Micro RGB TVs first arrived <\/a> with little fanfare and a confusing name, so you may have mistaken it for other panel tech or not even noticed. That is not likely to be the case this year, though \u2014 it\u2019s the hot new \u201cluxury\u201d display technology and is <\/a> at <\/a>. So why do we even need these new TVs and how are they different from OLED, Micro LED and Mini LED models? Here\u2019s how it works and how it compares.<\/p>\n To better understand Micro RGB, it helps to see how flat panel display technology has evolved over the last 20 years. The first LCD TVs used liquid crystals that become transparent to light when voltage is applied, letting a rear backlight shine through as a pixel. Those pixels combine to create moving or still images, with color created via an RGB filter layer placed in front.<\/p>\n The main problem is that LCD crystals let some light partially leak through, so blacks are dark grey instead of pure black. And for a backlight, early LCD TVs used a white screen lit by dim and power-hungry fluorescent lights, which caused uneven light distribution. And finally, the RGB filter color layer reduced a panel\u2019s brightness.<\/p>\n The next step up, then, was to use LED backlights instead, placed at first at the edges of the white screen and then later directly behind it (the first TV with this tech was <\/a>). That added the benefits of higher brightness, lower power consumption, improved color balance and even light distribution. It also allowed individual dimming zones that improve contrast by allowing near-pure blacks in shadow areas of an image.<\/p>\nA brief history of flat panel display tech<\/h2>\n