For years, TV manufacturers have fallen into two camps. You have the brands that champion OLED, including LG, Panasonic, Philips and Sony, and the companies that sing the praises of Mini LED, which are primarily TCL and Hisense.
There are even defectors; Samsung famously opened its doors to OLED after years of backing Mini LED as the superior panel technology. This is some serious Game Of Thrones-style storytelling...
Well, it's actually a lot more nuanced than that, as almost all of the brands mentioned above (aside from TCL) feature a mix of both OLED TVs and Mini LED TVs in their respective lineups, as they all recognise that consumers want different things depending on their viewing environments and, most importantly, that each panel technology has its own pros and cons.
Historically, we've found that OLED is the better of the two, and while we've tested our fair share of five-star Mini LED TVs, we're drawn to the likes of LG's C-series, Panasonic's Z95-range, and Sony's excellent Bravia 8 and Bravia 8 II duo when we're musing over candidates for the best TVs list.
This is, of course, due to the superior contrast afforded by the self-emissive panel technology and pixel-level dimming control, which allows for perfect blacks and unbeatable contrast.
Mini LED has made serious progress in these fields, but some limitations mean that it will likely never top OLED in these specific fields. The tradeoff is, of course, that Mini LED can reach much higher peak brightness figures, making it better for bright room viewing.
There is, of course, one major and persistent issue that's tied to OLED: the price. There are no two ways about it, OLEDs are much more expensive when compared to Mini LED TVs, especially now that TCL, Hisense and Samsung are offering 4K Mini LED sets with price tags in the triple, rather than quadruple, digits.
OLED panel tech has been expensive, and it continues to be expensive, which can put prospective TV buyers off. Understandably so, as not everyone has the luxury to splash thousands of pounds on a TV regardless of how potent its picture performance is.
And while cheap OLEDs are starting to crop up, we haven't been enamoured by the cheapest model we've tested; that being the Toshiba 55XF9F. While that TV proved to be a bit of a swing and miss, we certainly admire Toshiba's effort, and we really did love that £799 starting price.
So, what is the answer? LG Display has a solution that sounded mighty tempting when I visited its booth at CES 2026, where it was paving the way for cheaper OLED TVs in the future.
It's calling this OLED SE, or "Special Edition OLED", which sits below the OLED EX (which is featured in the likes of the LG C5 and Panasonic Z90B) and OLED META (otherwise known as Primary RGB Tandem OLED on the LG G5 and Panasonic Z95B), serving as an entry point into the world of OLED TVs.
LG Display had reference panels at 83-inch sizes for each panel technology at its CES stand, with the OLED EX and OLED META panels reportedly being able to reach 4000 nits and 4500 nits, respectively, and a maximum refresh rate of 165Hz VRR.
OLED SE, on the other hand, has claimed a peak luminance of 1000 nits; that's a lot lower than the two mentioned above, and the refresh rate tops out at 120Hz too. These specifications may look like a major downgrade on paper; however, they theoretically surpass the capabilities of the currently available "entry-level" OLED TVs.
The LG B5, which is the company's cheapest OLED, reportedly has a peak brightness capability of around 600-700 nits.
Therefore, this new budget-oriented OLED panel could improve brightness on these cheaper OLEDs, and LG Display even mentioned that it expects LG Electronics to feature this panel technology in future iterations of the B-series.
Most interestingly, LG Display claims that it intends for OLED SE-touting TVs to be considerably cheaper, and that they could even rival Mini LED TVs in terms of pricing.
The LG B5 mentioned above launched at £2499 / $2699 / AU$3299 for the 65-inch model, which is still a considerable asking price for what is being billed as an entry-level model.
LG Display says that it has managed to reach a lower price point by deducting the polariser, which will likely result in greater reflectivity and impact contrast. While that is unquestionably a drawback, we do have to expect performance sacrifices in return for cheaper price tags.
Hypothetically, the introduction of cheaper OLED SE panels could see this barrier to entry become lower in the future, and we could even see further step-down models akin to LG's now-defunct A-series OLEDs.
While that is a promising sign, we do need to remember that expensive Mini LED TVs exist. Flagship sets such as the Samsung QN90F are priced at near-OLED levels already; however, the hope here is that OLED SE could widen this gap in the future in order to combat some of the step-down Mini LED models.
We've had our fingers crossed tightly for cheaper OLED TVs for what feels like an eternity, and LG Display could have just laid the foundation for them to become a reality.
Only time will tell if TV manufacturers will adopt this affordable OLED tech and pass the savings on to consumers. To me, it appears to be a win-win situation; cheaper, brighter and more capable panels designed for entry-level OLED TVs just make sense, but maybe I'm an AV optimist...
MORE:
Read our LG C6 hands-on review
And our full Toshiba XF9F review
And check out our picks for the best cheap TVs
