Here is a enlarged picture of edge lit LED, with the LEDs along the top and bottom of the TV. In a real TV the LEDs would be much smaller and embedded in the frame of the TV along the edges.

Here is the result of a TV with edge lit LED along the top and bottom compared to a different display such as a OLED, Mini LED, or Full array local dimming.  You can see the blooming around the moon with the edge lit LED.  Whereas the other display types have a sharp contrast to the brightness of the moon and the darkness of the sky. 

Here is the result of a TV with a full array LED with local dimming.  All Full array LED TVs have the LED backlight directly behind the screen pointing towards you. They also add more zones of LEDs. Since each zone can be individually controlled this allows for more precise dimming with less blooming. 

While I can't speak for other manufacturers, Sony full array LED provides 100's of LED with many zones of dimming. 

QLED

So we are now aware of LED, the base color of the LED, and the placement.  But as we have different manufacturers so do we have different twists on technology and LEDs. Samsung uses QLED and Neo QLED for some of their TV's.  In 2022 they have also added QD-OLED, we will get to that later. Samsung uses a blue LED backlight and not white to achieve a better blue color, they then add Quantum dots over the LEDs.

Quantum dots are a film of microscopic semi-conductor particles that very efficiently converts the light from the LED backlight into very specific colors. These Quantum dots replace the color filter in a traditional LCD display. Depending on the model, some QLED TVs may use edge lit or full array LED backlights.

Neo QLED

Neo QLED is Samsung using the same Quantum dot technology but making the LEDs smaller in size. Or using Mini LEDs. Other manufacturers refer to this as Mini LED. Samsung again uses a blue LED backlight and not white to achieve a better blue color, they then add Quantum dots over the LEDs just like their QLED sets.

By using smaller LEDs this allows for more LEDs and smaller zones to control local dimming. This results in less blooming or color overlap, and more precise bright & dark scenes.  This allows smaller areas of the screen to be controlled for brightness, color and contrast.  Neo QLED TVs use a full array LED backlight. 

Mini LED

Mini LED is what other manufacturers use as the same term as Neo QLED. Sony and other manufacturers again use their own process and amounts of Mini LEDs to improve and compete with other display types. By using smaller LEDs this allows for more LEDs and smaller zones to control local dimming.  In Sony TVs Mini LED goes from hundreds to thousands of LEDs with many more zones of dimming than a full array panel.

This results in less blooming or color overlap, and more precise bright & dark scenes. This allows smaller areas of the screen to be controlled for brightness, color and contrast.  Mini LEDs use a full array backlight. You can see the picture to the left for a reference of LED sizes.

W-OLED

OLED stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode. This replaces the LED backlight and produces it's own light.  The W-OLED panel from LG produces a almost pure white light, by blending blue and yellow OLED material.  Why not use true red, green, and blue OLED material?  Simply put, cost, Sony makes a professional 55" 4K RGB-OLED panel for only around $28,000.  HA.

So since we have a white light we need a color filter of red green and blue.  But color filters reduce brightness.  And low brightness levels have been a knock on OLED. However even this display type has improved on brightness.  

QD-OLED

QD-OLED takes us back to Samsungs Quantum Dot technology used with OLED. Instead of using an almost pure white light, by blending blue and yellow OLED material, Samsung uses a blue OLED material as the base color.  Then they use their red and green quantum dot technology to give us the three primary colors, intead of using a white base color.

The blue is not changed, and red and green are added with the Quantum dot layer. Since we are not using a color filter, we do not lose the brightness that a W-OLED panel would. As you can see in the picture to the left, less panel material is better. 

MLA or META OLED

MLA or Meta OLED takes us back to LG OLED technology.  This technology addresses a problem some of us were not even aware of.  The lose of light as it traveled through the layers and color filter of the LG OLED panel.  This light could have been lost as heat, or bouncing among the layers and not making it out of the screen. 

LG corrects this by adding a micro layer of lenses to catch the light that would be lost and redirect it out of the screen.  Inspired by dragonflies eyes this is a layer of convex lenses, in which LG claims they can fit just over 5,000 of these over a single pixel of OLED.  Essentially adding milions and billions of these depending on TV size. 

Check out the video below from LG describing this MLA, META OLED technology in more detail.  Wow, is the voice over crazy weird.  But if you can get past that, it shows a decent explanation of how this MLA OLED works.