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W hen they are screening blockbusters, huge TVs are cinematic portals to another world. When they’re off, huge TVs are hideous black mirrors. Samsung has always understood this home decor landmine and aimed to defuse it in 2017 with The Frame, the first-ever “art TV”: a television disguised as a framed painting.
As a female tech editor who spent years appraising the banal designs of 1990s tech, I can palpably remember how thrilled I was to see this innovative melding of form and function, which seemed like a novel luxury at the time. Fast-forward nearly a decade, and Samsung’s pricey niche concept has gone decisively mainstream, with competition from LG, Hisense, TCL and even Amazon. But Samsung hasn’t been sitting still: The Frame Pro boasts cordless architecture, a matte screen and customizable magnetic bezels.
I first reviewed The Frame in 2021, and felt it was time to see how far the original art TV has come. Samsung loaned me a 65-in The Frame Pro along with an antique gold bezel from Deco TV Frames , and I set out to review it with a design-forward eye and the heart of a tech enthusiast. Here’s why it’s still one of my favorite lifestyle products and why it is well worth its premium price tag.
Samsung Frame Pro Samsung Frame Pro from $1,698 Why is The Frame unique? I live in an apartment, which means I don’t have the luxury of a separate living room, dining room and family room. Our main room is all of those things in one.
With a family of men who watch a whole lot of sports, the television gets its own shrine on the wall, right in the center. Given the current trend of huge TVs, it makes perfect sense that anyone even remotely interested in decor would beeline for a device that does double duty. Unlike some of its recent lower-cost competitors, Samsung isn’t just offering a pretty face, it’s also promising cutting-edge technology.
Samsung’s proprietary Neo QLED Mini LED tech uses an array of tiny backlights – each of which dims individually for both better contrast and a brighter picture in sunny rooms. I certainly found both improved from my 2021 frame, but the matte coating is no doubt contributing to the improvement in sunlight as well – more on that below. A soccer game playing on a Samsung The Frame Pro TV Though 4K video is abundant now, if your video diet includes YouTube, DVDs or just older content shot in HD, you’ll appreciate the upscaling of Samsung’s third-gen Neo Quantum 4 AI chip.
It helps fill in missing detail, rather than, simply stretching the picture to make it fit, and it’s the same chip you would find in the much more expensive S95F OLED . Samsung S95F OLED from $2,377 No, this probably is not for home theater snobs looking for top-tier picture specs – they are going for the OLED – but for my general viewing, Verizon cable channels and streaming video, the mini LEDs offer excellent contrast with deep blacks and bright whites. YouTube’s 4K nature channels showed off precisely rendered colors and stunning detail.
Quite literally layered on top, Samsung adds one of my favorite features: an anti-reflective, matte coating. And hallelujah! Even though my TV sits against the wall in a living room with two east facing windows and two south facing windows on the 13th floor, the 2026 version makes the screen look even more like a real painting than a pane of glass – even in full daytime glare.
Lastly, an upgraded Wireless One Connect Box cuts every cord to the TV except power by acting as a hub for all your cables and connections. I simply connected it to the TV with the included power adapter, then connected my Verizon Fios box, Bose Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar and Bose Bass Module to it. Of course, I still had to hide that single power cord, but that’s a lot better than wrestling with a tangle of HDMI cords and power cables.
While it’s convenient, it’s not flawless: I constantly have to manually change the setting from TV audio to my Bose speakers , which got annoying. Lest we blame Bose, I had the same complication on my older Frame, which was connected to a Samsung soundbar . As much as the new Frame’s OS is a definite upgrade from its last iteration, Samsung still has some work to do.
Curated art, meet customized frame Photograph: Tobey Grumet Segal/The Guardian When you’re not watching TV or movies on The Frame, it can display a rotating selection of artwork from the Samsung Art Store. For $50 per year (or $5 per month), you’ll have access to thousands of works from museums and galleries around the world. You can also opt for a free version, which cycles through 30 different artworks a month, and about 70 complimentary images available to stream.
All this curation comes from a human, not an algorithm. Click on the art store and you’ll be transported down an aesthetic rabbit hole organized and precisely managed by Daria Greene, Samsung’s head of content and curation. “It’s about decision-making, the way you put your Spotify on in the subway, and decide what song you’re in the mood for,” she said.
“What inspires you in the morning might change by the evening.” The goal is to build kinship with art while simultaneously changing the relationship you have with that black hole on the wall. For me, this journey is well worth the subscription fee. Sometimes, my kids will find me sitting in front of the TV, clicking through different artworks like they belong in my own personal gallery.
You can sort by artist, genre, color, or browse new curated collections every month. Samsung’s 80 partners give you access to everything from the MoMa and The Tate to Disney and Vogue. Sometimes I get sucked in and change my art two to three times a day, and I encourage my kids to find their own picks as well.
My only nitpick here? You can’t search the art store specifically. Yes, I can usually find something close to what I’m looking for, but I do wish they had a way to easily satiate individual cravings.
Then, of course, there is the piece de resistance: magnetic bezels that transform The Frame from a plain old TV to a piece of art. Samsung offers just one type of frame in four colors: dark brown, teak, white and a sandy gold. I have always wondered why its offerings are so sparse, considering it’s such a big part of The Frame experience.
The ornate gold frame on my sample comes from the much larger selection at Art Deco Frames , an aftermarket seller unaffiliated with Samsung. Though it can get pricey, I love how it elevates the TV when it’s in art mode. skip past newsletter promotion after newsletter promotion Does The Frame have competition? Samsung may have been first to the art TV trend, but other competitors are finally emerging.
Chinese manufacturer Hisense has had its own version on the market since 2024, and you’ll pay about half the price for its 65-in 2026 Canvas Series TV . Though it uses mini-LED technology, comes with a slim teak magnetic frame and some free art and images right out of the box, its selection of curated art is minimal. Hisense Canvas Series TV from $998 The more interesting challenger is LG’s new Gallery TV, which sports a matching Gallery+ subscription with more than 4,500 works to choose from.
Though I haven’t had a chance to test it, its specs are generous, also offering a matte screen, removable bezels and a mini-LED backlight. LG Gallery TV from $899 Amazon’s new Ember Artline series runs cheaper: about $900 for a 55in TV. Though the art store is free, it only offers about 2,000 pieces and does not come with as many well-known works.
I do like that the basic magnetic frame comes in 10 different colors and is included with these TVs, while Samsung still charges $200 to $300 extra. Amazon Ember Artline 55in TV $625 If The Frame fits, hang it Photograph: Tobey Grumet Segal/The Guardian As larger TVs consume more and more of our walls, it makes perfect sense that art TVs are having a moment. No, The Frame is not cheap, but it’s a simple way to add value to the otherwise dull black box hanging in most of our living spaces.
The Frame’s serious art collection has given me and my family hours of joy – even more than watching the new season of Ted Lasso with my son before I pack him up for college. I look forward daily to finding the right painting, photograph, picture or drawing that satisfies my current mood, and it’s opened up my curiosity to genres I generally never gravitated to, like portrait photography. There’s nothing like having a guest walk into my living room and compliment my art, then seeing their face when I tell them it’s my TV.
Other pieces you might enjoy from the Filter , the Guardian’s guide to buying fewer, better things: The best affordable soundbars The best wireless earbuds and best open earbuds The eight best Bluetooth speakers Explore the Filter
Source: The Guardian
