Mini-LED and Micro-LED are quite different. The former builds on LCD technology using smaller diodes for the backlights. The latter is an evolution of OLED, using even smaller and brighter individual red, green, and blue LEDs to directly emit color light. In other words, each pixel produces its own light with Micro-LED, while Mini-LED still uses an LCD matrix to filter the backlight, but the backlight offers more control than a traditional LCD.
This makes Mini-LED much more practical to produce compared to Micro-LED, and they should be more affordable as a result. Placing lots of tiny OLEDs on a display works for large TVs, such as Samsung’s colossal 110-inch The Wall, but it has proven very difficult in smaller, high pixel density displays for laptops and smartphones. The Mini variant is less likely to suffer from these production difficulties as it’s not as bound by pixel density. It should therefore be better suited to small form factors.
Micro-LED still has the edge when it comes to contrast ratio and deepest blacks, but it comes at a much higher price point. What’s important is that the gap between LCD and OLED narrows with Mini-LED.
