What is an LED television? It’s a type of LCD TV that uses LEDs (light emitting diodes) as a backlight. Backlights are what illuminate the LCD screen. Till now most LCD television sets have used a type of fluorescent bulb called a cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) for that purpose.

Technically, the LED television should probably be called the LCD LED television (or maybe the LED LCD TV) because regardless of the type of backlighting, these are still technically LCD TV’s. But they are popularly referred to as an LED televsion, so that’s the terminology we’ll use.

There are two different types of placement currently being used on LED televisions. The LED array can be placed around the outside edge of the screen, which is referred to as ‘edge lit’, or across the entire back of the television, usually called ‘backlit’. Edge lit LED televisions can be made very thin and are also usually less expensive than theirbacklit counterparts.

However, the backlit LED television allows for the display of much deeper blacks through the use of what’s called local dimming, which is turning off the LEDs in the areas that need to show black. Black rendition is one of the areas where conventional LCD televisions are considered deficient to plasma TVs. In fact, most experts state that traditional LCD TV screens can’t really depict true black, in reality defaulting to a very dark grey.

On the other hand, plasma televisions, due to the fact that every individual pixel on a plasma screen provides its own light source, have always been able to turn each pixel on or off, thereby enabling the picture to go deep black where required. So this improvement in black levels with LED-lit televisions is is a significant advantage for those sets.

The first models of the LED television have come from Samsung, Toshiba, LG and Phillips, and have been somewhat more expensive than regular LCD TVs. However, as the technology becomes more mature and available on more models from more manufacturers, you can expect to see prices come down substantially.