The new TVs vying for your living room (and wallet) in 2026
Las Vegas, Nevada: TV manufacturers promise revolutionary picture quality every year. It’s usually marketing lingo, but this year at the Consumer Electronics Show they might actually mean it.
The big story of the Las Vegas show floor was Micro RGB, a new technology that replaces the standard blue or white LED backlights found on traditional TVs with individually controlled red, green and blue LEDs.
The result is greatly improved color accuracy, with multiple manufacturers claiming 100 percent coverage of the BT.2020 color standard. This is the holy grail, and no consumer television has ever achieved it.
Samsung, LG, Hisense and TCL are making intense efforts in this area, but the approaches are different. So are the prices.
What is the difference between all these technologies?
It’s a fair question. The television industry has a naming problem, and it’s getting worse.
- OLED TVs use organic compounds that emit their own light; each pixel turns on and off independently. This provides perfect blacks and excellent contrast, but brightness has historically been limited and there is a (small) risk of burn-in from static images.
- QLED Samsung’s marketing term for LCD TVs with a quantum dot layer that enhances colors. Pixels do not emit their own light; they still depend on the backlight behind the screen.
- MiniLED this collapses the backlight into thousands of small LEDs grouped into “dimming zones”. This increases contrast by allowing some parts of the screen to be darker than others, but it’s still not pixel-by-pixel control like OLED.
- Micro RGB (this year’s buzzword) takes Mini LED even further by using separate red, green and blue LEDs in the backlight instead of white LEDs. Color comes directly from the light source rather than being filtered; This significantly increases accuracy.
Is it as clean as mud? Key takeaway: Micro RGB is the next evolution of LED-backlit TVs, promising OLED-like color accuracy with superior brightness. Whether it delivers or not will be seen in real-world tests.
Samsung: Leader in micro RGB
Samsung introduced perhaps the most ambitious TV at CES: a 130-inch Micro RGB prototype that dominates the exhibition space like a living room cinema screen. The company explained that this is a technology demonstration rather than a retail product, but it serves a purpose, showing what Micro RGB can achieve at scale.
“Micro RGB represents the pinnacle of our innovation in image quality, and the new 130-inch model takes that vision even further,” Hun Lee, Samsung’s vice president of visual display, said at the company’s CES briefing. “We are reviving the spirit of our original design philosophy that we introduced more than a decade ago to deliver an unmistakably premium display.”
What will hit shelves is Samsung’s expanded Micro RGB range, ranging from 55 to 115 inches. The 115-inch model (R95H) is currently available in Australia from Harvey Norman and Samsung’s online store for $41,999.
That’s some serious money, but it’s also a truly new category of display, and it’s still considerably cheaper than Samsung’s Micro LED “The Wall” technology, which starts at $110,000.
The key selling point is color accuracy. Samsung’s Micro RGB TVs cover 100 percent of the BT.2020 color standard approved by the German testing organization VDE. This isn’t marketing nonsense, it’s an industry first for consumer televisions and means these screens can display the full color gamut that HDR content specializes in.
Asked if the technology could trigger a “super cycle” of TV upgrades, Lee noted the opportune timing: “Three, four years ago, COVID-19 hit us, and there was huge demand for TVs at the time. And now, three, four years later, we’re at the cycle where consumers are considering upgrading.”
This year’s major sporting events, including the FIFA World Cup, will be perfect timing for many.
Samsung’s larger Micro RGB series in more accessible sizes like 55, 65 and 75 inches will be released by 2026. Australian pricing for these models has not been confirmed, but the expanded range shows that Samsung is serious about making the technology more accessible and not just targeting the ultra-premium market.
“Large screens are no longer the exception; they are the expectation,” said Simon Howe, Samsung Australia’s audiovisual director. “Micro RGB brings unparalleled color accuracy, glare-free display and added brightness, ideal for Australian living spaces.”
LG: The TV that disappeared
Perhaps the most visually striking TV at CES wasn’t the biggest: it was the thinnest.
LG’s OLED evo W6 Wallpaper TV is just nine millimeters thick. This is approximately the width of a ballpoint pen. In person, it looks almost two-dimensional, like a poster taped to the wall instead of a television.
The trick: LG moved nearly all of the TV’s internal components into a separate “Zero Link” box that sits up to 10 feet away and streams both video and audio to the screen wirelessly. No wires, no visible hardware, just a paper-thin OLED panel leaning against your wall.
LG has confirmed that 73- and 83-inch sizes will be available in Australia in mid-to-late 2026. Pricing hasn’t been announced yet, but considering LG’s previous slim designs have had a price tag of over $5,000, expect room to empty wallets.
The W6 supports 165Hz refresh rates (a first for wireless TVs), Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync for games, and includes LG’s new Alpha 11 AI Processor Gen 3 with Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot integration.
LG has also joined Samsung in the RGB arms race by launching its own Micro RGB evo series in 75, 86 and 100 inch sizes. The company claims 100 percent coverage of BT.2020, DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB color spaces. Australian pricing and availability are yet to be confirmed.
Hisense: Making RGB accessible
While Samsung and LG target the premium segment, Hisense is playing a different game. Already a major player in Australian living rooms, the Chinese manufacturer has announced plans to bring RGB MiniLED technology to 55-inch displays via its new UR8 and UR9 series.
These TVs use the same dual-chip architecture as Hisense’s flagship models but at more accessible price points. The UR series supports refresh rates up to 180Hz for gaming and includes anti-glare matte displays for Australia’s bright living rooms.
Hisense’s ANZ product leader Christopher Mayer was optimistic about 2026.
“We are really proud to be the first company in the world to launch RGB Mini LED and bring it to consumers last year,” he said. “When competitors follow us, it shows that the direction we are following is correct.”
More interesting is Hisense’s 116UXS flagship, which adds a fourth “Sky Blue-Cyan” LED to the standard RGB mix and claims 110 percent BT.2020 coverage; This would be an industry first if the figures hold up in independent tests.
At the high end, Hisense also showed off a 163-inch MicroLED display (confusingly different from Micro RGB) with the addition of yellow LEDs for better warm tones. It’s the kind of TV that will make you wonder which living room it was designed for. Australian pricing and availability for Hisense’s 2026 series will be announced in the coming months.
TCL: Brightness outlier
TCL has taken a completely different approach and skipped Micro RGB in its flagship X11L, opting for what it calls “SQD-Mini LED” (Super Quantum Dot).
The headline numbers are staggering: up to 10,000 nits of peak brightness and 20,000 local dimming zones. For context, most high-end OLED TVs max out at around 1500 nits. TCL essentially hits the theoretical ceiling for HDR content.
The X11L also claims to have 100 percent BT.2020 color coverage and comes with a built-in Bang & Olufsen soundbar. Available in 75, 85 and 98-inch sizes, US prices start at US$7,000 ($10,400) for the smallest model.
Australian pricing has yet to be confirmed, but TCL has historically made its flagship models available at local retailers. We expect announcements in the coming months.
In conclusion
What’s notable about this year’s CES is that major manufacturers are finally starting to compete on something important. After years of touting 8K resolution (which no one needs yet) and curved screens (which no one wants), they’ve hit color accuracy; this is a real improvement that audiences can actually perceive.
Whether this translates into mass-market upgrades or remains a niche premium game will depend on how quickly prices drop. History shows: faster than you think.
David Swan went to Las Vegas with the support of Samsung, LG, Hisense and Lego.
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David Swan is the technology editor of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously technology editor of The Australian newspaper.Connect with: excitement or email.
