There are many white whales the TV world has tried to conquer over the years. With some, it’s managed to win the battle and bring those concepts to the mainstream market. Others have slowly but surely disappeared.
MicroLED finds itself somewhere in the middle of those two realities. Brands like to show it off as a concept of what the future of TVs in the home could look like. But often it’s a concept piece, as it was when Samsung showed off another MicroLED screen at CES 2026.
But could it move from concept to actual reality? I was invited to Harrods to see Hisense’s 136-inch MX MicroLED TV, and there’s now reason to believe it could exist beyond the show floors of consumer electronics events. But if it does, it’s also unlikely to make its way to your living room any time soon.
The long wait for MicroLED
Launched many, many, many years ago, MicroLED was championed by both Samsung and LG as the technology leading the charge for people’s homes, bringing the TV industry’s obsession with colour and brightness to higher heights.
But instead of gathering pace, its momentum slowed. The technological promise seemed to smash into a cost and effectiveness barrier. Year after year, there were murmurings that MicroLED TVs could arrive sooner than you’d expect, but without any real timescale.
Samsung’s The Wall threatened to become an actual TV, but every time Samsung made an announcement, it was conveyed in vague, nebulous terms. If memory serves, there was a mention of a 75-inch MicroLED being a possibility. Clearly, that never came to fruition.
Others have taken their MicroLED tech and pushed it towards B2B, with massive, modular screens for advertising and the like. But the promise of MicroLED seemed to have faded as TV manufacturers realised the promise of Mini LED as another avenue.
But Hisense is one of the few that’s persisted. The 136MXQTUK I saw is the first MicroLED TV I’ve come across outside of tech events or a company’s HQ. There, in the Harrods in Knightsbridge, you can head up a series of escalators, walk past the many weird and expensive kit that decks the floors and you’ll find one of the biggest TVs on the planet.
In that sense, MicroLED has leapt from tech demo and wish fulfilment to something you can see and touch.
But who is MicroLED for?
But of course, MicroLED TVs come at a price, and it’s the cost that’s been the prohibitive factor to making it a mainstream proposition.
Hisense has made it its mission in recent years to become a leader in the market, whether it’s with Mini LED, RGB Mini LED or large screen sizes.
A good ten years ago when the Chinese brand first entered the UK market, they were a value-led proposition, a TV for those that didn’t want to spend too much. Over the years they’ve evolved, broadened their range and upped their quality. They’re still not up to the standard of a Samsung, a Sony or an LG, but they’re making steps to reach that level.
And now they find themselves in Harrods, alongside the likes of Samsung, Sony and LG.
But who exactly is a MicroLED TV for? Now that it’s a thing, someone has to buy that thing, and the cash required is significant. We’re very far from Hisense being a value-led brand.
At £120,000, the 136MXQTUK is for the few, not the many. A modular TV where Hisense’s installers come to your (lavish) home, or boat, penthouse – you get my point – and install it as you wait. With the frame going up first, filled by the modular pieces that make up the screen, it’s a process that apparently takes up to four hours to complete.
This isn’t a TV likely to come down in price – there will not be any Black Friday discounts – nor do I think there’s going to be smaller sizes. The stage is set, and it’s a very large one, at an expense that makes it for the millionaire crew.
The scale of the screen is impressive in the flesh, and I have to commend Hisense’s persistence for making this a reality where others have stumbled – but in all honestly, I left Harrods in a mood unchanged from how I felt about MicroLED TVs at CES.
The picture quality wasn’t the best I’ve seen, and you could see the lines that marked each module, which is a distraction unless you’re watching from far away. You don’t want to see the seams, especially if you’re paying £120,000.
Perhaps it was the slightly dim setting of the venue, or the picture mode the TV was in (which seemed to be in Standard or Vivid), or the AI processing likely to have been used for a TV of this size, but it didn’t look as clear or as bright as I was expecting.
I expected to be wowed by the colours, depth and brightness, but I felt underwhelmed. It didn’t compare to what I’ve seen from Samsung and LG. There’s something about the colours that’s off to my eyes.
If I had won the Euro Millions, would I spend £120,000 on this TV? My answer would be that I’m not sure, which in itself is probably a ‘no’. Would I spend that amount on a Samsung MicroLED? Having seen it, I think it’d be more of a yes.
I can be a “bah, humbug” type of person, but there’s a whiff of 8K TV about MicroLED TV – a format where there’s just not enough enthusiasm about it, and where I think the excitement for it has naturally passed.
Hisense sees a clear and open path with MicroLED, one in which it believes it can make hay in, and good on them for taking the plunge. But I think the relative lack of interest from other TV brands is a sign that, while the future of TVs is bright and colourful, it’s no longer a MicroLED future.
