Contemplating your next TV purchase, but unsure if you should wait around for the coming wave of OLED TVs we’ve all been hearing about? In this article we’ll offer up a plain-english explanation of how OLED and plasma displays work, and in the process help you understand the pros and cons of each technology.

As you probably know by now, OLED stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode. It’s true that this is just a slight variation on traditional LED, but don’t let the acronym fool you – when we’re talking about display technology, the two are vastly different things. If you’ve read our LCD vs LED comparison piece, you know that the “LED” in LED TV is really just a reference to the TV’s backlighting technology, and that these types of TV are really just LED backlit LCD displays. OLED displays are completely different. Rather than relying on an LCD filter to turn an individual subpixel on or off, OLED pixels are independently lit, so they don’t require backlighting and filters to function. Here’s a simplified cross-section of an OLED pixel:

Basically, an OLED subpixel is comprised of a thin layer of organic carbon-based compounds sandwiched between two electrodes. When electricity passes from one electrode to the other, it excites the sandwich layer of organic materials, and through a miracle of chemistry and physics, this causes the compound to emit light. Depending on which organic compound is used, it will emit either a red, green, or blue glow. This technology has been used in smartphone displays for years, but wasn’t utilized by television manufacturers until recently.

In comparison to OLEDs, plasma displays work in a slightly different fashion. Instead of using organic light-emitting materials for each pixel, images on a plasma TVs are created by ionized gas (plasma) that lights up when you run an electrical current through it. The easiest way to understand it is by thinking of each individual subpixel on the TV as a tiny neon light, or perhaps a miniature version of the florescent tubes you might be sitting under right now. The pixels that make up a plasma display are almost exactly the same technology, just on a much smaller scale.

For those of you who care to understand the science behind it all, here’s how the magic happens: An electrode applies an electrical current to a small cell filled with a noble gas mixture (usually neon and xenon). This excites the gas, ionizing it and transforming it into a plasma. This plasma emits ultraviolet light – which we can’t see – but when the UV light hits a phosphor coating that lines each cell, it causes the phosphor to glow and put out light that we can see. Depending on which particular phosphor the cell is coated with, it will create a red, green, or blue glow. Each cluster of red green and blue subpixels makes up one pixel on the screen.

Because plasma and OLED displays produce light through different means, the two technologies carry different virtues and shortcomings. To help you get a clearer idea of where they excel, where they fall short, and why; we’ve put together the following table:

In terms of performance, OLED displays are definitely the superior technology. They’re thinner, more efficient, and mind-bogglingly color accurate. The only problem is that they’re prohibitively expensive, and at this point we’re still not sure how long their pixels last before the organic materials start to degrade and lose brightness. For this reason we’d recommend holding off and waiting for the technology to mature before you bust out your wallet. In just a couple more years, it’s likely that manufacturers will work out the major kinks, but in the meantime we suggest sticking to LED and plasma displays.