Investing in a new smart TV can feel like a big decision.
With so many options and different price tags, you may end up wondering just how long your new TV can last.
Luckily, many smart TVs have a long lifespan and can give you years of high-quality use.
Smart TVs can last the better part of a decade when properly cared for. The type of display that you choose will impact the lifespan of your TV and how many hours you use your TV each day.
In the rest of this article, I’ll explain what components of your smart TV are prone to wearing out.
I’ll also discuss what you can do to ensure your smart TV will have a long life.
A Smart TV Can Last for Up to 10 Years
Most of the smart TVs available on the market today use some type of LED technology.
You might be looking at a traditional LED model or a newer, more innovative QLED model.
Whatever version of LED technology you’ll be using, backlights will be used to render the image to you in your home.
The backlights of your smart TV will only run for so long before they start to falter.
Luckily, with moderate usage, you could easily go a decade before using up all the potential backlight life your smart TV has to offer.
According to Tech Penny, LED backlights on a normal LED TV used at full intensity can last for about 40,000 to 60,000 hours.
If your TV were on every hour of the day at full intensity, you would still get somewhere between 4 to 7 years of life out of your backlight.
Likely your TV isn’t running all the time, meaning several years is the minimum life expectancy for your rear lights.
This lifespan differs from the backlight and pixel technologies used in QLED and OLED technology.
Let’s explore the differences between these styles of smart TV technology shortly.
To prolong the lifespan of the backlights even more in your smart TV, consider turning down the intensity of the backlight.
You can easily enjoy high-quality images without the backlight being turned all the way up.
Try turning it down to around 80 percent to help the backlights live a longer and less intense life.
Lifespan Comparison: LED, QLED, and OLED
The type of smart TV that your purchase will impact how long it lasts.
Nowadays, some of the most popular styles of smart TVs you’ll likely come across are LED, QLED and OLED.
Let’s take a look at the differences between these leading technologies.
LED
All of these TVs use LED technology as their foundation.
The original LED TVs were an innovation with the beautiful images they could bring into your home.
LED technology uses backlights to create these images.
However, as technology advanced, TV manufacturers began to address some drawbacks of the original LED TVs.
These original LED displays struggled to really show true blacks or intensely dark colors.
New technologies emerged that innovated on the existing LED technology.
For more information on the foundational LED technology, check out this YouTube video:
QLED
This brings us to QLED and OLED TVs.
The Q in QLED stands for quantum.
QLED panels are generally made by Samsung and can be described as Quantum Dot LED technology.
In this kind of smart TV, you have a layer of quantum dots on top of the original LED backlight technology.
This quantum design works to fix some of the slight image display drawbacks of LED TVs.
QLED TVs can render blacks darker than regular LED TVs and make the images seem even more alive.
As the technology improved with the making of this TV, QLED TV manufacturers are confident that the backlights will last longer in a QLED when compared to an original LED TV.
Samsung offers a 10-year warranty on their QLED TVs.
They feel confident that even with 10 years of heavy usage, these TVs should retain their brightness and full display power. With moderate usage, these TVs should last even longer than the life of the warranty.
OLED
OLED is mainly manufactured by LG and represents a separate innovation in smart TV technology.
With this kind of TV, individual pixels light themselves.
The LED backlight technology that we saw in LED TVs and QLED TVs is no longer in play.
Each pixel is a self-contained unit that can light up and turn off as needed.
This design has a few advantages and disadvantages when it comes to usage and lifespan.
You can experience blacks and dark colors more accurately with an OLED TV than a LED TV.
However, these TVs are also subject to more burn-in with the images than LED or QLED TVs.
When it comes to exact information on lifespan, the verdict is still out on OLED TVs.
These TVs only came to the market in 2013, so the earliest releases are still being monitored for their true lifespan.
They have only become more affordable and accessible in more recent years, so there’s still a lack of information when it comes to how long your newly purchased OLED TV will last you.
According to LG, one of the major manufacturers of OLED TVs, the image should last around 30,000 hours without losing quality.
While this is less than the average of an LED or QLED TV, LG explains it this way: You could watch an OLED TV for 5 hours a day, every day, for over 5 decades before the pixels run at half of their original brightness.
OLED certainly has the potential to be a high-performing, durable smart TV option, but only time will be able to verify their longevity claims.
For more information about the difference between QLED and OLED technologies, you can check out this Youtube video:
Final Thoughts
If you’re thinking about buying a smart TV, you can feel confident that your new purchase has a long lifespan ahead of it. The type of TV you choose and how much you plan on using it will ultimately impact the life it has.
If you have more room in your budget, you may consider a QLED or OLED TV for a naturally longer lifespan than a version of the original LED TV.