funds fashions at CES, the cutting-edge know-how we have seen this 12 months — and in 2026 — will undoubtedly trickle all the way down to the funds finish. What does this imply? Higher image high quality for much less cash.
Tariffs on imported products and the resulting inflation have been a wild card for tech merchandise in 2025, and it stays unknown what impact this can have on subsequent 12 months’s costs. Most TVs proven at CES are unlikely to come back with a price ticket, although. Some background discussions about pricing would possibly occur in the course of the present, given the conference’s worldwide nature, however the precise costs will not be revealed till months later.
The underside line
We do not have lengthy to attend for the newest in televisual goodies. CES 2026 begins on Jan. 6, so keep tuned to search out out what’s new. I’m visiting CES in Las Vegas for the primary time shortly, and I will be extra occupied with the actual advantages to you, the reader, moderately than the attention-grabbing devices. I am hopeful about seeing higher, brighter and extra inexpensive TVs than ever earlier than.
