Paweł Koper
The situation at CES 2026 took an unexpected turn that could be termed a "civil war" within the Korean giant. As noted in his latest piece by Vincent Teoh from the HDTVTest channel, a rare phenomenon occurred: the division responsible for panel production (LG Display) openly attacked the technological solutions used by the division dealing with the sale of finished televisions (LG Electronics).
LG vs LG? What's it all about?
The main point of contention has become the new series of LCD TVs from LG Electronics, based on Micro RGB Evo technology. While LG Electronics promotes Micro RGB as its new flagship standard for LED screens, LG Display has been running a campaign for several weeks explaining why this technology class is inferior to OLED panels. The panel manufacturer argues that Micro RGB, despite its name, remains a transmissive technology (requiring backlighting), which brings inevitable problems with light control at the level of individual pixels.
The Micro RGB technology is actually an evolution of the Mini LED system. Instead of standard white LEDs, modules with separate red, green, and blue diodes are placed behind the LCD panel. In theory, this should provide purer colours and record brightness; however, LG Display does not have a good word to say about this solution. In their view, only OLED, with its self-emissive pixels, can provide perfect black and eliminate the “halo” effect around bright objects. By the way, they recorded a series of videos about it on their Youtube channel:
Two Faces of LG
For the uninitiated, it’s worth explaining that LG Display and LG Electronics are in practice two "different" companies that, despite sharing the same logo, have completely different business goals. LG Display aims to sell OLED panels, which it considers its most advanced and uncompromising product. On the other hand, LG Electronics must respond to the actual market demand. There remains a huge group of customers who are concerned about the risk of burn-in or simply looking for gigantic screens, for example, in the size of 100 inches. In such cases, LCD technology is still significantly cheaper to produce and more accessible to the mass market.
The introduction of the Micro RGB standard allows LG Electronics to effectively compete with rivals like Samsung, Sony, and Hisense in the Ultra-Premium segment. Even if the sister company publicly highlights the flaws of this solution, for LG Electronics it is an essential tool for maintaining its position in the market of traditional LCD displays. This is a classic example of a conflict of interest under one roof: one division asks for trust in the LEDs, while the other insists that only self-emissive pixels make sense.
Powerful computing power in service of Micro RGB
New models, such as the flagship MRGB95, demonstrate that LG Electronics does not intend to compromise on quality. These televisions will be equipped with the most powerful Alpha 11 AI Gen 3 processor, which has previously been reserved exclusively for the top OLED models. The use of such an advanced chipset is necessary because precise control of thousands of independent RGB LEDs in the backlighting system requires immense computing power to minimise image errors.
We were on the ground in Las Vegas and saw this technological "glitch" with our own eyes. While LG Display's arguments about the technical superiority of OLED are hard to refute, the brightness and colour saturation offered by the new Micro RGB from LG Electronics make a colossal impression in a trade show setting. You can already check out our material from the LG booth at CES 2026.
SOURCES: own study, HDTV Test
