LED backlit monitors -- greater brightness range?

[Reachable]

I've never laid eyes on a LED backlit LCD monitor, so I have a couple of questions:

With a CCFL backlit monitor you can only dim the backlight so much, so that even at "0" setting it can be too bright, so you then have to use the display adapter brightness etc. controls, to varying degrees of satisfaction. With an LED monitor can you dim to total darkness, or at least closer than with the CCFL?

My other question is: Is the quality of the light any different? Better? Worse? The same?

TIA

[andymcca]

These are just my understandings. Please correct me if I'm wrong anywhere!

IIRC, there are two types of LED back lit displays: the more expensive LED matrix, and the less expensive LED border-type back lighting. CCFL back lighting is also border type. (Not sure what the industry term for border back lighting is)

Border back lighting for LED and CCFL is probably similar. Many of these do adaptive brightness adjusting which helps make dark scenes darker, but sadly it does not help the contrast (ie a half-white half-black screen will still look awful).

LED matrix, I believe, is set up to dim the back light for specific portions of the screen so one area can be dark and another area can be bright. This can look way prettier, but requires a thicker display and is more expensive.

Does this all sound accurate to those more knowledgeable?

Edit: I did a little reading, and apparently there are two types of matrix, too. There is an "RGB matrix" which does local dimming, and a "full array" matrix which does not. Not sure if these terms are universal, though, so it might be hard to determine what you are buying.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED-backlit_LCD_television

[CA_Steve]

LED backlit LCD monitors (as opposed to the various grades of TVs) tend to stick with edge-lighting. Cheaper ones use blue LEDs with yellow coating to make "white" light. Graphics professional grade monitors use RGB triads to create white light. If you turn the both the brightness and contrast down to zero, the screen will go dark (at least it does for me).

[Reachable]

Thanks for two informative posts.

Also, MikeC's article on the Samsung LN55C650 TV was very pertinent. Talk about timing!

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Samsung_LN55C650_HDTV

[danimal]

if picture quality matters, you want plasma over any kind of lcd, at least for consumer-grade use.

[Tetreb]

The expensive RGB LED displays have a wider color gamut, so their light is "better". You should know the consequences of using a wide gamut display though!
The cheaper ones can be worse than CCFL, and CCFLs can produce wide gamut light too.